Google chairman Eric Schmidt said in an interview on Thursday that his company’s relationship with Apple has been improving over the past year, and that executives of the two companies have been holding “lots and lots” of talks to discuss a number of issues.
Speaking with Reuters at this year’s Sun Valley retreat in Idaho, Schmidt let loose that Google and Apple have been participating in meetings over the past year, suggesting the two companies are working to resolve their differences.
Apple and Google are in “constant business discussions on a long list of issues,” Schmidt said.
While not going into details of the “issues”, Schmidt did reveal that Google’s chief business officer Nikesh Arora led many of the meetings.
Once partners, Google’s Maps and YouTube were once default apps on Apple’s iOS devices, and Schmidt was once on Apple’s board of directors, the two began a frenemies type of relationship after Google’s release of the Android mobile operating system. Schmidt was once quoted as saying the battle between the two companies is the “defining fight of the industry today.”
