I keep hearing people talking about Apple finally going “thermonuclear” on Google with the forthcoming iOS 6 mobile operating system. No, it hasn’t. In fact, there are good reasons why it can’t, though Apple is certainly exercising a much more subtle and smart containment strategy.

The thermonuclear reference comes from the Steve Jobs biography written by Walter Isaacson, where Jobs was so upset about Google’s Android operating system — and the theft from Apple that he viewed it to be — that he said...