I would love to see Apple build a search engine just as a feature for their products rather than something to stuff to the gills with advertising and make money from. That would completely change the incentive structure. Apple would be much better positioned to make search better for users instead of the conflict of interest Google has (redirecting users toward ads).
I would love to see search get back to what it’s meant to be: information retrieval. Help users find what they’re looking for, not what Google wants them to find.
> "I would love to see Apple build a search engine just as a feature for their products rather than something to stuff to the gills with advertising and make money from. That would completely change the incentive structure. Apple would be much better positioned to make search better for users instead of the conflict of interest Google has (redirecting users toward ads).
I would love to see search get back to what it’s meant to be: information retrieval"
Although what would Apple's model be? Have it as a sort-of loss-leader, a bit like their OS is effectively a loss leader for their hardware sales? That would of course suggest a search that would require Apple hardware.
1) A proper, popular search engine is incredibly expensive to run. You can't do it for free. It's going to have to be ad-supported. But ads are the very opposite of Apple's brand.
2) And financially, they'd trade their incredibly lucrative deal with Google for such a high risk? It just doesn't seem like something a board would approve.
3) The timing of this feels very suspicious, though maybe that's just sudden journalist interest rather than leaks... but if you were Google, this is the best thing that could happen to you lawsuit-wise. Can't you imagine a conversation one or two years ago? "Hey Apple, OK we'll pay you the $8-12 billion, but you also have to spend a little chunk of it -- just $10 million, really -- to credibly claim you're 'developing' your own search engine. Don't ever deliver it, just always be 'working' on it. Cool? Awesome, thanks."
1# It's not expensive as 2 decades ago, most of the data is behind gardens now, Reddit, FB, Twitter, Amazon, and less than 1000 other sites. Everything else can be crawled slowly.
2# Search is one of THE primary usage of the device, they have enough throwaway money to take this on. Just like Maps.
3# Sounds suspicious. But anti trust discussion started few years back and if you look through those optics EVERYTHING will look suspicious this year. There is no non-suspicious time for one of biggest companies in the world/human history to compete with each other.
> 1) A proper, popular search engine is incredibly expensive to run. You can't do it for free. It's going to have to be ad-supported. But ads are the very opposite of Apple's brand.
What happens if the Justice Department finds Google has a monopoly, and somehow decides that Apple can't use Google's Search Engine anymore? I mean, it's a bit of a long shot and a weird idea, but it's not outside of the realm of possibility. Google could get themselves into all kinds of trouble in this investigation.
If you're Apple, investing a few tens of millions now so that you have a half-decent search engine ready in case Google goes away is a smart investment. And if nothing happens, you quietly shelve the project.
They have ads in the App Store already. Search ads are probably the one kind of ad they could make work, since you can sell keywords without tracking and profiling your users.
> "A proper, popular search engine is incredibly expensive to run. You can't do it for free. It's going to have to be ad-supported."
Not necessarily. Firstly, you might not want to search the whole internet anyway, given how much clickbait spam, link farms, blackhat SEO, and whatnot there is now, thanks to the damage the advertising-driven search model has done to the internet. And secondly, there are alternative search funding models, e.g. subscription fee or listing fee. FWIW, that's the premise behind my side project - search just the good stuff, with no direct adverts, and result pages which contain adverts clearly flagged and heavily downranked.
I'm wondering if they are not planning to just sell it as (of course) privacy focused unique search experience for monthly fee or as part of package with most expensive device or other streaming service.
I wrote this week about how all tech companies are becoming conglomerates that compete with each other in an oligopoly [1]. This is a great example of that. Every big tech company seems to clone successful units of other tech companies. Over time, every big tech company becomes less distinguishable from its peers.
Comparing Google, Apple, and Amazon, all three have: smart home products, email services, music services, video conferencing, fitness trackers, phones, tablets, ad networks, app stores, a web browser, and some kind of prominent search engine (products, apps, or web).
Next up: I expect Apple to launch (or buy) a cloud computing backend.
Apple already has search built into Spotlight and Siri. It just isn’t attacking the same search problems as Google. It is possible that Apple is building all of this to make Siri smarter. Right now Google has a strategic advantage with “ok Google” vs “hey Siri”. Improving Apple’s knowledge of the web could simply be a move to improve their existing products. They might not have any interest in competing with Google on searching the web and displaying results and ads.
I’d be more surprised if they weren’t ready for the time when Google stops paying to be the default search engine. Can't wait to see a "choose your search engine" screen on setup of new phones.
Ending single-search domination is good. Lets see if they can actually come up with a good search engine. I love DDG but I have to search Google usually when I'm looking for obscure technical issues. Bing and Yahoo (DDG) havn't made a dent, lets see what happens.
Google is a trillion dollar company based on 3 very important products.
