There were board connections but primarily Apple partnered closely with Google starting with the iphone because Maps and Search were great services that Apple wanted to build right into the core of the device and really the whiz bangness of the iphone intro to me was when Steve searched for a shop, brought it up on maps, touched the number and the companies phone was ringing.

When Eric got onstage at the iphone keynote [1] and joked about Apple and Google being such great partners that they should merge, it got an honest laugh at the time but watching the same moment in retrospect is absolutely jarring.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=9h...

Here's Steve, who had some experience losing a big market to a close partner, demonstrating the betrayal he felt from Google:

We did not enter the search business, Jobs said. They entered the phone business. Make no mistake teams at Google want to kill the iPhone. We won’t let them, he says. Someone else asks something on a different topic, but there’s no getting Jobs off this rant. I want to go back to that other question first and say one more thing, he says. "Don't be evil is a load of crap"

Now Apple is in the Maps business today and is slowly entering corners of the Search business as well but imo they didn't want to be and they aren't particularly good at it and know it. But the battle lines that were drawn in 2009 made it clear they had to abandon any ideas of partnering with Google for longer than they absolutely needed to.