Is it just us or is Steve Jobs starting to act a little bit senile? He makes these big speeches and throws out company names not even thinking about the fact that those companies are actually listening to what he says.
Yesterday, Jobs made headlines all around the world, as he always does, when he viciously attacked his biggest mobile rival Google. He said Google’s Android operating system was confusing, disingenuous, and unfair to consumers.
In his tirade, Jobs called out a few companies, including app developer TweetDeck. Jobs said TweetDeck “had to contend with more than a hundred different versions of Android,” saying the developer faced “a daunting challenge.”
Well, it turns out Jobs may not have even talked to TweetDeck at all. And since the developer is doing pretty well on Android, it wasn’t too happy about Jobs’ random blanket statement.
In a post on his Twitter page, TweetDeck CEO Iain Dodsworth wrote, “Did we at any point say it was a nightmare developing n Android? Errr nope, no we didn’t. It wasn’t.”
Is this the plan for Jobs in the future? He’ll just say stuff to generate headlines even if it has no base in fact?
This smells of earlier this year when Jobs addressed the design malfunction of the iPhone 4. Jobs claimed other phones had the exact same problem, calling them out by name. That didn’t sit well with the manufacturers that were grossly insulted, as they each released statements completely dismissing Jobs’ comments.
Jobs knows that anything he says becomes instant gold, but does that mean he should just say whatever the heck he wants?
