I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong," Jobs reportedly said. "I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this."

Though Apple has yet to take head-to-head legal action against Google, the company has thus far seen some success in its intellectual property fight against Android vendors. In July, the International Trade Commission issued an initial ruling that HTC had violated two of Apple's inventions. The iPhone maker has also won injunctions against Samsung's Android-based Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet in Germany and Australia.

The book also recounts a subsequent meeting between Jobs and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt at a café in Palo Alto, Calif. At the meeting, Jobslong-time rival Bill Gates found him "weirdly flawed as a human being," saying that he was fascinated by his tendency to be "either in the mode of saying you were shit or trying to seduce you."

For his part, Jobs viewed Gates as "basically unimaginative," noting that he "has never invented anythingHe just shamelessly ripped off other people's ideas."

The publication also recounted Jobs' first meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama. According to the book, Jobs told the president that he was "headed for a one-term presidency." Nevertheless, the two kept in touch, with Jobs even offering to help create Obama's ads for the 2012 campaign. The report noted, however, that Jobs had said Obama's focus on the reasons that things can't get done "infuriates" him.

Isaacson, who is due to