Record-breaking sales for Apple’s fiscal fourth quarter weren’t enough to keep CEO Steve Jobs from taking shots at the competition, particularly Google. In a Monday afternoon earnings conference call, Jobs made an appearance and kept noting that his competitors just “don’t get it.”
The potshots came as the Cupertino, Calif.-based company once again posted a great quarter, breaking sales records for Macs, iPhones and iPads. The quarter had record revenues of $20.3 billion, the first time it exceeded $20 billion. This is an increase of 61 percent over the same quarter last year. Profits soared 70 percent year over year to $4.3 billion.
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‘A Smokescreen’
A key target was Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who has previously described Apple’s iPhone platform as closed. At a technology event several weeks ago, Schmidt — reportedly a friend of Jobs — said “Google’s core strategy is openness,” while others, “notably Apple,” have a core strategy of “closed-ness.”
According to news media, Jobs called Google’s description of its Android mobile operating system as open source “a smokescreen.” The main issue, he said, is that device manufacturers and carriers can impose their proprietary technologies on top of Android, as they are allowed to do. One example is HTC’s Sense interface on a Google device.
The distinction between Android being open and the iPhone iOS being closed is “a bit disingenuous,” he said, adding that it clouds “the real difference between our two approaches.” While Jobs noted that the iPhone’s sales exceeded those of Research In Motion’s BlackBerry for the most recent quarter, it’s clear he sees Android as his greatest competitor.
The Android user interfaces installed by HTC and Motorola, which Jobs cited as examples, present “proprietary user interfaces to differentiate themselves from the commodity Android experience,” he said. Users, he added, are left to figure out the interaction for…