According to the Cringely Pulpit – a weekly column on the website of public-service broadcaster PBS — Google is in bed with Apple while both companies are keeping a close eye on each other’s every move.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt says, “Google’s architectural model around broadband and services and so forth plays very well to the powerful devices and services Apple is doing. We’re a perfect back end to the problems that they’re trying to solve. And they have very good judgment on user interface and people. They don’t have this supercomputer I’m talking about, which is the data centers.”

Cringely comments, “Google handles the back end and Apple the front end. Google runs the macrocomputer while Apple supplies the microcomputer.”

But is it as simple as that? “Apple isn’t going to be satisfied making clever little interfaces to a world of information provided — and owned — by Google. … [Steve Jobs, Apple CEO] can rent a supercomputer anytime he wants one, so there.”

Moreover, “Google needs Apple on that team for its financial power, its sense of the market, and to keep Steve Jobs in a known position so he doesn’t make any trouble. But I’m also sure Steve is questioning the strategy on a daily basis and twice a month threatening to pull out of the consortium of bidders Google has assembled.”

A dance of the toreadors perhaps?