Google's Schmidt: Our relationship with Apple has improved
The company's executive chairman says that Apple and Google have conducted "lots and lots" of meetings.
Although Apple and Google have watched their relationship deteriorate over the last several years, the search giant's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, says things are getting better.
Speaking to Reuters in an interview published on Thursday, Schmidt said that Google's relationship with Apple has improved over the past year, and the two companies are now holding "lots and lots" of meetings related to "a long list of issues."
Schmidt, who was once an Apple board member, found himself at the epicenter of a war that broke out between Apple and Google over mobile operating systems. The late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs had said that he was willing to go to "thermonuclear war" with Google over the Android mobile operating system, which he believed was designed to capitalize on Apple's own creation, iOS.
Since Jobs' death in October 2011, Apple hasn't publicly improved relations with Google, and last year, decided to remove both YouTube and Google Maps from iOS. The move was viewed as a not-so-subtle jab at the search company. Whether Apple is having a change of heart at this point, however, is unknown.