Google Paid Apple $20 Billion in 2022 to Be Default Safari Search Engine

[mrochester]

As far as essential goes: I probably stretched it a bit. For the poster however it seems to be the only option otherwise he would haven't complained.
For me it is factually essential because using any other search engine would mean to be less effective to me.

Im so pleased I don’t have that issue so that i’m not forced to use them 😀

Although I appreciate what it’s like to only have one option because the competition is so rubbish. This is why I can only chose iOS as my mobile operating system.

 

[macabrumorsab]

I wish Steve Jobs were still alive so he could have sued Google for copying iOS. Tim Cook canceling the plan to sue Google was one of his many awful (i.e., un-Jobs-like) decisions. Cook also fired Apple's most Jobs-like visionary, Scott Forstall, which is precisely why we are stuck with the sterile and bland-looking user-unfriendly flat design of today's iOS and macOS.

Because Tim Cook knew how stupid it would have been to claim Google had copied iOS. Do you think MS should have sued Apple for copying Windows Mobile then? There was barely anything new to iPhones besides the multi-touch on phones which would have come to all devices anyway because of the technological development. Please stop spreading Apple myths which have nothing to do with reality.

 

[Oscar_440]

But, privacy….

Privacy is outdated.

Mother nature is the new big thing.

Tim.

 

[Darajavahus]

I can't even find anything easily like I used to a decade ago, and half of the "results" are ads :/

 

[iBug2]

This is really weird. If Google does not pay anything to Apple, then Apple would still keep Google as default search anyway. So why pay?

 

[macfacts]

I would assume that the very vast majority of iPhone users don’t change the search engine. I would even speculate that the majority don’t know you can, and aren’t familiar with the alternatives.

I’m a firm believer that Google should be paying us consumers for our data that they use to generate so much profit.

Right now all Google gives us is a few free services; I think we should be getting those free services and cash (judging by the profit margin). For me, a few free services is not enough value for my personal data, which is why I don't use Google products.

Many people undervalue how valuable their personal data is to surveillance capitalists such as a Google, which is why Google is such a profitable company with human capital as their primary resource.

In most business, the human capital that generates the profit (the workers) get paid relatively handsomely for their contributions. Not so much with Google or Facebook; us consumers get paid hardly anything for what they take from us.

Google gives me free email. I've been using them so long, I have an email address of the first 3 letters of my first name+first 3 letters of my last name @gmail.com, no extra letters or numbers. Near unlimited inbox too. No spam too.

 

[scorpio vega]

I don't see the problem, given that you can change the default search engine right in the settings, and for no extra cost.

No you can’t.

It’s unfortunately still using google in spotlight.

Google is terrible and I hope it gets dissolved from apple

 

[ApplesAreSweet&Sour]

Some of these antitrust disputes are getting out of hand. Antibusiness

Yes, it's amazing. I love it.

A boon for consumers, privacy, businesses (that aren't big tech), and society at large.

Too much money and power in the hands of a few, ginormous monopolies corporations only benefits those corporations while hurting competition and innovation.

I fail to grasp how out of the loop our leaders have been for taking this long to wake up and smell the coffee.

But better late than never, I guess.

 

[dialogos]

But Safari (which they are paying for it to be the default search) by design blocks google trackers. iCloud if you subscribe hides your IP.The story behind this is very complicated. It isn't that simple despite the narrative being low hanging fruit.

Apple has added privacy features while (rightly as a public business) took this insane amount of basically free cash. People will EXPECT Google to be the default in this day and age... this is literally just taking free money. An insane amount of it apparently.

iCloud private relay doesn’t work well with Google. It often asks for CAPTCHA verification

You can also conduct an experiment to see that Safari doesn't completely disable fingerprinting:

1. Open another Safari profile where you're logged in with your Gmail.
2. Delete cookies from the other profile that isn’t linked to your Gmail.
3. You will observe that your Gmail gets disconnected from the profile even if you didn’t delete your cookies. It seems Google is somehow tracking behavior.

Finally Apple doesn't exactly allow us to choose our preferred search engine. For instance, I prefer StartPage and Brave. How can I set one of them as my default search engine? I can’t!!

 

[ApplesAreSweet&Sour]

20 billion to be the default option that people would have manually switched to anyway if it wasn't the default.

I know Google is rich, but that's just a waste.

I'm guessing you're one of those who's going to argue that having Coca Cola products completely dominate the soda isle at a grocery store doesn't lead to consumers buying more Coca Cola over other brands?

