MG Siegler speculating about Apple replacing Google as the default search engine with Bing:
Microsoft needs Apple to make Bing relevant. Apple needs Microsoft in order to stop paying Google billions. This is so obvious. I think we may see a Google-free iPhone sooner, rather than later.
I’ve already spoken about how I like Bing on my iOS devices, but I think there is another option towards removing Google from iOS and Apple alike.
I mentioned that Yahoo! should buy DuckDuckGo, but what if the suitor was Apple?
Think about this for a moment: what if Apple used a fraction of the cash they have on hand to buy two companies:
- DuckDuckGo
- Wolfram Alpha
Then they turn those two search engines into one and the same search engine — powered by Apple — and only available to Apple customers. It’s now the default on iOS and Mac OS X — it would become instantly excellent and widely used.
Apple would also have two options here:
- Give it away free as a thanks for being a customer — they can afford to.
- They could place one or two ads on the results using iAds, thus making up what they spent to buy the companies in a few years time.
Think about this a little more: not only would this be a blow Google, but to Microsoft as well. This would give people a true reason to use iOS and the Mac, it would keep money out of competitors hands, and would be a game changer.
I have no clue if this a business Apple wants to be in, but I would bet that at least one (DuckDuckGo) of these two companies would match up very nicely with Apple.1
Alternatively I could see Apple convincing Bing to allow a fully Apple-branded results page and I could further see Microsoft being OK with that for a bit, but that prospect is far less exciting.
Man, I hope this happens. ↩