Google CEO Larry Page caused quite a stir recently, saying that Steve Jobs' anger over Android was "actually for show", i.e. it was simply to make Apple employees "rally around" against a known rival, Google. However, Walter Isaacson, the author of "Steve Jobs," the authorized biography of the iconic visionary, insists that Jobs' fury was not fake at all.

"I think the Android differences were actually for show," stated Page, in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek. "I think that served their interests. For a lot of companies, it's useful for them to feel like they have an obvious competitor and to rally around that. I personally believe that it's better to shoot higher. You don't want to be looking at your competitors. You want to be looking at what's possible and how to make the world better."

Jobs Meant What He Said

However, Jobs' biographer assures people that nothing was "for show" in Steve Jobs' anger towards Android/Google. Speaking at the Royal Institute in London on Wednesday, April 5, Isaacson explained that Jobs means exactly what he said, as cited in his biography. All Things D was kind enough to offer a spot-on quote attributed to Steve Jobs in the best-seller biography: "Our lawsuit is saying, 'Google, you f**king ripped off the iPhone, wholesale ripped us off.' Grand theft. 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 to thermonuclear war on this. They are scared to death, because they know they are guilty. Outside of Search, Google's products - Android, Google Docs - are s**t."

Jobs' fury and determination seems to have fueled Apple's costly and persistent patent battles with Android handset makers, on several continents. Elaborating on the reasoning of this great anger, Isaacson linked it to the first stab at Apple in the 1980s, when Microsoft used the Macintosh innovative graphical UI for its own Windows OS.

'Tim Cook Will Settle the Lawsuit'

"Steve was furious when he saw Microsoft stealing the Mac OS interface and licensing it to every PC maker who paid for it. So when Google licensed its Android mobile operating system so promiscuously to junkie handset makers he was determined to act," explained the biographer, as cited by PC Advisor. "Steve said to Google 'You can't pay me off. I'm here to destroy you.' But Tim Cook will settle that lawsuit. He's a lot less emotional about business than Steve," added Isaacson.

Apple is involved in several lawsuits with Google and other makers of mobile devices that use the Android operating system. In the most recent ruling in one U.S. case, a federal judge dismissed arguments by Motorola and ruled in favor of Apple's patent claims for touchscreen technology.

(reported by Alexandra Burlacu, edited by Surojit Chatterjee)