By Liana B. Baker
SUN VALLEY, Idaho, July 11 (Reuters) – The relationship
between Google Inc and Apple Inc has improved
over the past year with the rival technology companies and
sometimes partners conducting “lots and lots” of meetings,
Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said.
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.
Schmidt once sat on Apple’s board of directors, but the
relationship between the two companies has frayed as competition
has increased. Apple created the smartphone market with its
iconic iPhone, but Google’s Android mobile software is now
featured on three of every four smartphones sold globally.
Apple has sought to lessen its reliance on Google’s online
services, most famously in 2012 when it dumped Google’s Maps
product in favor of its own mapping software. Apple’s maps
service however proved to be ridden with errors, and Google
ended up updating its map application for the latest version of
Apple’s iPhone.
The world’s No.1 Internet search company, Google has moved
to extend its reach into new markets in recent years, acquiring
mobile phone maker Motorola Mobility, offering high-speed
Internet service in a few U.S. cities and developing wearable
computers and technology for self-driving cars.
Schmidt said that Google’s self-driving automobile
technology was years, rather than decades away from commercial
availability but that “the exact way in which it all plays out
is not obvious to me.”
“The technology has to be right. The regulation has to be
right. The partnerships have to be right,” he said, noting that
Google has talked to “every single car company.”
