Comments refute rumors of Bing takeover on iOS

Apple has reportedly extended its search agreement with Google, the search giant's CEO, Eric Schmidt, told BusinessWeek in an interview. The executive downplayed suggestions of animosity from Steve Jobs, following Schmidt's departure last year from Apple's board of directors as Google continued its push into the mobile arena.

"We do a search deal with [Apple], recently extended, and we're doing all sorts of things in maps and things like that," Schmidt said. "So the sum of all this is that two large corporations, both of which are important, both of which I care a lot about, will [remain] pretty close."

The executive's comments appear to refute earlier rumors claiming that Apple was working to replace the default search engine on iOS devices. Alleged attitudes between Google and Apple were credited with driving the latter company to consider Bing as the default search service on the iPhone. Rather than replace Google with Bing, Microsoft's search engine is now offered as an option alongside Google and Yahoo. [via Business Insider]

by MacNN Staff