I am not trying to start an argument, but you are aware that Google was working on Android for quite some time right?

I own an iPhone (3GS) and I work with both Android and iPhones, but the programming experience is completely different; it is very difficult to see it as anything more than a convergent evolution. No doubt the emphasis on touch came from the iPhone, but beyond that, I don't really see the similarities.

This Judas mythology that has sprung up around the Google / Apple relationship doesn't fit the facts as I've see them thus far. It doesn't make sense to put oneself into Steve Jobs' shoes when Steve Jobs was wrong / emotional (unless we want to understand why he was wrong). And he was wrong, unless you believe a cackling Google CTO returned to his office one day and refocused the company on putting out the Android OS to fight with iOS.

Consumer beliefs have very little basis in reality. If you asked me when I was 5 years old, I would have said Transformers copied Go-bots, eventhough Go-Bots had been released as a toyline and an animated series well before Transformers. I was wrong - and I'd be a fool to get mad over that years later when the facts were clear.

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The comment was deleted, but as the original poster mentioned the importance of context, I have reproduced his or her comment below. I don't have any malice towards the poster in question, I think it is a prevailing attitude and one I wish to challenge (or be appropriately chastised for my own mistaken perceptions)

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I see a lot of folks say, "Jobs is a hypocrite, Apple has stolen lots of stuff." This continues to be edifying only on a superficial level. Context continues to matter.

You may believe that software patents are bad. You may even believe that patents are bad. But please don't pretend that some people's use of innovative ideas aren't more important and more credit worthy than others. The public doesn't believe this and you probably don't either, if you think carefully about it.

The world is a chaotic, ambiguous place, but that hasn't prevented us from judging whether entities in specified circumstances have stolen ideas from others. For example, I understand that Carlos Mencia is derided in the comedy community for being a joke thief.

No one believes that you shouldn't be able to stand on the shoulders of giants. For example, the claim that Jobs is hypocritical because OS X is based on BSD is a non-starter. BSD was used with permission, legally and morally.

Put yourself in Jobs' shoes. You spend every waking moment to bring something wonderful and new to the world. You pour your sweat and love and passion into it. You trust people. And one of the people you trust starts competing against you directly AND copying your work down to a pretty fine detail. This wouldn't bother you? We're not talking about Robin Hood here. We're not talking about a charity or not for profit corporation with a transparent open source project. We're talking about another company taking your ideas to make money for themselves.

If you ask a normal person on the street who copied whom in the smartphone business, they'll say Android copied iPhone. And they'll be right. And that's why Jobs was mad.