Eric Schmidt: Apple and Google Handle Disputes the 'Adult Way'

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt tells the WSJ that Apple and Google handle disputes between the companies 'the adult way'.

When questioned by the publication about his company's relationship with Apple, Schmidt replied:

It's always been on and off. Obviously, we would have preferred them to use our maps. They threw YouTube off the home screen [of iPhones and iPads]. I'm not quite sure why they did that. The press would like to write the sort of teenage model of competition, which is, 'I have a gun, you have a gun, who shoots first?'

The adult way to run a business is to run it more like a country. They have disputes, yet they've actually been able to have huge trade with each other. They're not sending bombs at each other. I think both Tim [Cook, Apple's CEO] and Larry [Page, Google's CEO], the sort of successors to Steve [Jobs] and me if you will, have an understanding of this state model. When they and their teams meet, they have just a long list of things to talk about.

Apple's decision to move to its own mapping application was strongly criticized as having been executed too quickly and before their replacement application was ready. Users were also upset that YouTube was removed as a default application before a replacement app was ready. Google just released a universal YouTube app yesterday to restore the functionality missing since the launch of iOS 6.

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