Our "free will" and tastes as individuals gets in the way?

Lol.

You might want to look up the word "exposure" as it relates to branding, marketing, and consumer behavior.

Google being front, center and default is very important for Google. Let's just keep it at that.

 

[mrochester]

Google gives me free email. I've been using them so long, I have an email address of the first 3 letters of my first name+first 3 letters of my last name @gmail.com, no extra letters or numbers. Near unlimited inbox too. No spam too.

My personal data is worth more than just a free email address. You obviously don’t think so. You must be a cheap date 😂

 

[AndiG]

The trouble is, if you remove one revenue stream from Apple, you force them to try and make money elsewhere instead. And as a consumer, what will you prefer?

I believe that Apple's stock is currently overvalued. Apple has the iPhone as its single cash cow and all its services like the AppStore are bound to the iPhone.
But the smartphone hype is over. All other attempts from Apple failed. Apple dreamed of an iCar (but Xiaomi build one), the AVP is a niche product and feels like another iPhone accessory. The Apple watch design is ooooooold.

But talk about Macs. Macs, right? A Mac nowadays still doesn't have a NFC chip nor does it provide user with eSim functionality. Apples limitation to 8GB for entry level models is nothing but ridiculous (before Tim, Apple upgraded the amount of RAM constantly).
Does it need a NFC chip? Yes, e.g. for my Fido2 card or my id card. Works with an iPhone but not with the Mac. And an eSim? Come on, Apple!! You charging an insane amount of money and you have the technology in the iPhone. so the only reason while this functionality is still missing from a Mac is that Apple doesn't want to integrate it.

 

[ned1]

Where’s the monopolies commission when you need it

 

[tom.humphrey]

Using this https://www.macrumors.com/2023/02/02/apple-two-billion-active-devices/ Apple has 2 billion active devices worldwide. So that works out about $10 a device

 

[mrochester]

I believe that Apple's stock is currently overvalued. Apple has the iPhone as its single cash cow and all its services like the AppStore are bound to the iPhone.
But the smartphone hype is over. All other attempts from Apple failed. Apple dreamed of an iCar (but Xiaomi build one), the AVP is a niche product and feels like another iPhone accessory. The Apple watch design is ooooooold.

But talk about Macs. Macs, right? A Mac nowadays still doesn't have a NFC chip nor does it provide user with eSim functionality. Apples limitation to 8GB for entry level models is nothing but ridiculous (before Tim, Apple upgraded the amount of RAM constantly).
Does it need a NFC chip? Yes, e.g. for my Fido2 card or my id card. Works with an iPhone but not with the Mac. And an eSim? Come on, Apple!! You charging an insane amount of money and you have the technology in the iPhone. so the only reason while this functionality is still missing from a Mac is that Apple doesn't want to integrate it.

I'm not sure how that is relevant to my point.

Apple currently makes 20 billion from Google to be the default.

If that 20 billion goes away, Apple will look to make 20 billion somewhere else to plug the gap.

Would consumers prefer for Apple to make the 20 billion from Google, or from somewhere else?

That is the question.

 

[BanjoDudeAhoy]

Interesting that your expectation is that the search engine itself gives you the answer as opposed to links to relevant websites.

I’d expect something like Wikipedia to be the top of the results as it’s probably the most relevant link for that search term.

Same. I usually ignore everything that sits up there, unless it’s already a wikipedia article.

 

[BanjoDudeAhoy]

Would it have made more sense for Apple to have bought Bing or DuckDuckGo, made it their own to improve results especially with AI than all that money spent on making a car?

A car was never going to appeal to as many people as a search engine, which is already accessible through Apple’s existing products, and Apple may have generated a lot of its own income from it, rather than a payout from Google. Whilst Maps didn’t start out well, it did get a lot better, the same could have happened with a search engine

I agree that it would have made more sense than the car.
But I think Apple would have painted a target on themselves for legislative bodies the world over if their devices shipped with their own search engine.

 

[Mackan]

But talk about Macs. Macs, right? A Mac nowadays still doesn't have a NFC chip nor does it provide user with eSim functionality. Apples limitation to 8GB for entry level models is nothing but ridiculous (before Tim, Apple upgraded the amount of RAM constantly).
Does it need a NFC chip? Yes, e.g. for my Fido2 card or my id card. Works with an iPhone but not with the Mac. And an eSim? Come on, Apple!! You charging an insane amount of money and you have the technology in the iPhone. so the only reason while this functionality is still missing from a Mac is that Apple doesn't want to integrate it.

