Apple Explains Why It Doesn't Plan to Create a Search Engine

[69Mustang]

I don't think they "missed" search. In order to generate revenue in search your only option is to generate your revenue from ads. Apple doesn't want a large portion of their revenue to come from ads. They are a hardware/services business not a ad/marketing business. They are staying core to who they are and it is working as indicated by their growth and size. Did they miss the other two? Maps FOR SURE but AI....we will see. I would be shocked if we don't have an AI bubble burst in the next year or three. Apple taking a cautious approach I think will be good in the long run, which is typically the space they play in.

I would argue that Apple doesn't care if a large portion of their revenue comes from ads; because it does, courtesy of payments from Google. I think Apple doesn't want a large portion of their revenue to be attributed to ads because it flies in the face of their privacy marketing. Google allows Apple to cash the big ass check and maintain a sense of moral superiority. Win/win for Apple I guess

 

[B4U]

Still waiting for Apple to give me manual option on default search engine instead of a list that we have now.

 

[satchmo]

How’s that 10 year investment on VisionPro going?

 

[The_Gream]

I think people are missing something about that 20 billion (it just dawned on me), Google is willing to pay that to have top access to the Apple user base. Though they don’t have to work extremely hard, they still need to make that 20 billion worth it by keep up on evolving their search.
No business is just going to hand over money for possible business, they will do what needs to be done to make sure they maintain a product that captures most of the user base.

 

[surferfb]

how? DuckDuckGo anyone?

I’d imagine that losing $20 billion of revenue a year will slow down development all features, including security and privacy features in Safari.

 

[WarmWinterHat]

Yeah, but that $20 billion is approximately 80% of their R&D budget. If they went on a cost cutting binge across all units, they might cut $5 billion (laying off lots people in the process). So, where does that remaining $15 billion loss hit. Either R&D or profit. If it all hits profit, Apple's stock tanks with all the chaos and consequences that follow. If it all hits R&D, Apple lays off tons of engineers, and then stock tanks with all the chaos and consequences that follow. If profits drop and engineers are laid off? You can just hear the anti-Apple jackals in the world salivating at the prospect.

I consider Apple receiving the $20 billion, per year, as ill-gotten gains for doing nothing whatsoever other than setting a default.

In short, it's their problem, not mine. It was a deal with the devil.

 

[OnePieceIsReal]

I bought xSearch (AppStore Link) to enable easy site searches within Safari on my iPhone. On desktop I primarily use Arc and have site searches there, this is close enough for mobile.


I use Kagi with the above from time to time. I wanna get into Kagi more but Perplexity has really taken over search for me in general. I sometimes mess with Kagi's Orion browser since it supports Chrome extensions while within WebKit.

Already do this it isn’t the same sometimes the default search engine shows up in your history so basically your running it twice

 

[surferfb]

I consider Apple receiving the $20 billion, per year, as ill-gotten gains for doing nothing whatsoever other than setting a default.

In short, it's not my problem. It was a deal with the devil.

I’m definitely no fan of Google, but again, Google clearly has the best results of any free search engine. DuckDuckGo is not good enough, even if its privacy policies are better. And Google was offering to pay an enormous sum of money to be the default (which again, I suspect Apple would have selected as the default even if Google paid nothing because it’s by far the best (free) search engine).

Would you really turn down an enormous sum of free money to do something you were already going to do anyway?

 

[vantelimus]

I think people are missing something about that 20 billion (it just dawned on me), Google is willing to pay that to have top access to the Apple user base. Though they don’t have to work extremely hard, they still need to make that 20 billion worth it by keep up on evolving their search.
No business is just going to hand over money for possible business, they will do what needs to be done to make sure they maintain a product that captures most of the user base.

The iPhone attracts a more affluent customer than Android. Users of Apple products are far more valuable to advertisers because conversion is higher. Of course Google wants to put ads in front of Apple users. You can block Google's cookies and make sure they don't have a persistent profile on you (which is what I do), as an anonymous Apple user, you are very valuable to Google for the ads they will serve you on their search page. If a person doesn't block cookies and tracking they are raw meat to Google and have only themselves to blame. Apple doesn't hand over your private information to anyone. It gives everyone the tools to minimize tracking.

 

[Zest28]

I laughed at this part:

“If the agreement can no longer continue, Cue said “it would hamstring Apple's ability to continue delivering products that best serve its users' needs."

I think Apple will survive without it lol

Google is the best search in the world by far. So if Apple is forced to have a different search engine by default, it is a worse user experience in the end.

 

[Zest28]

I’m definitely no fan of Google, but again, Google clearly has the best results of any free search engine. DuckDuckGo is not good enough, even if its privacy policies are better. And Google was offering to pay an enormous sum of money to be the default (which again, I suspect Apple would have selected as the default even if Google paid nothing because it’s by far the best (free) search engine).

Would you really turn down an enormous sum of free money to do something you were already going to do anyway?

Exactly, Google is the #1 choice as a Search engine. That you get $20 billion bonus on top of it is even better. But without the $20 billion, Google would still be the default Search engine.

You clearly see too much taxes are being paid when government officials have time and money to waste on this non-sense. Do they really believe Bing would have been default search engine without the $20 billion paid by Google?

