D8 conference sees the CEO downplaying talk of a platform war going on between Apple and Google

Jun 2, 2010 07:42 GMT  ·  By
Steve Jobs interviewed at the All Things D conference on Tuesday, June 1st, 2010
   Steve Jobs interviewed at the All Things D conference on Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

Speaking at the All Things D conference held on Tuesday, June 1, Steve Jobs justified, yet again, his company's opposition to Adobe Flash on the iPhone OS. The iconic CEO also discussed the prototype, fourth-generation iPhone leaked to tech-site Gizmodo, the increasing competition between Apple and Google, and various other matters concerning Apple’s business.

Interviewed by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher of The Wall Street Journal, Jobs was asked to comment on Apple surpassing Microsoft as the world’s most valuable tech-company. The Apple co-founder said, "It doesn't matter very much. It's not what's important. It's not what makes you come to work in the morning. It is a little surreal."

Moving on to the burning subject that was Flash, Mossberg asked, "Is it really fair or the best thing for consumers to just be abrupt?" Jobs answered, "Apple is a company that doesn't have the resources that everyone else has. We choose what tech horses to ride, we look for tech that has a future and is headed up. Different pieces of tech go in cycles; they have summer and then they go to the grave. If you choose wisely, you save yourself an enormous amount of work." Jobs pointed out that Apple was the one that decided to terminate the floppy drive (after inventing it), and then to pick up USB.

"We were one of the first to get rid of optical drives, with the MacBook Air," Jobs added. "And when we do this, sometimes people call us crazy. Sometimes you have to pick the right horses. Flash looks like it had its day but it's waning, and HTML5 looks like it's coming up."

On the topic of Foxconn worker suicides, Apple’s CEO downplayed talk of the Chinese electronics manufacturer being a sweatshop, adding that, "It's a factory, but my gosh, they have restaurants and movie theaters, but it's a factory. But they've had some suicides and attempted suicides, and they have 400,000 people there. The rate is under what the US rate is, but it's still troubling." "We are on top of this. We look at everything at these companies. I can tell you a few things that we know. And we are all over this," Jobs told the interviewers yesterday. He also noted that the suicides, which numbered 15 at the last count, were still below the national average in the U.S.

Finally, Jobs said of the Apple-Google war that there was no such thing. He vehemently stated that Apple wasn’t going into the search business, but did admit to the growing competition between the two giant companies, mainly because of their new products. Asked if he thought there was a platform war going on, Jobs answered, "No, we don’t see ourselves in a platform war. We never saw ourselves in a platform war with Microsoft, either…Maybe that’s why we lost. But we never thought of ourselves in a platform war; we just wanted to make good products." Speaking of Google, Jobs said, "Well, they’re competing with us," referring to the mobile space.