Chrome, the browser installed in billions of devices. On Android it comes installed default, on desktop using gmail, youtube will prompt to install chrome (even using MSFT Edge which is chromium based, will prompt to install chrome)
Chrome drives traffic to Google.com as the default search engine.
The search engine is more like an ad engine since most of the above fold content is ads.
Google’s actions say their motto is “Google ads on every page, on every device”
A search engine that doesn’t optimize for ads would be a great boon for humanity.
They must already have some sort of index to power siri web search. I hope they find some space for disruption and create enough differenciation because I’m not sure at all that people value privacy enough to switch
This topic seems to come up every couple of years for Apple. But I guess there is actually some evidence for it now.
It is something I have wondered about for a long time, I am curious how they would handle it from a financial standpoint.
If they made it privacy focused, maybe no ads (probably a big maybe), and allowed anyone to use it (not just iOS). Could Apple search become the gateway to buying other Apple products like Google search has become for Google?
Plus any of the other benefits of building this (like improved Siri).
iAd pretty famously failed because advertisers didn't like Apple's habit of not sharing user data with them.
>Despite massive size and overwhelming popularity, Apple has struggled to court Madison Avenue's influential media buyers, the people at advertising agencies who decide where to spend the budgets of the world's biggest brands.
According to a new report form Ad Age's Kate Kaye, this issue is due in large part to the company's refusal to share valuable consumer data with its advertising partners, meaning that brands are not able to pinpoint prospective customers with nearly the same precision as they can advertising with Facebook and Google.
Here's how Kaye said one executive described Apple's decision not to provide information about individual consumers to its advertising partners on the iAd network, which sells in-app ads on iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch devices:
"One person familiar with the situation exec said Apple's refusal to share data makes it the best-looking girl at the party, forced to wear a bag over her head."
Does Maps make money for Apple? Does Siri make money for Apple? Apple has a history of not expecting software to make money. This is changing somewhat with their new push towards subscription services. Maybe this will be used to encourage Apple One adoption.
For this to make sense, they would have to believe that the value of having their own search engine is greater than the cost of developing it AND the billions they currently receive from Google every year for making google the default search engine. Either that, or it’s a feint to undercut the recently announced US case against google.
You see the early versions of this effort every time you use the safari address bar. “Siri” will suggest a matching Wikipedia article or other direct link instead of you heading to google.
Leveraged properly all the OS level use from iOS could provide a lot of signal on which to build a search product.
If only Apple’s was able to do so for speech recognition.
Apple will probably just charge users for the search engine by bundling it with its Apple One subscription service. Calling it now, 15 years from now Apple's paid search engine will make it so using a search engine with advertising on it will be the socioeconomic equivalent of the green sms bubbles.
[+] [-] mgh2|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chongli|5 years ago|reply
I would love to see search get back to what it’s meant to be: information retrieval. Help users find what they’re looking for, not what Google wants them to find.
[+] [-] m-i-l|5 years ago|reply
Although what would Apple's model be? Have it as a sort-of loss-leader, a bit like their OS is effectively a loss leader for their hardware sales? That would of course suggest a search that would require Apple hardware.
[+] [-] fauigerzigerk|5 years ago|reply
I could see them coming up with some sort of privacy friendly ad targeting system using on-device matching or differential privacy.
So they solve the privacy problem but there will still be ads (unless you buy their "Apple Ad Free Experience" service for $10 per month)
[+] [-] fluidcruft|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JumpCrisscross|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 52-6F-62|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] s3r3nity|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] joduplessis|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crazygringo|5 years ago|reply
1) A proper, popular search engine is incredibly expensive to run. You can't do it for free. It's going to have to be ad-supported. But ads are the very opposite of Apple's brand.
2) And financially, they'd trade their incredibly lucrative deal with Google for such a high risk? It just doesn't seem like something a board would approve.
3) The timing of this feels very suspicious, though maybe that's just sudden journalist interest rather than leaks... but if you were Google, this is the best thing that could happen to you lawsuit-wise. Can't you imagine a conversation one or two years ago? "Hey Apple, OK we'll pay you the $8-12 billion, but you also have to spend a little chunk of it -- just $10 million, really -- to credibly claim you're 'developing' your own search engine. Don't ever deliver it, just always be 'working' on it. Cool? Awesome, thanks."
[+] [-] djanogo|5 years ago|reply
2# Search is one of THE primary usage of the device, they have enough throwaway money to take this on. Just like Maps.
3# Sounds suspicious. But anti trust discussion started few years back and if you look through those optics EVERYTHING will look suspicious this year. There is no non-suspicious time for one of biggest companies in the world/human history to compete with each other.
[+] [-] dewey|5 years ago|reply
They could also use ads, just in a more subtle and privacy friendly way like the search ads (https://searchads.apple.com/ or previously iAd: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAd) in the App store already.