They artifically withhold features from certain products to differentiate their products. Just to make you feel like you need to buy all of them, so they can make more money. That's a sign of company that has lost their way long ago, whose focus is just 100% making money and nothing else.

 

[mrochester]

I agree that it would have made more sense than the car.
But I think Apple would have painted a target on themselves for legislative bodies the world over if their devices shipped with their own search engine.

This. It’s already problematic that Google, a separate company, are the default on Apple devices never mind Apple shipping with their own search engine as the default!

 

[mrochester]

They artifically withhold features from certain products to differentiate their products. Just to make you feel like you need to buy all of them, so they can make more money. That's a sign of company that has lost their way long ago, whose focus is just 100% making money and nothing else.

That’s kinda how all businesses work though. Product differentiation and segmentation are crucial aspects of running a business else you’d only ever sell a single product that did everything (or at least tried to do everything for all people, which would be impossible).

 

[zapmymac]

If Google wants to throw money at Apple, so be it. I see no crime here..................as I just change my default search engine to X (DuckDuckGo) and I'm sure no one feels forced to keep El Googl. 🤯

In a very FEW SHORT YEARS, Non-Techy-Boomers will all be dead, and the generation that is more than minimally tech-saavy will reign supreme-thank the new, old, and lack of gods I say.

 

[Mackan]

That’s kinda how all businesses work though. Product differentiation and segmentation are crucial aspects of running a business else you’d only ever sell a single product that did everything (or at least tried to do everything for all people, which would be impossible).

No, it doesn't have to be this way 100%. For example, why can't the Macbook have a simcard reader? It's fairly natural, other companies offer laptops with simcard readers. This is Apple just wanting you to tether your iPhone or buy an iPad, which comes with compromises (not only more expensive for you to own them all). The natural choice would be to simply have a simcard reader in the Macbook...

Or the iPad that is mentioned as a replacement for a computer, but really isn't. They deliberately implement bad file management on the iPad, as an example. Or bad handling of external screens. Or no porting of important MacOS apps.

They are simply desperate to differentiate them, even if leads to a worse product. Even if they sit there in their design meetings and talk like... "yeah, we actually have solved all this stuff in MacOS, we could just port it to the iPad... but then maybe people would start to buy less MacBooks because they actually feel the iPad is a good replacement...".

It must suck to sit and develop such obviously castrated products.

 

[mrochester]

No, it doesn't have to be this way 100%. For example, why can't the Macbook have a simcard reader? It's fairly natural, other companies offer laptops with simcard readers. This is Apple just wanting you to tether your iPhone or buy an iPad, which comes with compromises (not only more expensive for you to own them all). The natural choice would be to simply have a simcard reader in the Macbook...

Or the iPad that is mentioned as a replacement for a computer, but really isn't. They deliberately implement bad file management on the iPad, as an example. Or bad handling of external screens. Or no porting of important MacOS apps.

They are simply desperate to differentiate them, even if leads to a worse product. Even if they sit there in their design meetings and talk like... "yeah, we actually have solved all this stuff in MacOS, we could just port it to the iPad... but then maybe people would start to buy less MacBooks because they actually feel the iPad is a good replacement...".

It must suck to sit and develop such obviously castrated products.

But you could say that about every product.

The reason the product doesn’t have X feature is either because a) it isn’t possible or b) the manufacturer of that product doesn’t want it to have that feature.

It’s up to us as consumers to send signals to the market by either buying (or not buying) the products that a company offers.

If including a SIM card slot in your laptop is essential to you, send a message to Apple by not buying one of their laptops and buy one instead that does include a SIM card slot. That’s how you affect change in a competitive market.

Why doesn’t this laptop have 16gb of ram and 512gb SSD? Why are HP deliberately hampering their product and trying to differentiate by offering products with different specifications?

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[m4mario]

Interesting that your expectation is that the search engine itself gives you the answer as opposed to links to relevant websites.

I’d expect something like Wikipedia to be the top of the results as it’s probably the most relevant link for that search term.

I'm not expecting them to give the answer directly. But they are and one is giving the wring answer. I'd be fine if no answer was given.

 

[bluecoast]

Apple:
- Privacy is important to us
- Google is the best search engine

Surely a contradiction there? If privacy was so important, Apple would surely have a go at rolling their own search engine and making it very clear to consumers that they could absolutely use Google on the iPhone.