Brad Stone at the New York Times Bits Blog has an interesting article up in which he talks to Andy Rubin, vice president of engineering at Google and co-founder of Android. While the article is mainly about Android, there’s a part toward the end that is humorous when Stone jokes with him that his press relations colleague wanted to confess that he had left a prototype Android phone at a local bar.
"I’d be happy if that happened and someone wrote about it," Rubin is quoted as saying. "With openness comes less secrets."
Considering all the hubbub about the iPhone/Gizmodo incident (which even led to the police seizing Gizmodo editor Jason Chen’s computers from his home while he was not even there), Rubin’s response is a well-placed jab.
In fact, that’s not the only jab at Apple Rubin took in the interview. Stone writes, that he even "seemed to compared [sic] Apple to North Korea." On the general public caring about mobile software being open or a walled garden like Apple’s, Rubin is quoted, "When they can’t have something, people do care. Look at the way politics work. I just don’t want to live in North Korea."
There’s no question that Google and Apple are becoming much fiercer rivals. It’s always fun to look at the jabs each takes at the other. Apple CEO Steve Jobs recently painted Android as all but the red light district of mobile operating systems.