Googleis currently the default search engine foriPhone, iPad, and Mac owners but that might be about to change ifApplehas its way. That’s according to a new report which suggests that the company already has what it needs to take Google on at its own game.
With Apple making around $8 billion a year from a deal that makes Google the default option for users who want to search the web, the report claims that the technology is in place to allow the iPhone maker to go a step further - taking everything in-house and keeping search-based ad revenue for itself.
Searching for more money
That’s all assuming that Apple could sell ads inserted into search results at the same rate that Google can, which is a big ask. But as Google knows, iPhone owners make up a huge portion of the planet, and selling ads to those people can be extremely lucrative. After all, Google isn’t paying Apple so much money to make a loss - it knows it’s worth it.
“Apple knows this,” Gurman says. “That’s one reason why it’s been tinkering with search technology for years. The work has its benefits, even if the company doesn’t launch a Google rival: Apple can improve its non-web search capabilities, and it could serve as a frightening bargaining chip in pricing negotiations with Google.”
That work involves John Giannandrea, a former Google executive who now heads up the machine learning and AI teams at Apple. Those teams have already been behind Pegasus, a new search technology that is being used in Spotlight and will come to the App Store soon enough. Apple also has Applebot, a web crawler that has been collecting information about websites for years.
IGurman believes that all of this means Apple is well placed to ditch its deal with Google and offer its own solution. Bringing important features and components under its own banner is something Apple likes to do, although it doesn’t always do it successfully. Apple silicon is one example of a win, but the repeated failures of the company’s 5G modem efforts show the company isn’t infallible.
The question? Would search be another Apple silicon home run or a repeat of its modem problems?