[+] [-] GeekyBear|5 years ago|reply
Apple's recent testimony before the House revealed that they have already spent Billions of dollars developing Apple Maps.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tech-antitrust/u-s-te...
[+] [-] mabbo|5 years ago|reply
What happens if the Justice Department finds Google has a monopoly, and somehow decides that Apple can't use Google's Search Engine anymore? I mean, it's a bit of a long shot and a weird idea, but it's not outside of the realm of possibility. Google could get themselves into all kinds of trouble in this investigation.
If you're Apple, investing a few tens of millions now so that you have a half-decent search engine ready in case Google goes away is a smart investment. And if nothing happens, you quietly shelve the project.
[+] [-] kalleboo|5 years ago|reply
They have ads in the App Store already. Search ads are probably the one kind of ad they could make work, since you can sell keywords without tracking and profiling your users.
[+] [-] m-i-l|5 years ago|reply
Not necessarily. Firstly, you might not want to search the whole internet anyway, given how much clickbait spam, link farms, blackhat SEO, and whatnot there is now, thanks to the damage the advertising-driven search model has done to the internet. And secondly, there are alternative search funding models, e.g. subscription fee or listing fee. FWIW, that's the premise behind my side project - search just the good stuff, with no direct adverts, and result pages which contain adverts clearly flagged and heavily downranked.
[+] [-] pxtail|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] JumpCrisscross|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] uniqueid|5 years ago|reply
That doesn't mean the Search product category is inherently expensive; it means Google has more money than it knows what to do with.
[+] [-] philip1209|5 years ago|reply
Comparing Google, Apple, and Amazon, all three have: smart home products, email services, music services, video conferencing, fitness trackers, phones, tablets, ad networks, app stores, a web browser, and some kind of prominent search engine (products, apps, or web).
Next up: I expect Apple to launch (or buy) a cloud computing backend.
[1] https://www.tinker.fyi/6-break-up-tech-conglomerates/
[+] [-] darzu|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] todd3834|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 0goel0|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] abc-xyz|5 years ago|reply
Seems like it would make more sense for Apple to build their own Bing wrapper, team up with Microsoft, or build their own search engine from scratch.
[+] [-] judge2020|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] metalliqaz|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dewey|5 years ago|reply
2015: https://searchengineland.com/apple-confirms-their-web-crawle...
It would be nice to have a more private search engine but with Apple's track record of building web services I'm not so optimistic.
[+] [-] samename|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WesolyKubeczek|5 years ago|reply
Apple is not very good at its cloud offerings. Never had been.
[+] [-] tempodox|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nojvek|5 years ago|reply
Chrome, the browser installed in billions of devices. On Android it comes installed default, on desktop using gmail, youtube will prompt to install chrome (even using MSFT Edge which is chromium based, will prompt to install chrome)
Chrome drives traffic to Google.com as the default search engine.
The search engine is more like an ad engine since most of the above fold content is ads.
Google’s actions say their motto is “Google ads on every page, on every device”
A search engine that doesn’t optimize for ads would be a great boon for humanity.
[+] [-] dgerges|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] swiley|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pier25|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nip180|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] easton|5 years ago|reply
(the previous thread for the changes to Applebot).
[+] [-] nerdjon|5 years ago|reply
It is something I have wondered about for a long time, I am curious how they would handle it from a financial standpoint.
If they made it privacy focused, maybe no ads (probably a big maybe), and allowed anyone to use it (not just iOS). Could Apple search become the gateway to buying other Apple products like Google search has become for Google?
Plus any of the other benefits of building this (like improved Siri).
[+] [-] throwaway4good|5 years ago|reply
Google makes money by building a profile on every internet user and then uses those profiles to target advertisement.
Can Apple do something similar? Apple not so long ago offered iAd:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAd
[+] [-] GeekyBear|5 years ago|reply
>Despite massive size and overwhelming popularity, Apple has struggled to court Madison Avenue's influential media buyers, the people at advertising agencies who decide where to spend the budgets of the world's biggest brands.
According to a new report form Ad Age's Kate Kaye, this issue is due in large part to the company's refusal to share valuable consumer data with its advertising partners, meaning that brands are not able to pinpoint prospective customers with nearly the same precision as they can advertising with Facebook and Google.
Here's how Kaye said one executive described Apple's decision not to provide information about individual consumers to its advertising partners on the iAd network, which sells in-app ads on iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch devices:
"One person familiar with the situation exec said Apple's refusal to share data makes it the best-looking girl at the party, forced to wear a bag over her head."
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-people-think-apples-ad-17...
[+] [-] nip180|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] usefulcat|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Game_Ender|5 years ago|reply
Leveraged properly all the OS level use from iOS could provide a lot of signal on which to build a search product.
If only Apple’s was able to do so for speech recognition.
[+] [-] cliverani|5 years ago|reply