Apple War On Android 'For Show' Says Google

In an interview surrounding his current CEO post at Google, Larry Page spoke on how real the Apple war, led by Steve Jobs, really was on Android. As Page tells it, there really wasn't as much fervor as you might expect from the source of the news in the first place: the Walter Isaacson biography of Steve Jobs. Instead, Page says, the fire lit under the bottoms of Apple employees may have just been to get them pumped up about beating the competition – their only competition for iPhone at the time.

The interview in which this entire situation is unfolding is written up in Bloomberg Businessweek where the interviewer, Brad Stone, had asked Larry Page what his relationship was like with Steve Jobs. In asking what his first meeting with Jobs post-Google CEO was like, adding "i know you had your differences at the end around Android", Page replied:

"I think the Android differences were actually for show. I had a relationship with Steve. I wouldn't say I spent a lot of time with him over the years, but I saw him periodically." – Page

Pushed for more information about the "for show" comment, Page continued:

"I think that served their interests. For a lot of companies, it's useful for them to feel like they have an obvious competitor and to rally around that. I personally believe that it's better to shoot higher. You don't want to be looking at your competitors. You want to be looking at what's possible and how to make the world better." – Page

We'll see if we hear any marked replies to this potentially volatile set of comments this week. Meanwhile have a peek at a brief timeline full of Larry Page for your enjoyment: