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.
DuckDuckGo uses Apple Maps, so it wouldn't be uncharacteristic for Apple to sell usage of it's search API to other companies, and compete with Bing and Yandex in that market.
Is more of the cost burden on creating and maintaining the index or serving queries? Is it possible that serving queries to everyone would be worth it just to build the brand?
Arguably, and this would be an antitrust concern, IMHO, but they could serve ads... but only to non-Apple devices.
That anti-trust concern could easily be wiped out by giving non-Apple devices the chance to opt-out by paying a flat-fee of maybe 100$. Then they can say that Apple devices include this upfront cost already (which they kinda do, since they are ridiculously overpriced).
Depends on what you mean by "intercepting". You can do that now on Google AdWords if you're will to out spend anyone else for those keywords like 'Android'. In that instance, all it means is that an ad for your product appears when someone searches your rival. In fact, I'm pretty sure this SOP for marketing teams.
If you mean replace any relevant search results for 'Android' with 'iPhone 12' and/or 'iOS 14', then yeah, that would be pretty egregious. However, I can't see that actually happening for a couple of reasons. 1) it would be so obvious it was happening that there's no denying it, 2) it would be so damaging that it would be a service killer as it's all anyone would talk about and never trust it
You are assuming this would be operated at a loss. Apple could sell their own advertising. Or if it's good enough, just use it to make the iPhone experience better. Ad free search would be a pretty nice feature if results are top Q.
Also assumes the DOJ/ court systems/ legislation isn't going to block this kind of deal regardless.
(The press has been talking about an Apple search engine on and off for 5 years so I'm skeptical).
Same as Maps etc. With their phones etc they are in the business of building a personal digital assistant. If they managed to couple search with a decent ontological model of the world, they might be able to build something quite special. "Search" is one, rather simple application for the knowledge they are spidering.
This is not a new idea - it was pretty much Google's original mission statement, ISTR.
The difference is that Google funds that search engine by ads and the only reason Apple's engine would be worth using is to reduce the ads, which means raising the price of Apple's already expensive products, or giving away profit.
> Have it as a sort-of loss-leader, a bit like their OS is effectively a loss leader for their hardware sales?
Seems reasonable!
> That would of course suggest a search that would require Apple hardware.
People performing actual searches has to be one of the lower cost factors of creating a search engine, at least for a long time. Unless it completely explodes, which I find very doubtful considering Googles position, and also considering Apples deep pockets, I don't think Apple will be in a big hurry to shut the gates. Additionally I can totally see Apple doing heavy integration with it's systems and actually using this potential search engine to upsell people into their ecosystem.
On the other hand Apple might happily accept those payments for now, but realize that they won't keep coming forever.
It's quite possible that DOJ antitrust action would prevent Google from paying to be a preferred search engine in the future. Once Google isn't paying you, why not provide your own search engine (and cut Google off from that valuable data stream)?
Or Google turns sates evidence and blames that nasty monopolist Apple for extracting the Vig from them, and suggests that Apple must have a ballot in Mac OS and IOS a bit like MS
Given that Google also pays Mozilla about the same amount, it would be hard to prove that Apple's "extracting" it from them. Google very much wants to be able to pay all the browser makers to be the search engine of choice. Nobody has to extract anything from them.
Absolutely, but I really doubt that Apple will just shrug its shoulders about the lost profits and throw in an ad-free search engine for the price an iPhone.
My prediction is that they will try to monetise this somehow. And the most likely way to do this is via some privacy friendly advertising model (or an ad/subscription hybrid). They're already doing it with Apple News.
> unlike Google, it’s not reliant on advertising income, which benefits from personalized data with which to target users.
I'm unsure as to whether they would seriously create a new ad platform, but a key tenant of the company's culture is not relying on advertising for revenue.
They did exactly this when they ditched Google Maps, turning down billions of dollars in revenue, spending billions of dollars to build out their own service, simply to prevent Google harvesting Apple user location data.
That’s true, but it doesn’t mean Apple
won’t or can’t do the same thing with search as they did maps. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t, but they do have a track record of doing right by their users.
BTW their maps revenue from Google was a bigger share of total revenue when they gave it up than their search revenue is now.
How much money would ads that are broadly targeted (city, gender, age bracket) like Google used to, be able to make relative to the uber personalized Google/Favebook ads?
A very, very small amount of your search queries would be even tangentially related to Apple. Right now, Google has all the incentive of directing traffic away from quality websites and onto pages that fit their plans. AMP gets promoted to reward publishers who publish content in a strict Google -flavoured format. Pages with Google ads can be promoted if Google detects good ad engagement in them. Websites are totally diluted with ridiculous amount of useless blabla become SEO is the way. Just try to find any recipe these days. Virtually all pages make you scroll through 50 paragraphs of foreplay before the actual content appears.
I dislike Apple. I'll never buy Apple. But Apple might just create the best search engine there is, with the right incentives.
Interesting, right? I wonder who actually reads all this filler material. If I can't seem to find what I was looking for on a website within one or two seconds I click back and check the next one. If everyone would do that, sites that organize their information like an attention blackhole, would very soon disappear ;(.
Ad-blockers can only remove content you don’t want to see. What they can’t do is get Google to show you the results they’ve buried on page N because they’ve reinterpreted your query in order to steer you toward popular, commercial sites that happen to be Google’s partners.
We don't know. What we do know is that Apple generates their revenue from hardware sales, App Store commissions, and subscriptions to their music and tv services. Google generates most of their revenue from ads.
