Apple is said to be accelerating its efforts to create its own search engine, which will be launched on its products. Reports indicate that Apple is moving quickly to avoid getting caught up in the upcoming antitrust action against Google by the US government.
There's already early evidence from iOS 14, which launched last month, that Apple's search results are showing up when you use the device's home screen search box. The bottom line is whether Apple can pull this off and produce a full-fledged search engine.
Apple has of course said nothing about the matter , and it won’t say anything unless something is announced. The FT report suggests that the hiring of John Giannandrea, former head of Google’s search engine, in 2018 could mean that development of the search engine has begun. This means that Siri’s functionality could be improved with analysis from a dedicated search engine . It also points to recurring job advertisements for search engine-related developers . Additionally, those monitoring Applebot , Apple’s web crawler, have said that it has been more active in recent months, suggesting that it has moved beyond simply displaying Siri and Spotlight results .
Apple is currently paid between $8 billion and $12 billion a year by Google to be the default search engine on products . This has not gone unnoticed by the judges involved in Google’s upcoming antitrust battle with the US, who have called the deal an example of anticompetitive and exclusionary practices by Google. Although Apple is the beneficiary, not the defendant, it has been criticized for acting as Google’s “ally” by accepting terms .
While the DoJ's fight with Google is likely to drag on for years, Apple knows full well that it could lose all that money it's currently receiving from Google, so it makes sense that the company has chosen to play it safe and go it alone.
