How a supposed Apple search engine could look like
The Financial Times says Apple has likely been working for some time on its own search engine in a bid to steal quota from Google, which in many countries has market shares of over 90%, giving it an alternative as its arrangements with the Mountain View company to make its search engine the default option on Apple devices comes under antitrust scrutiny, and backed by the idea of a search option that respects user privacy.
The latest version of the iPhone operating system, iOS 14, displays its own search results by linking directly to web pages when the user types in queries. Add to the equation the hiring, two years ago, of Google’s executive John Giannandrea, and heavy activity recently of the company’s search agent, Applebot, so it could be the rumors, in the midst of an extremely secretive company like Apple, could be well-founded.
Apple has long been committed to privacy as a fundamental human right and as one its products’ differential value. On numerous occasions, CEO Tim Cook has declared his commitment to privacy, attacking what he calls “the industrial data complex”, without specifically mentioning companies such as Google, Facebook and other data brokers, and placing provocative advertisements at industry conventions such as the Las Vegas CES, as well as going so far as to challenge the FBI itself by refusing to provide a back door to obtain information from its devices when investigating terrorism and other major crimes.
What chance would an Apple search engine have in an environment monopolized by Google? Creating a search engine is an extremely complex task: in addition to generating a huge database with an updated copy of all the pages to be indexed, something Google has been constantly innovating for more than 20 years, it is necessary to create an algorithm that develops the concept of relevance. In this case, Google has already been moving away for some time from its original algorithms — which above all, valued social components such as inbound links — to criteria based on the quality of information and the use of machine learning to try to understand what users are really looking for, but undoubtedly has also travelled more road and accumulated data than anyone in the industry.
On the other hand, and in spite of Google’s efforts to offer greater transparency, many people are suspicious of the amount of information the company has about them as a result not only of the use of its search tools, but of others, such as its email, documents, maps, etc.
In previous attempts to compete with Google products, Apple has experienced difficult moments, for example, the disastrous launch of Apple Maps, which led to the departure from the company of one of its vice presidents, Scott Forstall. After that episode, the company’s mapping product was significantly improved with successive redesigns, and it has positioned itself as the third most used mapping application after Google Maps and Waze. However, we should remember that we are talking about a product conditioned by the use of Apple devices, which in many countries is relatively limited, something that would not necessarily be the case with a search engine.
A search engine that respects user privacy could be attractive to a significant part of the market. However, we are talking about deeply rooted use that depends fundamentally on the quality of the results obtained with its use. It could be argued that Google is capable of providing users with better results precisely because of the information it has about us, which wouldn’t apply to Apple. And although the rise of Google in the late 1990s clearly demonstrated the scarce value of loyalty in this area, there is no doubt that it would be difficult to beat the incumbent precisely in the area that it considers the most strategic and definitive.
That said, were Apple to launch its own search engine and take on a giant like Google, there would be huge interest in watching the ensuing fight.