I took the above information and hazarded an educated guess that Apple probably won't pivot into the ad business and attempt to compete against Google with a conventional ad-driven search engine. They might do that, but I think it's less likely.
The company has the option to stop providing their service to users who use adblock. And they have decided not to do that. If they don't have any issue I don't see why I should have any issue using adblock either.
Y'all are jumping through some serious mental hoops. Nobody on HN can claim to be naive enough not to understand the ad model of financing content, so ad blocking IS essentially theft. Avoid the content if you find the means of paying for it objectionable; vote with your wallet.
I don't follow this argument. Let's pretend I was using a "normal" browser with no extensions. Would I then face the moral dilemma of how long to look at the ads? Or how often to click on them?
The more I make use of the ads, the more I contribute financially (either directly or indirectly) to the bottom line of the content provider, the more I support them. So when I gloss over those ads without fully engaging with them, am I then committing theft as well?
Invoking a "moral" argument about theft here, begs the question, are ads themselves moral? When I read site X, I am not thinking "and as a nice side bonus, it would be cool if they could throw in a side bar making me aware of a miracle drug that will cure my insecurity by the size of my penis." The whole point of ads is basically to trick/deceive me into buying something I had no intention of purchasing originally. Is that not theft?
I know "two wrongs don't make a right", but since morality is relative these days anyway, when I enter a market place (which is what the ad driven economy is) where the whole point is a contest between will you trick me into buying this or not, I figure it's survival of the trickiest.
And that's exactly what I intend to do. If something is masquerading as free but uses that to actually sell my attention/trust to other parties, then I don't see why I can't masquerade as a client that's willing to be subjected to that but only takes the functionality. Make your cost upfront and clear and I will pay upfront and clear. If your business model involves a high degree of obscurity, my consumer behaviour will, as well.
Put it another way - is it theft to go to a company meeting where they serve pizza, just for the pizza?
When I look back at my life and think of the number of times I've taken a bathroom break during live TV commercials, or fast-forwarded commercials on my VCR, or switched to another radio station when commercials came on, it's a wonder I'm not in jail.
Why is it theft to block ads I didn't agree to see, but not theft for them to send ads I didn't agree to receive?
If they want, they can require me to answer a question about the ads they served before sending me content. Or they can put EULA in front of their content.
> Avoid the content if you find the means of paying for it objectionable; vote with your wallet.
There is a link at the top of this page.
How do I know whether it's riddled with trackers and obnoxious advertising based on that link? Yes, I can see it's Forbes so it's likely pretty bad. Am I supposed to keep an internal dictionary of link knowledge in my head for the hundreds of sites I interact with on a give week and "Vote with my wallet?" every time I click a link? That's ridiculous.
Apple will probably also demand a 30% cut on everything that can be purchased after found via their engine. Google will then follow suit because the cool kids are doing it.
Aren't you jumping to conclusions a bit here? Google search doesn't work only on Android and Chromebooks. I don't see how Apple would benefit from locking it down to their own devices.
As someone who has used tv on non-Apple devices I can say it works completely fine. It doesn't stream 4k like it would on apple devices, but it works fine.
- As for iCloud, their Windows client is a little lackluster. For example, the only way they can sync your iCloud calendar on Windows is by creating an Outlook plugin. So the only place I can view my iCloud calendar on my Windows computer is on the Outlook app.
- As for Music, the web player is completely fine. Not any less optimized than the Apple device versions. Would actually go further and say it looks MORE optimized than the mess of iTunes/"Music" on the Mac. Apple's native music app on the Mac has never been good.
- As for Maps, I don't think I've ever seen a web based version of it. Haven't seen a windows app variant either.
It might just be me, but Apple TV on the web is extremely slow and buggy.
Also, Windows lets you login into your iCloud account without the iCloud client, so you can still have your iCloud calendar (and emails) in the stock apps. I don't use the iCloud client because I don't use it to store files, but I still have my calendars and emails synced on my Windows desktop.
As for Maps, they don't really have a consumer facing web client, but they do let other websites embed Apple Maps. DuckDuckGo, for instance, uses Apple Maps for their maps.
> As someone who has used tv on non-Apple devices I can say it works completely fine. It doesn't stream 4k like it would on apple devices, but it works fine.
You can certainly buy televisions that have built in support for 4K, HDR, and Apple TV.
>As for iCloud, their Windows client is a little lackluster. For example, the only way they can sync your iCloud calendar on Windows is by creating an Outlook plugin. So the only place I can view my iCloud calendar on my Windows computer is on the Outlook app.
You can access your calendar and all the rest of iCloud directly through any web browser. Including productivity apps like Pages.
>As for Maps, I don't think I've ever seen a web based version of it.
DuckDuckGo uses Apple Maps instead of Google Maps now.
Apple pretty famously goes out of it's way to not collect that sort of privacy busting user data in the first place.
For instance, when Apple Maps uses user devices to update it's map data like Waze does:
>“We collect data — when we do it — in an anonymous fashion, in subsections of the whole, so we couldn’t even say that there is a person that went from point A to point B.
Neither the beginning or the end of any trip is ever transmitted to Apple. Rotating identifiers, not personal information, are assigned to any data or requests sent to Apple and it augments the “ground truth” data provided by its own mapping vehicles with this “probe data” sent back from iPhones.
Why is that a problem? You're not being forced to use it, I'm sure it will integrate beautifully into their systems, which is what Apple products are meant to do. If you don't like the ecosystem, don't use it.
Edit: Also, this is a lot of jumping to conclusions, Google can be used on any device, if Apple wants to compete, it will be usable on any device.
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.