Steve Jobs on Google: "Bullshit"

If you're the sort who believes anonymous sources peddling scurrilous gossip (and who isn't?), Wired's got a tasty bit of oh-no-he-didn't for you. According to blogger John Abell, Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs, fresh off of his iPad announcement, held an informal back-and-forth with employees and cut loose on both Adobe and Google (GOOG), one of the company's emerging rivals. Take it away, John!

On Google: We did not enter the search business, Jobs said. They entered the phone business. Make no mistake they want to kill the iPhone. We won’t let them, he says. Someone else asks something on a different topic, but there’s no getting Jobs off this rant. I want to go back to that other question first and say one more thing, he says. This don't be evil mantra: 'It's bullshit.' Audience roars.

A few hours later, Abell walked that quote back a bit, quoting another anonymous disher who claims that Jobs merely said it was "a load of crap." Potato, potahto—the tech press still got ahold of it and went into a tizzy.

For example, CrunchGear writer Dave Freeman giggled, "Ahh Steve. You can always be depended on to serve up a healthy dose of crazy. It’s just fortunate that people put up with your own special brand of crazy that no other CEO could put up with."

Vallegwag's Foster Kramer thought it was a refreshing bit of honesty in a tech world too enamored of its own virtue. "Because any companies in the business of technology telling people they're out to make the World a Better Place are basically full of it, which obviously includes Apple," he writes. Clumsily.

Search Engine Land blogger Greg Sterling had the best take, writing that this incident reveals that the growing rift between Google and Apple "has largely replaced Google vs. Microsoft as the dominant tech narrative." In fact, he argues, this lends credence to the theory that the federal government didn't force Eric Schmidt off Apple's board of directors. Rather, Jobs asked Schmidt to step down, as the two companies moved to compete directly.

Sterling follows up with this bit of screw-you-right-back from Google honcho Eric Schmidt. When asked his thoughts about the iPad, Schmidt reportedly said, "You might want to tell me the difference between a large phone and a tablet." The less generous among us might be inclined to think there's no love left to be lost between Google and Apple.