Google CEO Larry Page has discussed the relationship between the search engine giant and Apple, as well as how he personally got along with the late Steve Jobs.
Speaking to Fortune in an interview, Page said that he and the Apple co-founder were friendly "at times." In Walter Isaacson's biography of Jobs, he said he was willing to go "thermonuclear war" over what he believed was Google's theft of Apple's ideas for Android.
Page responded earlier this year by saying the comments were made by Jobs to rally his troops, which he further elaborated on with Fortune:
"I don't like to rally my company in that way because I think that if you're looking at somebody else, you're looking at what they do now, and that's not how again you stay two or three steps ahead."
While the iPhone maker is Google's main competitor, Page stressed that the two technology titans are in talks with each other fairly often. "We have a big search relationship with Apple and so on, and we talk to them and so on."
Former Google CEO and current executive chairman Eric Schmidt recently said he's baffled by how Apple sues Android partners instead of directly suing the search firm directly.