Eric Schmidt Last Seen Attempting to Pry His Foot From His Mouth ⇥ theverge.com

Earlier today, it was reported that a Google Now app for iOS was stuck in App Store approval limbo, according to Eric Schmidt:

Asked directly when Google Now may arrive on iPhone, the chairman said “you’ll need to discuss that with Apple. Apple has a policy of approving or disapproving apps that are submitted into its store, and some of the apps we make they approve and some of them they don’t.”

However, an Apple spokesperson clarified that contrary to Schmidt’s suggestions, there are no Google apps waiting for approval:

[A] company representative tells The Verge that not a single app from Mountain View is currently in the review process — let alone trapped in limbo. That would include both new applications and updates to existing software, meaning even if Google Now is to eventually arrive as a new feature of Google’s Search app, it has yet to be received by Apple’s team of reviewers.

Eric Schmidt seems to have a policy of publicly blaming Apple for not approving apps that his company hasn’t even submitted. Last year, he hinted that the iOS Google Maps app was hanging in limbo:

“We haven’t done anything yet with Google Maps,” Schmidt told reporters in Tokyo today. Apple would “have to approve it. It’s their choice,” Schmidt said, declining to say if the Mountain View, California-based company submitted an application to Apple for sale through its App Store.

Yet this was simply not the case — Google hadn’t submitted a Maps app at all. In both cases, Schmidt was able to get some negative press for Apple with casual comments that simply don’t reflect the reality of the situation.