Almost everyone knows that Android and Apple are the two biggest phone companies. What most people don’t know is the story behind how these two companies got started and eventually got in a fierce competition. In "Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution", Vogeistein uncovers the behind the scenes story of how these two corporate giants went to “war”.
Before iPhones were released, the smart phone market was dominated by companies like Blackberry. Blackberry wasn’t lacking in terms of technology, but everyone will agree that Blackberry did not have the prettiest design. Although people might have not liked the design, there was no other alternative in the market. Steve Jobs saw the opportunity in this situation. When Steve Jobs was designing the iPhone, he paid careful attention to the tiniest detail like the color of the letter “O” in the page Google. Jobs was very concerned over small details showing just how much work he put into the designing process of the new product. This also shows that people and products can have flaws, but needs something that truly stands out to be successful. It didn’t matter that iPhone crashed here and there. What mattered was that the iPhone’s design was wonderful. If Apple waited to make everything perfect about the iPhone, another company may have released a smartphone before them. We need to realize that we need to specialize in our skills to gain deep domain expertise to become successful, not shallow knowledge about every minor topic. Coming back to Apple, Jobs continued the process of designing the iPhone which was a major turning point for both Apple and Steve Jobs.
Steve Jobs along with his team of engineers started working on the iPhone. For Apple, maintaining their innovations was crucial as it would be a nightmare to have the public already know about their ideas. Steve Jobs understood this very well and emphasized secrecy to the point of being extreme. All the employees worked more than eighty hours every week and if the few hundred engineers working on this product were not allowed to say even one word to the people around them. If the employees were caught, they were at the risk of being fired. Although this may seem very harsh, you have to understand that the moment all of their technology is revealed, all of their handwork may turn into ashes. The result of the hardwork was well worth it. The iPhone was a sleek,beautiful phone that was the first phone to incorporate a touchscreen. The first phone was not perfect though. It had crashes here and there and it wasn’t the phone with best technological features. But the design and other benefits completely covered the flaws. The public loved the new product and Apple’s stocks immediately doubled. How did Google get involved with Apple?
Steve Jobs knew that he wouldn’t be able to design all the softwares needed for the program and partnered with a company to help them on this portion. The company was Google. At first, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, and Eric Schmidt started out as partners learning and helping each other. Everything was flowing smoothly until Google was preparing to launch Android. When Jobs found out that Google was preparing to launch Android, Jobs was furious. As many people know, Steve Jobs was not good at negotiating and talking with people. Jobs started lawsuits and released the story to the press. Google did not back down and they were practically in a “war”. But let’s take a step back and see what could have been done to resolve this without causing harm to both sides. Instead of starting lawsuits, Jobs could have worked something between the two companies to minimize the damage that could be done to both of the companies. They didn’t have to harm the companies’s reputation and money on all the needless law suits. On the other hand, it also shows how much work they put in to grow their company. Both of these two companies put in so much work to get to where they are right now.
Apple and Google may be the tech company that regular consumers like us use the most. Not everyone know how competitive and how much work it required to reach their positions. I would highly recommend people to read this book as it was very interesting to know the behind the scenes of the billion dollar companies. It also taught me what to keep in mind when launching a company big or small as these issues that they faced were something all of us may encounter. It also put me into perspective on how hard Jobs and founders of Google worked to get to where they were and motivated me to work harder to reach my goal.
Before iPhones were released, the smart phone market was dominated by companies like Blackberry. Blackberry wasn’t lacking in terms of technology, but everyone will agree that Blackberry did not have the prettiest design. Although people might have not liked the design, there was no other alternative in the market. Steve Jobs saw the opportunity in this situation. When Steve Jobs was designing the iPhone, he paid careful attention to the tiniest detail like the color of the letter “O” in the page Google. Jobs was very concerned over small details showing just how much work he put into the designing process of the new product. This also shows that people and products can have flaws, but needs something that truly stands out to be successful. It didn’t matter that iPhone crashed here and there. What mattered was that the iPhone’s design was wonderful. If Apple waited to make everything perfect about the iPhone, another company may have released a smartphone before them. We need to realize that we need to specialize in our skills to gain deep domain expertise to become successful, not shallow knowledge about every minor topic. Coming back to Apple, Jobs continued the process of designing the iPhone which was a major turning point for both Apple and Steve Jobs.
Steve Jobs along with his team of engineers started working on the iPhone. For Apple, maintaining their innovations was crucial as it would be a nightmare to have the public already know about their ideas. Steve Jobs understood this very well and emphasized secrecy to the point of being extreme. All the employees worked more than eighty hours every week and if the few hundred engineers working on this product were not allowed to say even one word to the people around them. If the employees were caught, they were at the risk of being fired. Although this may seem very harsh, you have to understand that the moment all of their technology is revealed, all of their handwork may turn into ashes. The result of the hardwork was well worth it. The iPhone was a sleek,beautiful phone that was the first phone to incorporate a touchscreen. The first phone was not perfect though. It had crashes here and there and it wasn’t the phone with best technological features. But the design and other benefits completely covered the flaws. The public loved the new product and Apple’s stocks immediately doubled. How did Google get involved with Apple?
Steve Jobs knew that he wouldn’t be able to design all the softwares needed for the program and partnered with a company to help them on this portion. The company was Google. At first, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, and Eric Schmidt started out as partners learning and helping each other. Everything was flowing smoothly until Google was preparing to launch Android. When Jobs found out that Google was preparing to launch Android, Jobs was furious. As many people know, Steve Jobs was not good at negotiating and talking with people. Jobs started lawsuits and released the story to the press. Google did not back down and they were practically in a “war”. But let’s take a step back and see what could have been done to resolve this without causing harm to both sides. Instead of starting lawsuits, Jobs could have worked something between the two companies to minimize the damage that could be done to both of the companies. They didn’t have to harm the companies’s reputation and money on all the needless law suits. On the other hand, it also shows how much work they put in to grow their company. Both of these two companies put in so much work to get to where they are right now.
Apple and Google may be the tech company that regular consumers like us use the most. Not everyone know how competitive and how much work it required to reach their positions. I would highly recommend people to read this book as it was very interesting to know the behind the scenes of the billion dollar companies. It also taught me what to keep in mind when launching a company big or small as these issues that they faced were something all of us may encounter. It also put me into perspective on how hard Jobs and founders of Google worked to get to where they were and motivated me to work harder to reach my goal.