 

[albebaubles]

I’d imagine that losing $20 billion of revenue a year will slow down development all features, including security and privacy features in Safari.

My bad, I apologize -- I was thinking from the side of us users.

 

[Zest28]

"longstanding privacy commitments."
and they allow google has the default search engine for years?
This is ********.

Google has no root access. And most iPhone users want to use Google Search.

For the very small insignificant minority who want to use DuckDuckGo, you can change the search engine yourself under Settings. It's not that hard.

 

[2540497]

As Eddy knows, their entrance would require an acquisition of a player like duckduckgo for a headstart and they'd Applefy it from there

As Eddy also knows, the loss of $20bn pure profit a year from Google makes an in-house search engine a viable business case... even if it meant spending an insane $60bn to get there

 

[victorvictoria]

Apple has 20 billion reasons not to develop their own search engine. Every year.

 

[chfilm]

I've never understood why they can't just mollify any of these anti-trust lawsuits by just asking the user what search engine they want on initial device setup. Just have a randomly ordered list of the top search engines that are generally used.

Bing
Brave
Ecosia
Google
Mojeek
Presearch
Yandex

Same question!

 

[Rradcircless]

ChatGPT replaced Google in my life, hope Apples just integrates search into something similar or better.

You mean the planet killing AI that requires three bottles of water for each prompt? I would use that kind of service sparingly, personally.

 

[klasma]

With Apple Search, Siri likely wouldn’t find anything on the internet anymore.

 

[sw1tcher]

In a declaration filed with a U.S. federal court in Washington, D.C. last week, Cue said Apple is against the idea for the following reasons:

• The development of a search engine would cost Apple "billions of dollars" and "take many years," and this would divert investment money and employees away from "other growth areas" that the company is focused on.
• The search business is "rapidly evolving" due to artificial intelligence, so it would be "economically risky" for Apple to create a search engine.
• In order to create a "viable" search engine business, Apple would be required to "sell targeted advertising," which is "not a core business" for the company and would go against its "longstanding privacy commitments."
• Apple does not have enough "specialized professionals" and "operational infrastructure" needed to build and run a successful search engine business.

- the development of an Apple Car would cost Apple billions of dollars and take many years
- the car business is rapidly evolving
- the car business is NOT a core business of Apple's
- Apple does not have enough specialized professionals and operational infrastructure needed to build and run a successful car business...

and yet Apple still spent over $10 billion to try to make an Apple Car.

The real reason Apple doesn't plan to create a search engine is because Google gives Apple $20 billion a year not to. That Eddy Cue thinks we don't know this is an insult.

 

[klasma]

This is the part I really like:

• In order to create a "viable" search engine business, Apple would be required to "sell targeted advertising," which is "not a core business" for the company and would go against its "longstanding privacy commitments."

It sounds like “we prefer to let others do the dirty work”.

 

[paulovsouza]

They're paying to be the default search on Safari, not to be the only search, or not to be unable to change a search provider. And if they loose, someone else gets to be the default search provider. No default search on the browser bar. When setting up your phone another useless setting screen to have to choose your favorite search website. And who is stopping Bing or whoever from throwing their hat in the ring, and paying Apple. None of these lawsuits are furthering customers choice or limiting monopolies.

 

[Gasu E.]

Here’s the thing though from what I heard from talking with people in the industry for years: Back when Steve Jobs was still alive, around 2010, Apple WAS going to make a search engine that would rival Google and in fact would be better than Google, just out of spite because of Android. Jobs wanted nothing to do with Google afterwards, and in fact, wanted to kill and destroy Google, and going after the core, which was the search engine would be the way to do it. And they had zero intention of monetizing it either, it was just a search engine with page ranking and etc and nothing else. It would serve as useful function for the users and it would be what would power Siri.

Plans changed after Jobs died and Apple decided to drop the hammer on this project despite the fact that many wanted to keep this project to preserve and respect Steve Job’s legacy of his hatred toward Google. But if Apple did continued with the project, it would have fundamentally changed the web forever.

So, from what you say, Apple was right to drop it then. Since "legacy of hatred" would be about the worst business reason ever.

 

[SkweeBop]

hear me out. What if they did a search engine that:

FREAKING DIDN'T USE regurgative large language scraping machine "learning", and actually was a search engine??

 

[alchemistmuffin]

So, from what you say, Apple was right to drop it then. Since "legacy of hatred" would be about the worst business reason ever.

Sadly yes. If they went forward with the project, and say this was Steve’s legacy, it would paint him as cynical thin skinned person who wanted nothing but revenge. Because Apple’s Search engine project was basically all about revenge and getting back at Google.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Meh. Hoping ChatGPT search becomes a native search engine choice for iOS/Safari. Google is too cluttered with SEO articles that game the algorithm, and their solution to that is rolling out these “helpful content” algorithm updates that just push people to Reddit…

They have a deal with Reddit to push people to reddit, so that’s just part of their game plan

And, like every service that requires a significant amount of effort to acquire and retain users, once ChatGPT becomes reaches a certain threshold, they’ll become just as cluttered, but in a more clever and insidious way, in order to pay for their growth.