What If Apple Running Their Own Search Engine?

What do you think when Apple started running their own search engine? Yes. I know it will not be easy for Apple to compete with Google Search but with many people around the world are using Apple product (MacBook, iPhone, iPad and others), surely it can capture the market with ease.

Small corners of the internet are ablaze with the news that Apple has significantly ramped up its search bot activity. Search bots typically scan websites in order to rank and index them for search engine results. When you look for something on a search engine, the results that appear are ordered by “ranking”, meaning that the result that is most accurate to what you are looking for appears at the top. 

This increase in activity also appears alongside pressure from the UK competition commission to break up Apple’s multi-billion dollar sweetheart deal with Google. The deal ensures that Google is the default search engine for Apple’s iOS devices. Many are now anticipating that Apple is on track to launch its own search engine soon.

I'm sure this will bring much fanfare to all Apple user who are frustrated with the things running behind when using Google Search. Most people that I know already feel suspicious about Google and their technology. They feel that Google are watching all their track and feed them to the third party.

Apple’s search engine will have a different future if rumors about its business model are true. Apple has been focusing heavily on user privacy recently, including but not limited to, publicly refusing to give secret access to its devices to the FBI. It will be very much in line with this “privacy-first” position that Apple chooses not to make money from advertising, which involves exposing customer usage data to third parties. 

Instead, it could simply sell more of its highly profitable devices and subscriptions to privacy-conscious customers. By not following Google’s footsteps, Apple does not have to engage with the search giant on its terms.

With its latest iOS 14 update, Apple has already started swapping out Google search results in favor of its own. Most iOS users have barely noticed the change for all the reasons given above. But this silent swapping does not come without its own set of challenges. By defaulting to its search engine instead of Google on its devices, Apple will open itself to monopoly criticism from competition commissions in a variety of markets. It is also likely to upset the advertising industry who could lose their reach to Apple customers. The Apple customer base is a coveted one thanks to its better than average buying power, and by making it easier for users to avoid search ads, Apple might just create a tectonic shift in the advertising industry as a whole. 

Google’s dominance on internet search will not come to an end with Apple’s entry into the foray, but it would definitely weaken in the face of increasing consumer preference for privacy. Given that Google’s business model differs dramatically from Apple’s, it is likely that the search giant would have to learn to uncomfortably live with its rival’s search engine instead of pivoting to compete with it head-on.