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.

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.

They also have app store search. So odds of it being ad free are zero.

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

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).

This is not a new idea - it was pretty much Google's original mission statement, ISTR.

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.

I could see them coming up with some sort of privacy friendly ad targeting system using on-device matching or differential privacy.

So they solve the privacy problem but there will still be ads (unless you buy their "Apple Ad Free Experience" service for $10 per month)

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)?

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.

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.

BTW their maps revenue from Google was a bigger share of total revenue when they gave it up than their search revenue is now.

Apple made over a quarter trillion dollars in profits in 2019 (https://www.statista.com/statistics/267728/apples-net-income...), and gets somewhere around $10B from Google. (https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/21/apple-services-success-story...)

They can certainly afford to ditch the partnership.

I dislike Apple. I'll never buy Apple. But Apple might just create the best search engine there is, with the right incentives.

Can you rephrase this sentence? There's a point you're making in this sentence that I'm not getting, and I would like to. Thanks

My bad.

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 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?

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.

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.

iCloud, Apple Music, Apple TV and Apple Maps, for instance, are all accessible from the web.

- 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.

Edit: made it easier to read

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.

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.

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.

https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/29/apple-is-rebuilding-maps-f...

It also enables Apple Ad tracking by default on iOS / iPadOS so please don't mix Apples' marketing with actual state of things in the world :/

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.