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Apple Drops Bing Search Engine Results for Siri and Spotlight in Favor of Google
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Not everyone has the same experience as you stated plus, comically enough a while back Bing was occasionally found copying Google results... For my use, I find it’s still in general terrible compared to Google, I used to do the Bing search reward points till last year so this is from a lot of experience. Go further into things like searching for research articles/publications and niche/speacialized videos/training videos for certain fields and I found a big gap.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wired.com/2011/02/bing-copies-google/amp
I think this is a welcome change, for me at least.
Anonymized data collection/better algorithms for a longer time is what gives it the advantage over its competitors who came later in search and AI. I’m sure Bing is slowly improving with the same methods but will take a while to get to Google’s level since they started later.
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Instead of relying on third party websites, just read Apple's own Security document:
https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf
For search results, they say:
"In some cases, Suggestions may forward queries for common words and phrases to a qualified partner, including Microsoft’s Bing search engine, in order to receive and display the partner’s search results.
"The partners aren’t allowed to store queries, and they don’t receive any search feedback. Apple proxies the queries so that partners also don’t receive user IP addresses. Communication with the partner is encrypted via HTTPS.
"For queries that occur frequently, Apple provides city-level location, device type, and client language as search context to the partner to improve search performance."
Of course, as your link pointed out, once you actually click on a search result, you're back in the identifiable game.
Edit: hmm. Need to go back and read that section closer. One trick Apple uses a lot is to combine some situations together, and then immediately afterwards talk about only one, in order to make the reader think they're still talking about the same combination.
I.e. that section is only talking about Suggestions as we type, not actual searches when we click the Search button.
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A bit disappointing.. I guess it's good that Apple proxies requests, however 6 months ago I decided to stop using all Google services (with the exception of some YouTube views). I do not like my data being mined, sold, and used to push ads to me. I don't like how Google is run, as a company.. I have a few friends that work there, and "think different" isn't part of their DNA. Their constant application of "progressive" views, needing to conform, and having a different perspective is shunned and ridiculed.
Only someone in complete denial would post that an app being used many billions of times a week was "meaningless." Unless you think the hundreds of millions of people who do so are idiots and continue to use an app that doesn't meet their needs when multiple other mapping apps are free and available. Most people open their app to search for a place and it takes no more effort to tap the GM then it does the AM.
LOL. If you think the Google dashboard has a fraction of what is stored about you. Google has what's known as a universal identifier number that they want to assign to every citizen in the world. Your entire search history of what sites you go to, what you click on, what you order, what you post, copies of every email you've ever sent or received, what music you listen to, what you buy, what movies you watch, what books you read, your politics, your friends, where you go, etc., all is stored. And of course they don't sell it directly. But you knew that. Google would never sell it or they would go out of business. That's the golden egg. They keep it in their servers and keep adding to it. When Google scans your email and learns you are getting divorced they aren't going to sell that bit of information, but since they know your income, your name, where you live, what type of assets you have, law firms that specialize in what are known as high value divorce cases, will pay dearly to Google to have Google deliver a solicitation to you.
I know it makes people who have given over all of their information to Google to feel better to deny that Google is amassing this information, but it doesn't change the reality that more and more people, and governments, are starting to wake up to, there are massive dossiers being built on citizens around the world that are a threat to all. Aside from the fact that Google's terms of service give them a worldwide license to use your information forever, and that they reserve the right to sell that information at any time, any law enforcement agency with a valid subpoena or search warrant can access your Google dossier, as can hackers, intel agencies, corrupt or despotic governments, etc.
You shouldn't be surprised. "Search" in the Apple ecosystem is a salable asset... a high dollar, high margin, salable asset. Buying and using DDG turns a salable asset into overhead. That ain't good business.
Agreed! Apple is so into privacy you think they'd default to the only private search engine on the net!!!! However, Duck Duck Go does not have 3 billion to gift Apple. In the end Apple is all about the benjis!
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You can. iOS Setting, Safari, search engine. macOS Safari, preference, general, search engine.... does that effect Siri though.. hmm I say "Duck Duck Go bla bla" or "Search the internet for" and Siri uses my defaults. however, I am on iOS 9.
It is meaningless when you're using the usage count as "proof" that people prefer it over the competition.
People simply have no choice when it comes to setting the default Maps app.
It has the parts that you complained about. Location storage, for one. Simply turn it off.
Correct.
Thank you, that's an example I use often about the hypocrisy of Apple:
The worst that will happen with Google is that you'll see a targeted ad for a divorce lawyer.
Whereas Apple gets paid by banks to access the fact that you paid a divorce lawyer via Apple Pay, and will use that info to lower your credit rating.
Google is not the real privacy problem. It's actually kind of minor, with its ad oriented collection.
This reminds me of an article I just read about the Equifax hack of our Social Security numbers, etc. The author then says, oh but think if Google got hacked, people would know our app and search preferences. Huh? Which one is infinitely more important?
I loathe Google and their smarmy surveillance products, but they do provide the best search results. (At least then they are not favoring their own products.)
So this is a good move as I am sure Apple will make sure Google gets no personal info via Siri or iOS search. (The rest if up to us.)
So this is a good move as I am sure Apple will make sure Google gets no personal info via Siri or iOS search. (The rest if up to us.)
I've already suggested to Apple that they combine Maps and Find Friends. There is overlap between the two. They also need to build out maps with a speed warning buzzer ... showing the posted limit is nice, but too distracting. A clever tone warning, or verbal reminder, would be great. TomTom for iOS has this, and, while pricy, it has paid for itself in avoided tickets from going thru unfamiliar areas (also by saving one from having to concentrate on speeds it makes things safer.)
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I have to agree with this. I'd like to avoid Google like the plague (as I do Facebook) but their search seems so much better than the alternatives.
DDG can't pay Apple an estimated more than $3 billion a year in search engine kickbacks.
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