Nancy Pelosi says 'federal research' invented the iPhone, not Steve Jobs
Apple can't get much respect from the government lately.
Months after the company fought a tense legal battle with the FBI over iPhone security, the Democratic leader in the U.S. House of Representatives is questioning how much credit Apple should get for creating the iPhone. In comments this week, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said "federal research" -- not Steve Jobs or Apple -- invented the iPhone.
Pelosi made the comments during a hearing on Thursday to help draft the Democratic Party platform, a multi-day event to prepare for the Democratic National Convention in July. While talking about the need for more public-private partnerships to help foster innovation, she held up what appears to be an iPhone 6S Plus (or 6 Plus) and said:
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Anybody here have a smartphone? In this smartphone, almost everything came from federal investments and research. GPS, created by the military, flatscreens, LLD [sic], digital camera, wireless data compression, research into metal alloys for strength and lightweight, voice recognition -- the list goes on and on…. They say Steve Jobs did a good idea designing it and putting it together. Federal research invented it.
What Pelosi seems to be saying was that federal funding and research played a key role in many of the underlying technologies within the iPhone, which is true. As just one example, the U.S. military developed GPS technology, which powers much of the location-based data that's fundamental to smartphones today. She also appears to mistakenly call LCD (liquid-crystal display) technology "LLD."
However, her claim that Jobs and Apple merely designed and assembled the technologies, and that the federal research programs deserve credit for inventing the device, is already being compared to President Obama's "You didn't build that" speech in 2012.
Drew Hamill, deputy chief of staff for Pelosi, sent the following statement: "The late Steve Jobs and the team at Apple that made the iPhone would be the first to tell you that they didn't invent many of its core technologies we now take for granted. Leader Pelosi counted Steve Jobs as [a] friend and meant no disrespect to his legacy, but the point she was making is a valid one. Leader Pelosi believes that Steve Jobs and his colleagues at Apple deserve enormous credit for taking federally backed innovations off the shelf, refining them, commercializing them and turning them into a beautiful device that changed the world."
Representatives for Apple did not reply to a request for comment.
Homepage image by Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/AP Images
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Topics Apple
Pete Pachal was Mashable’s Tech Editor and had been at the company from 2011 to 2019. He covered the technology industry, from self-driving cars to self-destructing smartphones.Pete has covered consumer technology in print and online for more than a decade. Originally from Edmonton, Canada, Pete first uploaded himself into technology journalism at Sound & Vision magazine in 1999. Pete also served as Technology Editor at Syfy, creating the channel's technology site, DVICE (now Blastr), out of some rusty HTML code and a decompiled coat hanger. He then moved on to PCMag, where he served as the site's News Director.Pete has been featured on Fox News, the Today Show, Bloomberg, CNN, CNBC and CBC.Pete holds degrees in journalism from the University of King's College in Halifax and engineering from the University of Alberta in Edmonton. His favorite Doctor Who monsters are the Cybermen.
