Steve Jobs vowed revenge on Eric Schmidt over Android

Monday will bring one (of likely many) biographies on Steve Jobs. This one by Walter Isaacson includes the story of the falling out between Steve Jobs and Eric Schmidt. The story has been leaked to the New York Times and Associated Press (likely to stir up free advertising for said book,) and it's a pretty interesting one.

Of course, Eric Schmidt was on the board at Apple from 2006 to 2009, while also acting as CEO of Google. The two companies eventually started competing with each other through iOS and Android, so Schmidt left Apple's board. When Steve Jobs saw Google release Android, he apparently felt it was a great betrayal, and told Isaacson that he felt Android was a "stolen product." Jobs was especially angered with a January 2010 Android device by HTC, which Jobs felt had many of the features of iOS including multitouch.

Apple has since sued HTC and other Android manufacturers multiple times. Jobs told Isaacson:

“ I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this. ”