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Steve Jobs didn’t invent the iPhone, but he did a good job designing it, said Nancy Pelosi, the Minority leader of the US House of Representatives.

According to a Mashable report, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi said the technology for the smartphone – including GPS, digital camera etc – all came from federal research, and Apple just put it together to make iPhone. Pelosi made the comment during the Democratic National Convention Platform Hearing.

The report notes Pelosi waved an iPhone around and said, “Anybody here have a smartphone? In this smartphone, almost everything came from federal investments and research.”

“GPS, created by the military, flat screens, LLD, 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,” she is quoted as saying. She mistakenly referred LCD to LLD.

Pelosi’s does have one valid point. Most technological revolutions we’ve come to depend on, first started as some US government project or were funded by a federal agency; with Internet being one of the best examples. But to say Apple or Steve Jobs had nothing to do with the iPhone, and merely ‘designed’ it, is also a bit harsh.

Interestingly Pelosi appears to have relied on an Infographic by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to make her point, but got the organisation’s name wrong in her speech.

She called “Association for the Advancement of Science in America” reports, CNET, though her office clarified the same the Congresswoman had indeed got it wrong.