News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by fluidcruft on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @08:50AM (#24918117)
Yeah, great. A search engine that will somehow require me to buy Apple hardware.
Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by lopis on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @09:02AM (#24918215)
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.

Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by marta_morena_28 on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @11:37AM (#24919993)
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 ;(.
Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by xdavidliu on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @11:39AM (#24920020)
> Websites are totally diluted with ridiculous amount of useless blabla become SEO is the way.

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

Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by lopis on Tuesday November 10, 2020 @03:55AM (#25043975)
> Websites are totally diluted with ridiculous amount of useless blabla because SEO is the way.

My bad.

Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by rootusrootus on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @08:54AM (#24918147)
At least it gives you the option to choose. Some people will be more willing to pay directly rather than endure ads.
Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by blocked_again on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @08:55AM (#24918152)
Some people just use adblock.
Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by chongli on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @09:14AM (#24918326)
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.
Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by zouhair on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @09:59AM (#24918775)
Why do you think Apple would not do that?
Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by chongli on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @12:31PM (#24920773)
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.

Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by simonh on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @10:57AM (#24919469)
We simply don’t know.
Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by srtjstjsj on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @11:27AM (#24919853)
Will Apple let me see website that "replicate iOS's built-in functionality" or fail review, or don't pay a $100/yr listing fee?
Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by rootusrootus on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @09:00AM (#24918192)
And some people consider that theft.
Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by blocked_again on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @12:44PM (#24920940)
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.
Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by rootusrootus on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @10:18AM (#24918965)
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.
Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by travisgriggs on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @11:08AM (#24919611)
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.

Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by xenocratus on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @10:32AM (#24919131)
> vote with your wallet

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?

Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by brlewis on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @11:29AM (#24919884)
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.
Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by srtjstjsj on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @11:30AM (#24919897)
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.

Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by ogre_codes on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @11:27AM (#24919858)
> 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.

Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by fluidcruft on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @08:58AM (#24918179)
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.
Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by blago on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @09:03AM (#24918225)
Why is this such a heinous crime? You are not required to do anything.
Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by foldr on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @09:10AM (#24918293)
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.
Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by GeekyBear on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @09:29AM (#24918489)
I'm not sure why you think this is so.

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

Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by izacus on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @09:31AM (#24918510)
All of these services are severely limited, crippled and provide worse experience if you don't buy Apple hardware.
Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by lotsofpulp on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @09:46AM (#24918652)
How is iCloud, music, tv, and maps crippled? I haven’t used it on non macOS or iOS machines so I am curious.
Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by spsful on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @09:56AM (#24918747)
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.

Edit: made it easier to read

Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by nvrspyx on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @10:04AM (#24918840)
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.

Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by GeekyBear on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @10:12AM (#24918906)
> 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.

Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by tolle on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @10:44AM (#24919283)
iClouds calendar and contacts used to just be CardDAV and CalDAV. Has that changed?
Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by ripply on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @11:36AM (#24919987)
It still uses CalDAV (not sure about CardDAV), it is just difficult to get the URLs as it involves watching network requests on the iCloud webapp.
Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by GeekyBear on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @09:35AM (#24918560)
How would a search engine be "severely limited, crippled, and provide a worse experience" when used from a web browser?
Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by somurzakov on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @09:46AM (#24918663)
what if search engine will require you to sign-in with apple ID
Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by GeekyBear on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @10:06AM (#24918855)
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.

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

Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by izacus on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @04:05PM (#24923518)
> Apple pretty famously goes out of it's way to not collect that sort of privacy busting user data in the first place.

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 :/

Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by GeekyBear on Thursday October 29, 2020 @06:24AM (#24928929)
What do you imagine that does?
Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by pletsch on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @10:00AM (#24918779)
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.

Re:Apple building search engine to take on Google, report cl... by saos on Wednesday October 28, 2020 @11:26AM (#24919840)
And use safari :)