Microsoft Considered Selling Bing to Apple in 2020

[MacRumors]

Back in 2020, Microsoft considered selling its Bing search engine to Apple, reports Bloomberg. Had the acquisition happened, Bing would have replaced Google as the default search engine on Apple devices.

Microsoft executives met up with Apple services chief Eddy Cue to discuss a potential deal, but the talks were just exploratory and did not progress. According to Bloomberg, Apple did not move forward with a deal because of the money that it earns from Google and because it was concerned that Bing could not compete with Google in "quality and capabilities."

Google's search engine has long been the default search engine on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and Google pays Apple billions of dollars per year for the privilege. Google and Apple last inked a deal in 2021, facilitated by Cue, and as of 2020, Apple was collecting $4 billion and $7 billion annually from Google. The Apple/Google deal has been under scrutiny this week due to the antitrust trial between Google and the U.S Department of Justice, with the DoJ pointing toward Google's dominance on Apple devices as evidence that Google has a search engine monopoly.

Eddy Cue this week had to testify in the trial, and he explained why Google is the iPhone's default search engine. "We make Google be the default search engine because we've always thought it was the best," Cue said. He went on to say that Apple has not gone with another search engine provider because there is no "valid alternative."

While Google is the default search engine on Apple devices, users can choose to swap to Yahoo, Bing, DuckDuckGo, or Ecosia as an alternative. Bing has recently become a more popular search engine option thanks to Microsoft's partnership with OpenAI and the integration of chatbot technology.

Article Link: Microsoft Considered Selling Bing to Apple in 2020

 

[phill85]

I switched to DuckDuckGo. Not google and works just as great

 

[ArrayDecay]

Back in 2020, Microsoft considered selling its Bing search engine to Apple, reports Bloomberg. Had the acquisition happened, Bing would have replaced Google as the default search engine on Apple devices.

Microsoft executives met up with Apple services chief Eddy Cue to discuss a potential deal, but the talks were just exploratory and did not progress. According to Bloomberg, Apple did not move forward with a deal because of the money that it earns from Google and because it was concerned that Bing could not compete with Google in "quality and capabilities."

Google's search engine has long been the default search engine on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and Google pays Apple billions of dollars per year for the privilege. Google and Apple last inked a deal in 2021, facilitated by Cue, and as of 2020, Apple was collecting $4 billion and $7 billion annually from Google. The Apple/Google deal has been under scrutiny this week due to the antitrust trial between Google and the U.S Department of Justice, with the DoJ pointing toward Google's dominance on Apple devices as evidence that Google has a search engine monopoly.

Eddy Cue this week had to testify in the trial, and he explained why Google is the iPhone's default search engine. "We make Google be the default search engine because we've always thought it was the best," Cue said. He went on to say that Apple has not gone with another search engine provider because there is no "valid alternative."

While Google is the default search engine on Apple devices, users can choose to swap to Yahoo, Bing, DuckDuckGo, or Ecosia as an alternative. Bing has recently become a more popular search engine option thanks to Microsoft's partnership with OpenAI and the integration of chatbot technology.

Article Link: Microsoft Considered Selling Bing to Apple in 2020

I like Bing.

 

[sack_peak]

The sale could have been nixed due to anti-trust concerns. This is likely why many big companies have to diversify away from their strengths.

 

[ghanwani]

The Apple Google relationship is quite twisted because of the original Android lawsuit. So we can never understand the true reason for their business relationships.

 

[cinder]

Apple:
"We don't need to know what you were thinking about in the privacy of your own bedroom"

 

[Vega20]

You'd have to pay me to use Bing. Oh wait, they do with Microsoft Rewards. The SEO isn't terrible, but Google is still far better. It's come a long way from the Ballmer era at least.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

gosh, can you imagine Windows without Bing? So many less distractions.

