One question that has often been asked since competition between the two began heating up in recent years is Google’s current role on the iPhone. Google was the first company allowed on to the iPhone with a third party app, Google Maps, and Kara Swisher asked Mr. Jobs if the company’s apps might be removed (as defaults) from the iPhone.
Mr. Jobs reply was that Apple was concentrating on trying to make the best product for its customers, and that, “Right now, we have the better product” with Google. He added that the market would decide who is better going forward, which suggests that things could change in the future.
Apple’s CEO also rejected the notion that his company was in a platform war with Google when it came to iPhone and Android, saying, “No, we don’t see ourselves in a platform war. We never saw ourselves in a platform war with Microsoft, either…Maybe that’s why we lost. But we never thought of ourselves in a platform war; we just wanted to make good products.”
Be that as it may, Google is a competitor, and Mr. Jobs sees that competition as increasing, commenting, “They decided to compete with us and got more and more serious,” while adding, “We didn’t go into search.”
If that’s the case, Mr. Mossberg wandered why Apple bought Siri, a company that many have associated with search-related technologies. Mr. Jobs said, “They’re not in the search area…they’re in the AI area.” AllThingsD’s coverage said that he then vehemently iterated that, “We’re not going into search.”
When pushed by Mr. Mossberg on whether or not he felt betrayed by Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who is a personal friend of Mr. Jobs and a former Apple board member, Mr. Jobs pushed back with, “My sex life is great, how’s yours” in a successful attempt to end that line of questioning.