Apple claims that it’s NOT developing its own search engine (but I’m skeptical)
Apple has asked to participate in Google’s upcoming U.S. antitrust trial over online search, reports Reuters.
The tech giant says it can’t rely on Google to defend revenue-sharing agreements that send the iPhone maker billions of dollars each year for making Google the default search engine on its Safari browser, the article adds.
Reuters also notes that Apple doesn’t plan to build its own search engine to compete with Alphabet’s Google, whether or not the payments continue, the company’s lawyers said in court papers filed in Washington on Monday. Apple received an estimated US$20 billion from its agreement with Google in 2022 alone.
The Sellers Research Group (that’s me) is skeptical that Apple isn’t at least investigating plans to make its own search engine. There have been reports for years that Apple is working on “Apple Search.”
In June 2022AR evangelist Robert Scoble tweeted that Apple is working on its own search engine. He told TechRadar that this information is based partly on conversations with sources and partly on deduction.
And that wasn’t the first time rumors of an Apple-made search engine have made the rounds. In a 2018 Macworld article, Jason Cross said the tech giant should do just that.
“The company’s stance on privacy is at odds with the way the biggest search engines operate,” Jason wrote. “Maybe there’s a better way.”
Read the complete article for his conclusions, but I think “Apple Search” is a great idea — though I’m sure that Apple doesn’t want to give up the billions of dollars Google pays the company to be the default search engine on its various devices. But I think “Apple Search” could be a backup contingency plan.
In fact, in 2016, Apple posted a listing to its Jobs at Apple page describing an engineering project manager position for “Apple Search.” And in a 2013 Seeking Alpha article Kevin Fulton said he thought an Apple search engine would be the company’s “next big thing.” He said that Apple has been bolstering its technology portfolio in preparation for the day when it becomes independent from Google.
Fulton said that, rather than competing directly with Google’s broad search capabilities, he thinks Apple will personalize its search offering.
“The search engine will use machine learning and restrict the information only to relevant sources that the user trusts,” he adds. “It will be location and circle of influence based. Apple will implement its personalized search ability across the iOS ecosystem by integrating the improved Siri into apps and having loadable native commands to run those apps by voice.”
What’s more, in May 2015, Apple confirmed the existence of its Applebot web crawler (which isn’t to be confused with either Ultron or Spider-man). A Web crawler is an Internet bot that browses the Web in a methodical, automated manner, typically for the purpose of Web indexing. Apple says that Applebot is used by Siri, its voice activated digital assistant, Spotlight suggestions, and its Safari search engine.
(BTW, the AppleBot cartoon accompanying this article is courtesy of Technewstoday.com.)
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