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

Thank god that deal didn’t happen lmao

 

[zakarhino]

I went back to Google + Chrome from DDG + Firefox considering the results are better, it's faster (in particular Chrome), it has the new Gen AI stuff, and avoiding ad tracking in 2023 is a fool's errand. It's basically impossible, the more tweaks you make to avoid it the more you become a unique browser ID which gets tracked anyway.

So ublock + pihole is fine for me for now. Not being able to install a full fledged ad blocker in iOS/Safari is another reason ad telemetry avoidance is difficult, every effort you make on desktop is undermined by your phone. So yeah, there's no avoiding it fully. A couple of Google services (I already use YouTube) is worth the trade off.

 

[kiensoy]

Then Apple could've had Bing and Ping!

 

[klasma]

So we would have gotten Siri-powered Bing instead of GPT-powered Bing? 😅

 

[Doomtomb]

The real reason Apple doesn't have its own search engine is its more lucrative to lease it out to Google.

 

[Fuzzball84]

I’ve been a user of Bing since 2010 and I’m a very happy user. Seeing it improve massively over this time has been a joy. I’ve picked up some pretty decent backgrounds along the way too.

I’m glad to see competitors of Google do well.

 

[Fuzzball84]

You'd have to pay me to use Bing. Oh wait, they do with Microsoft Rewards. The SEO isn't terrible, but Google is still far better. It's come a long way from the Ballmer era at least.

I’d not even want to get paid to use google search. I tend to avoid google products except google maps, which I find to be awesome.

 

[swingerofbirch]

"We make Google be the default search engine because we've always thought it was the best,"

Didn't stop them from pushing Apple Maps when it was still half-baked.

 

[zach-coleman]

This is actually crazy. Like it might be the most interesting thing we have learned from either this OR the epic suit.

 

[Think|Different]

Wow, this is wild to read! I got turned onto Bing years ago when I learned it could pay for XBOX Live, itself, just by searching and never looked back. People like to trash talk it but there’s very little real world differences in search, then and now, for the day to day.

 

[zach-coleman]

Didn't stop them from pushing Apple Maps when it was still half-baked.

Google wouldn’t give Apple turn by turn directions in the app when it was backed by Google. They were lagging behind Android and wanted to close to gap.

I switched to DuckDuckGo. Not google and works just as great

Have they fixed the problem where you can’t back out of a search result link without it kicking you all the way to the homepage? This made it unusable for me when I tried it a while ago.

 

[Fuzzball84]

Wow, this is wild to read! I got turned onto Bing years ago when I learned it could pay for XBOX Live, itself, just by searching and never looked back. People like to trash talk it but there’s very little real world differences in search, then and now, for the day to day.

When I first started using Bing back in 2010 I did a few (non scientific) tests comparing the two… and for the most part Bing was returning results that were on par with Google search. I didn’t see any difference for my use… and if you really want to be thorough you’d use a service that uses many search engines anyhow. Since I trusted Microsoft more as a company and used many of their products anyhow, I made the switch to Bing and never looked back.

One of the first things I do setting up a new device is changing the default search engine to Bing.

 

[KaliYoni]

With hindsight, MSFT was lucky the sale didn't go through because now Bing is its casual user on-ramp to ChatGPT (probably a better way to spend $10b than Meta's bet on VR!).

 

[SFjohn]

I switched to DuckDuckGo. Not google and works just as great

Me too, all my Apple devices use DuckDuckGo… bravo to Apple for getting Google to pay them so much money every year!

 

[xander49x]

I have not used Google in years, Duck Duck Go all the way.

 

[phenste]

I switched to DuckDuckGo. Not google and works just as great

seconding DDG, first and foremost; I will say, one out of every 5-10 searches, when I only have extremely vague terms to go off of, Google gives better results…but we all know why that is. otherwise, for everyday searches it’s a great engine.

 

[Supercyborgninja]

Wish I could say DDG worked out, it sadly does not cut it. Really wish it did though. I do root for Bing cause I love Microsoft's focus on accessibility.