Google reportedly pays billions of dollars every year to Apple to remain the default search engine in Safari. According to the latest reports, Apple is likely developing its own search engine to take on Google Search. If everything goes as per the plan, the $2 trillion US company might not renew its deal next time.
As per the job listings posted on Apple’s website, it’s clearly evident that it is developing a search engine. The company is looking for search engineers with expertise in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). With the iOS 14 beta and iPadOS 14 beta, the company is completely bypassing Google while showing search results within Spotlight Search.
Apple likely developing its own search engine to take on Google
Apple’s in-house web crawler Applebot is powering those search results. The support page updated in July 2020 also suggests Applebot is going to work similarly to Google Search. As per the report, it even started crawling websites regularly in recent times. Instead of just crawling HTML, Applebot will render pages just like Google.
More than competing with Google, Apple might need its own search engine to avoid regulatory scrutiny. Last month, the UK Competition and Markets Authority said the deal between Apple and Google created “a significant barrier to entry and expansion for rivals” in the search engine market.
Google enjoys 92.17 percent market share
In 2019, Google paid $1.5 billion to Apple to be the default search engine on iPhones in the UK. Google dominates the search engine market with a whopping 92.17 percent market share. Microsoft’s Bing and Verizon’s Yahoo comes in at second and third place with 2.78 percent and 1.6 percent market share respectively.
Being the most used search engine, Google collects a lot of data to show targeted ads to users. With Apple’s several privacy-focused initiatives in the last few years, its upcoming search engine might also work completely different from Google search. More importantly, Apple already blocks user tracking on its safari browser.
Instead of using its search engine for showing ads, the company might make it work similarly to Google Assistant with highly personalized results. It will likely help the company to promote its own services like Apple News+ and Apple TV+.
With over a billion devices in its arsenal, Apple will have a huge user base when it debuts its own search engine. Obviously, it will be the default search engine in the Safari browser on iPhones, iPads, and Macbooks.