Re:Apple’s Social Network
by reaperducer on Monday November 05, 2018 @02:29PM
(#18385142)
I think the single biggest thing they could do to get to $2T is build their own search engine, and ditch google completely.
Based on the series of frustrating searches I did in iTunes last night, Apple either isn't working on this at all, or isn't using iTunes as a testbed.
Re:Apple’s Social Network
by cromwellian on Monday November 05, 2018 @01:16PM
(#18384537)
The search engine isn’t the only issue. I mean, the App Store allows Facebook and a bonanza of other privacy violating apps.
Apple to some extent launders responsibility for extremely useful services that require or use personal data by outsourcing it to others.
Why not actually turn iMessage into a privacy preserving social network?
For the same reason, as with search, I think the difficulty is underestimated.
To me, the difference is Apple enables Google as the default search engine by default, for everyone, while the app store is stuff the user manually opts-in for by selecting what to install.
This is unlikely to happen but I'd certainly like to see it happen, as Duck Duck Go simply does not work as a substitute for me, and I don't know that Bing is any better than Google privacy-wise. If Microsoft can make Bing, Apple can certainly make Apple Search - they have plenty of cash to throw at the problem.
I like DDG, although I still need to use Google every now and then. Apple could acquire and improve DDG instead of building an engine from scratch
Building a search engine to replace Google is too hard for even Apple to pull off. Maybe in the future there will be a different approach to solve the search problem and Apple could so sth about it. For now it is not possible.
Apple is not a small startup anymore, it can not even replicate DDG
It may be easier than maps - which I am not sure about. But the attempt at maps will most likely have dampened their lust for a similar endeavor.
Re:Apple’s Social Network
by amazingman on Monday November 05, 2018 @02:26PM
(#18385124)
I think we’re seeing Apple asymmetrically addressing this issue, by aggressively seeking to reduce Google’s (or really anyone’s) ability to track individuals via web technologies. At least for users of Safari.
If they just built their own search engine and used it as default, and it provided high quality un-manipulated results, I think even more would flock to Apple. Yes they'd take a (big) hit up front by losing out on all of that free Google money (estimated to be ~$12B in 2019), but then they could actually say with a straight face they were truly privacy advocates and won't sell their users data to Google via the Google Search Engine.
Saying how privacy conscious a company is, while literally making billions of dollars by indirectly selling a lot of their customers data, really rings hollow with me. Build a search engine. It's not as hard as building Apple Maps, and will do more good in many ways. Hell, even non-Apple people might use Apple search and fall in love with the results, bringing them into the Apple fold.