According to Walter Isaacson's book titled `Steve Jobs' - a biography which is scheduled for release on Monday -, an enraged Jobs had, in January last year, lashed out at the Google Android operating system , which he swore he would "destroy."

Isaacson mentions in his book that Jobs was infuriated when the first Android handset was unveiled by the Taiwanese company HTC in early 2010 because the handset boasted most of the well-liked features of the Apple iPhone.

Jobs felt that the HTC's Android phone marked an outright replication of Apple's ideas, and, in his outburst, he said that Google's actions could clearly be termed as a "grand theft."

With Google also managing to negotiate a deal for equipping the Android handsets with search, maps and its YouTube video service, Jobs told Google's then CEO - and now chairman - Eric Schmidt during their meeting in a cafe in Palo Alto, California, to stop using Apple's ideas in the Android OS.

Isaacson has revealed that so livid was Jobs about the copying of Apple's ideas in Android smartphones that he had told him that he would, till his "last dying breath," go all out to "right this wrong"; even if it amounted to spending the entire $40million amount which Apple then had in the bank.

Going by Isaacson's account in the book, Jobs had said: "I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this."