Safari already comes with DuckDuckGo as a suggested search engine, and all it takes is Apple flipping a switch for users that use the default search engine, and most of that traffic would go to DDG instead of Google.

Many Apple users are pragmatic, and don't care as long the search engine returns the results they want.

I've been using DDG for years, and it could be DDG has gotten better, or Google has gotten worse, but where i've occasionally had to do a "!g whatever" search to get google results because DDG made no sense, i actually often get better results with DDG these days.

It could be that you've adapted your search style to DDG as well. I tried making the switch, and my god was it frustrating.

I'm having the same experience as GP. I haven't changed my search style since the early 2000s, and Google search seems basically unusable for me at this point.

I doubt 90% of people even have a search style. They are just searching to get to a brand’s website they might not know the exact spelling for. Or searching for a product sold by a limited amount of retailers.

Yes, the first line item you mention is rumored to be true. Apple has been apparently working on a search engine. Given their desire to subtly influence social mores while bowing out of true progressive change (beyond LGBTQ+ lip service and pretending to adopt diversity policies), while manifesting total inability to move past their puritanical fear of adult content or basically anything outside the superficial normie sphere of influence, I doubt it will be nuanced or have enough of a "wow factor" to be any better than AltaVista circa 1998 or to scoop up any following. Lol Siri can't even perform contextually relevant suggestive searches or respond in kind back with cues after giving a static response to a query. To think they have the bargaining power to compete with Google is silly, but it shows how Google just wants to throw money at this market (iOS devices) and fears the potential for a competitor to actually release a competing product.

Think different ™ *

* unless the think is too different

> Lol Siri can't even perform contextually relevant suggestive searches or respond in kind back with cues after giving a static response to a query

Siri doesn't know a thing about you, that's why you get "static responses".

Unlike Google, which uploads _everything_ to the cloud, most (if not all) of Apple's AI/Location/data mining stuff happens "on device", and it stays on that device. If you buy a new phone/tablet/computer, you're starting from scratch again, relearning frequent locations, charging habits, etc. The data isn't even backed up, so restoring your phone from a backup also means starting from scratch.

With iOS 15, Siri is also moving "on device", so i guess it has the means to become smarter (personalized) now, when it can actually do (on device) data mining. Still not backed up though, so new phone still means you start over.

Why don't they move the data from device to device?

Google isn't the company that throws 18B at a problem if it doesn't believe that not doing so wouldn't pose a substantial business risk.

Yes I don't understand it either. There is zero serious competition to Google, so it would be a very hard sell for Apple to switch their users to a worse search engine.

The fact that Google is still unparalleled is also a mystery: why can't Bing be good? Why can't Amazon, or Apple with all their money, replicate the Google experience? This is weird.

I don't know if I believe that. It sounds too similar to: "Building a decent search engine requires index data. Altavista has a bigger index, so Altavista is better. Simple."

Well that was true once. But people have higher standards for search engines now that they don't want to go through every result by hand, and therefore the main thing they're after is the ranking algorithm not the search algorithm.

Right, and maybe for the next generation of search engines it'll be something else again. Having the most query/clickstream data is what counts now, but there's no guarantee it will always count the most.

Would most user even realise they are on a different search engine? Or would they care about it enough when majority of it are now coming from Siri Search.

And if Apple partner with Bing and make an Apple's branded search engine ( like Yahoo ) while Bing pays ~$5B+ to Apple? Would user notice the results were slightly worse?

And Google lose 20% of user search traffic, and these 20% user base also happens to generate 30%+ of Ads revenue. i.e They are worth a bit more than others.

Switching from one search engine to a strictly inferior one will be a hard sell to customers, but going from one search engine to a superior one privacy wise but inferior one results wise is justifiable.

So they could send users to Bing, but I think it's more likely they'll send users to an Apple-branded frontend to Bing (or some other "privacy-first" frontend to an existing search engine).

Google need Apple user’s click stream data to rank the search results?

Losing $15B suddenly is indeed a massive threat. Apple shares would be bearish next day.

So would Google's share if they lost overnight the exclusive status of being the primary search engine, even more so than Apple.