Jobs biographer: Steve vowed to 'destroy' Android, branding Google's OS a 'stolen product'

As Adobe and Flurry will readily confirm, former Apple CEO Steve Jobs very rarely kept his opinions to himself if he felt a company had overstepped the mark.

According to one of the first biographies published since his death, however, his personal views on rival Google - and, in particular, Android - weren't fit for broadcast, with Jobs branding the OS as a "stolen product".

In Walter Isaacson's forthcoming biography Steve Jobs, the late Apple co-founder articulates his views on Android in no uncertain terms in January 2010.

Following the launch of an unnamed HTC device, Jobs reportedly believed the handset sported features lifted from Apple's iPhone. Isaacson claims Jobs told him Android was guilty of "grand theft" in an 'expletive-laced' encounter.

"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," Jobs is quoted as saying in the book.

"I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this."

As it happens, two months later, Apple sued HTC, with Jobs detailing his anger in a more diplomatic fashion in a press statement.

"We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We've decided to do something about it," Jobs said in the release.

"We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours."

Isaacson also claims Jobs told then-CEO of Google Eric Scdmidt in a later meeting that Apple wasn't interested in settling the lawsuit.

"I don't want your money," Jobs told Schmidt, who had previously served on Apple's board.

"If you offer me $5 billion, I won't want it. I've got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, that's all I want."