"I'll talk to the Apple people. At the moment, there's no change," Schmidt said in a briefing with reporters at a technology conference in Sun Valley, Idaho on Thursday.

Google, the company best known for its popular Internet search engine, earlier this week to launch an open source operating system called Chrome, the same name it uses for its own . Based around a Linux kernel, applications written for Chrome can be developed using standard Web programming languages.

It's yet another divergence for Google, which in 2008 began offering a mobile operating system called Android, a competitor for the iPhone that first debuted as the . Schmidt already recuses himself from board meetings where iPhone OS is discussed in order to avoid any conflict of interest.

Schmidt's involvement with Apple has already drawn (FTC), according to a report published in May by the . Antitrust law bars executives from serving on the boards of rival companies if it reduces competition between the firms.

Schmidt said during Google's annual shareholder meeting earlier this year that he has no plans to step down from Apple's board. He has sat on Apple's board of directors since 2006.