Google chairman Eric Schmidt claims that Samsung had the iPhone 6’s technology one year ago, in a new interview for Bloomberg TV.
Sitting down with Google’s former Senior Vice President Jonathan Rosenberg to promote their new book How Google Works, Schmidt fended questions about the Android vs. iOS competition from “Market Makers” hosts Stephanie Ruhle and Erik Schatzker.
At one point in the interview, Ruhle asks Schmidt how he feels seeing people lined up around the block to pick up the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, which sold a massive 10 million+ units in their first weekend on sale.
“Even though way more people carry Android phones how does Apple have that desire factor?” Ruhle says.
“I’ll tell you what I think,” Schmidt answers. “Samsung had these products a year ago.”
When Ruhle asks why nobody’s losing their mind at the thought of a new Samsung phone, Schmidt awkwardly laughs and repeats the line, “I think Samsung had the products a year ago, that’s what I think.”
On the different business models of Apple and Google, Schmidt says that, “The fact is that you can make a small market share with a lot of profits, or you can make the same amount of money with a much larger market share and lesser profits. We go for volume in our strategies.”
Jonathan Rosenberg then points out that Android’s business model is creating more choice for users, and also helping to drive costs down for the end user.
“I would say that this brutal competition between Apple and Google, and Android and iOS, has enormous benefits for consumers worldwide,” Schmidt adds. “If you look at the innovation on the Apple side and on the Google side, that competition which I think is the defining fight of the computer industry today, benefits [customers] on the billions of people level.”
When Schatzker asks if it is as brutal as it ever was, Schmidt answers that “It’s more so,” despite the fact that Apple and Google earlier this year agreed to amicably settle their ongoing patent disputes.
Not amicably enough, it seems.
