Apple and Google Relationship Improving, Google’s Eric Schmidt Says

During the annual Allen and Co media conference in Sun Valley, Idaho Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt admitted that the relationship between the two tech rivals has improved a lot and they are conducting “lots and lots” of meetings, with Nikesh Arora, the search giant’s Chief Business Officer, leading many of the discussions, Reuters reports.

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Schmidt did not provide details about the nature of the meetings during comments to reporters at the annual Allen and Co media conference in Sun Valley, Idaho on Thursday. He noted that Google Chief Business Officer Nikesh Arora, who joined him at the press briefing, was leading many of the discussions.

The two companies are in “constant business discussions on a long list of issues,” Schmidt said.

The two companies had been very close at the very beginning of the iPhone. Schmidt sat on Apple’s board of directors back in 2006 (resigned in 2009), and the first iPhone came with Google Maps and YouTube as default apps.

However, things have changed since then. Apple has sought to distance itself from Google: iOS 6 dropped GMaps and YouTube from the list of pre-installed apps and launched its own controversial Maps application. Steve Jobs even went as far as threatening Google with “thermonuclear war”, because he felt Android was an iOS copycat.

Schmidt’s recent statement doesn’t mean though that the two rivals have become close friends. It does show that they have come to respect each other.

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