The Small Wave.

We had been working on Android a very long time, with the notion of producing phones that are Internet enabled and have good browsers and all that, because that did not exist in the market place," Page reportedly said. "I think that characterization of us entering after is not really reasonable.

I believe Larry Page is trying to shake two notions at once: that somehow Google entering the smartphone arena had nothing to do with Apple, apparently it was just a coincidence; and that Android phones aren't somehow a copy of the iPhone. So he claims they'd been working on Android "a very long time" and that Steve Jobs is rewriting history.

Unfortunately for Larry, the history of the iPhone and Google's involvement with Android do not support his representations.

iPhone

When Steve Jobs announced the iPhone at Macworld in January, 2007, he said he'd been waiting 2.5 years for that day. This means we know the iPhone was in process circa July, 2004. We also know from Jobs' statement at the D8 conference this year that Apple had actually started on the touch-screen tablet first, and then set it aside to do a mobile device. From this we know the iPhone was a touch-enabled, revolutionary device from it's very inception (again, mid-2004). 

There were other signs of Apple moving into mobile through various rumors of tying iTunes into a mobile phone with a hardware partner (which turned out to be true via their agreement with Motorola to use iTunes on the ROKR phone). 

Obviously, Apple's mobile entry wasn't news to Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO and an Apple board member at the time. While Schmidt probably had no specific details of either device (Apple is very secretive; I doubt the board gets those kinds of details that early), he would certainly know that Apple was getting into mobile. Schmidt was elected to Apple's board in 2006, but other indications existed that Apple was flirting with mobile, and this article is not dependent on Google having specific iPhone details. Indeed, it assumes Google did not have specific details.

Android

Meanwhile, Google bought Android in August, 2005, over a year after their CEO discovered Apple moved into the mobile space. Larry Page would have us believe this is a coincidence, but no reasonable individual would buy into that. 

Google having no particular ideas of their own, the phone they set about building was clearly a Blackberry copy (below). Trackball. Hardware keyboard in the "lower 40". A few icons at the bottom of the screen. It's pretty much the spitting image of a Blackberry (except it's white, copying a design cue from Apple's iPods).

The prototype is from February, 2008, eight months after the original iPhone became available. By this time, doubters since the Macworld iPhone announcement are being proven wrong. The iPhone has received great reviews and is beginning to catch on. The touch screen works, a "full" web browser on a mobile device works, and people are loving it. There are still plenty of doubters and bashers, but even at this relatively early stage there are many who can tell it's the future of mobile. Google's prototype is a joke by comparison.

Sometime during 2008, Google very clearly changed mobile strategies, dumping the Blackberry copy and proceeding to work on an iPhone copy. 

The Real History

Let's sum up:

• Google was aware Apple was entering the mobile space (Not definitely, though industry rumors gave this indication.)
• Google purchased Android a year after Apple began their mobile development
• Google initially (and unoriginally) targeted a Blackberry copy (in iPod white)
• Google sometime in 2008 (again, unoriginally) changed their target to an iPhone copy

Larry Page's statement is a misrepresentation of what went down in Google's mobile development. From entering mobile in the first place after industry talk indicated Apple had, to using a white design in their prototype, to copying the iPhone once it proved to be the future, and even to later adding a "market place" of apps after Apple opened the App Store, Google's every move in mobile—except the business model—is a copy of Apple's. 

I couldn't care less Google entered mobile. It's where all the action is and they feed off people on the web. Without a shot at the mobile market they may have ceded those ads to somebody else. Further, I couldn't care less they dropped the Blackberry copy and targeted the iPhone, since it's much superior (sorry, RIM fans). But it's funny to see, like Microsoft, Google fighting off the obvious fact that they follow in Apple's footsteps and hope people have short memories or won't look it up. You're following the leader, quit denying it and try to actually make something better.