Updated. There’s some talk that iCloud and iOS 5 are examples of Apple playing catch-up with the competition from Google . Apple may have introduced some tricks that seem borrowed from Android, but iCloud, and Apple’s vision of how it will use broadband, has been a long time coming, according to this video of a much-less-guarded Steve Jobs delivering the closing keynote at Apple’s 1997 WWDC.
It’s a long video (over an hour) that merits a full watch if you haven’t seen it, but turn your attention specifically to around 16:30 to hear Jobs’ remarks about the future of computing, Gigabit Ethernet, and how “carrying around these non-connected computers [will seem] Byzantine.” Google may have gotten to the cloud first, but Apple’s had that bun in the oven for quite a while now.
Also be sure to check out Jobs’ comments around 12:00, when he discusses Apple’s image of being “different:”
If we can be much better without being different, that’d be fine with me.
Doubt Jobs is batting an eye at accusations of lifting from Android.

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