Apple’s Tim Cook Didn’t Want to Sue Samsung [Reuters]

As Apple keeps reducing its reliance on Samsung as a partner, people with knowledge of the discussions between the two companies are starting to speak out on their decaying relationship.

Reuters cites one such person as saying that “Tim Cook, Jobs' successor as Apple chief executive, was opposed to suing Samsung in the first place.”

Jobs waged “thermonuclear” war on Google after learning that its Android operating system was ripping off iOS. In the same way, the Android-powered smartphones and tablets churned out by Samsung, started copying the look and feel of Apple’s gadgets, the iPhone and the iPad.

Yet Tim Cook, COO of Apple at the time, valued the company’s relationship with Samsung and was opposed to suing. To this day, Samsung continues to produce the application processors inside all of Apple’s iOS devices.

Apple reportedly bought $8 billion / €6 billion worth of parts from Samsung (including Flash memory chips) last year, according to analysts.

Jeff Williams, Apple’s current chief of operations, told Reuters last month that Samsung was still an important partner and that they had “a strong relationship on the supply side.”