Steve Jobs Rants on RIM, Android, Small Tablets

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You'll need sandpaper if you want to use a smaller tablet.

Following up on the news of the record breaking quarter with $20.34 billion in revenue, Steve Jobs hopped on the investor conference call with some VERY choice words again for basically anyone in the same business as Apple, but wasn't Apple.

First off on his hit list was Research in Motion with its entry into tablets and app stores. Job was proud that the 14.1 million iPhones outsold the 12.1 million BlackBerrys sold during the quarter.

Jobs then had disparaging words for RIM, basically saying that the Canadian BlackBerry phone maker has a uphill battle on trying to build an app store when there's already the iTunes App Store and the Android Marketplace. Jobs doesn't see there being enough room for a third.

The Apple CEO then launched in a numbers game against Google CEO Eric Schmidt about the number of smartphones activated each day. Google says it's 200,000 Androids per day, but Jobs boasts that the iPhone 4 has hit 300,000 per day at its peak.

Jobs also goes full on to putting down the openness of Android, saying that the freedom that vendors have in customizing the UI negatively affects the user experience. The open nature also allows there to be more than one app store, and with the likes of Amazon and Verizon looking to open their own shops, Jobs believes that this will lead to fragmentation of the Android market.

As for all those rumors about Apple coming out with a 7-inch iPad to fill the gap between the iPhone and the current iPad – don't count on it. Jobs had some pretty strong views against any tablet smaller than the current 9.7-inch iPad.

A 7-inch iPad would have 45 percent of the screen area of the current iPad, and Jobs feels that even an increase in resolution wouldn't be good enough because our human fingers are too fat. In fact, Jobs said that smaller tablets should come with sandpaper so that users can sand their fingers down to a quarter of the current size.

Of course, if our meaty fingers can work well with the 3.5-inch screen of the iPhone 4, and all the iPhones before it, we're not sure what the problem is with our digits interacting with a 7-inch tablet.

Still, Steve Jobs says that the upcoming batch of competing tablets that use screens smaller than 10-inches will be DOA or "dead on arrival."

We're sure that the rest of the market is just waiting to prove the Apple CEO wrong.

Check out the full transcript for Jobs' words here. You can also listen in on the beginning in the video below, but the audio is a bit on the quiet side.

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
69 Comments Comment from the forums
  • bustapr
    Jobs also goes full on to putting down the openness of Android, saying that the freedom that vendors have in customizing the UI negatively affects the user experience.

    I think everyone would agree that an open experience is better than a limited experience. And if the blackberry sold 12 million phones this quarter against the 14 milion of the iphone I think their in a really good position to make their app store a big competitor.

    Marcus Yam: Of course, if our meaty fingers can work well with the 3.5-inch screen of the iPhone 4, and all the iPhones before it, we're not sure what the problem is with our digits interacting with a 7-inch tablet.
    Couldnt have said it any better myself.
    Reply
  • thedokok
    Well, you'd have to agree on the RIM appstore being an uphill battle, but it is for a more corporate market, so it might do okay. I'd also agree on the 7" tablet thing - too big for your pocket, but not big enough to make me not want to get the laptop out instead. I do think that about a 10" screen is the sweetspot for tablets.
    The numbers, well meh! Android is doing well, the iphone 4 is doing well, it is good that there is real competition in the marketplace.

    As for open being worse for consumers, I'm not sure where I stand. Personally for a phone I want a locked down platform with a consistent UI. THe Apple appstore has enough apps and variety that the arguments about a lack of choice or a closed system being limited is hard to agree with. There is a multitude of apps for just about anything, and for $100 you can develop your own if you wish.

    On my PC I want an open OS, but on my phone I'll take a closed system as long as there is sufficient variety available and a consistency in the way they work.

    All the rest of the talk is typical e-peen stuff that CEOs say to impress the shareholders.
    Reply
  • Travis Beane
    Maybe he's right.
    I'll just buy a 13" Windows 7 tablet instead. :)
    Reply
  • micr0be
    notice how he replaced the word open with fragmented, and the word closed with integrated.

    *sigh*
    Reply
  • bk420
    This guy is nuts.
    Reply
  • crossed_xd
    Pretty sure I've had a blast with the 9" Asus tablet I bought last week... but w/e.
    Reply
  • N.Broekhuijsen
    what a douche.

    anyone else find it ironic when he mentions apple's value?? :P
    Reply
  • Parrdacc
    RIM uphill battle? Yes, I would have to agree with Jobs on that one. The 7" tablet design being to small? Well I can see his point. Some of us have big, beefy, fat fingers. Others have little skinny ones and the rest are somewhere in between. My only issue with that is I have a 7" touch screen navigation in my my car and had very little problems using it and the problems, in regards to selecting what I want, just required a little adjustment in how I go about selecting it. Like instead of trying to hit it with my finger using the buttons to select that particular item.

    As for the whole Android being open source and causing fragmentation and killing the user experiance; well I am not even going to try and explain the multiple problems with that line of reasoning. I will just let Jobs keep living in his limited, control freak world.
    Reply
  • "The open vs closed system is just a smokescreen"

    SUUUUURE...........
    Reply
  • thedokok
    Bustapr, an open experience is not automatically better than a 'limited' one, especially where the limitations aren't all that limiting.

    I find linux more limiting than windows, even though it is 'open'. When I jump on a linux machine, it may not even be running the same GUI as the linux machine next to it, which is a PITA. Linux is open, but it doesn't have the calibe of apps that I need to get my job done, there is currently no alternative to Photoshop for professional use, and it isn't available on Linux, and that goes for quite a few other tools. Gimp, Open Office etc. are okay for home or mild use, but don't cut it for people that really have to use productivity programs in a deep way to make a living. Open systems have advantages, but they also have disadvantages.
    For example, if you buy a current model android phone or tablet, you can't be sure it will run all the apps, or that they will run the way they are intended to run. Being able to download a program to your phone from anywhere also opens you up to malware and attacks much more than in a closed system. I for one don't need that worry on my phone, it is annoying enough on my PC, but there the advantages outweigh the annoyance.

    Open is open, which is great, but that doesn't automatically mean more or better choices, or a better experience for the end user.
    Reply