Apple to Shed Google for Bing on iPhone, Redux
One of my favorite angles in the blooming Apple versus Google war is the rumor/theory that Apple could jettison Google as the default search engine on its iPhone. That rumor, which started in earnest back in January when BusinessWeek cited sources saying Apple was mulling moving to Bing on iPhone, has new life in the wake of some great screenshots iLounge posted of the iPhone OS 4.0. MacRumors zeroed in on the point that Apple replaced the "Google" branding from the search button in the lower right corner with "Search" in Apple's Safari mobile browser. Here is MacRumors' side-by-side:
Conspiracy theorists love to surmise that this means Apple is finally shedding Google. So what doesn't sit right with this? Well, first of all, Google is the preferred search service in Apple's hot new iPad tablet. iPad uses the "Search" button on the keyboard. The brand "Google" does appear in the search window itself in Safari. So my guess is this is a design change Apple is making to summarily spite and distance itself from Google. Perhaps, as Henry Blodget suggested, Apple is really building its own search engine for the iPhone. My gut tells me Apple, which got beaten to the altar by Google for AdMob (though that deal is far from certain thanks to the FTC's meddling), would love to rid itself of any ties to Google. But Google is the world's preferred search engine, with 65 percent market share in the U.S. and as much as 85 percent share in other countries. Making anything but Google the default search engine on iPhone or iPad would be stupid, and if Apple did substitute Bing (11.7 percent share in the U.S.) it would have to provide an easy button to let iPhone users switch to Google. Apple knows this. Barring any default search switch, the company can certainly abstain from promoting Google on the device, which is likely why Apple has replaced "Google" with the generic "search" term. Not a big deal, but another sign of the increasingly chilly relations between the two companies. If Google and Microsoft are battling for the desktop Web, Apple and Google are the leading powers in the mobile Web war. How exciting! |
Comments (7)
Wait.. doesn't "Google" mean "Search"?
Posted by vetinary | April 12, 2010 8:36 AM
I think they should stick with google. I like google 100x's more than Bing. Don't change it Apple! G00GL3 4 L1F3!!
Posted by Big B | April 12, 2010 9:35 AM
I think we should respect Apple's decision to re-design the search key. For me it's really more general as compare to put google because it's like promoting your rival in business (though in other product line) as also mentioned from the post.
Posted by ianemv | April 12, 2010 12:02 PM
My default search is Bing, and I don't miss Google Search at all. I suspect that most iPhone users wouldn't miss it either. IMHO, most people use Google Search as a matter of habit, not because they have tried Bing and decided that the former was superior.
Posted by JohnJ | April 12, 2010 12:17 PM
They can switch the default to Bing if they want, most people will manually switch it back to Google.
Google>>>>>>>bing
Posted by mathieu | April 12, 2010 1:47 PM
Bing is absolutely hopeless outside US.
Posted by Jesper | April 12, 2010 5:24 PM
well, i try everything (i'm using chrome for mac right now as my browser, for example, and tried out 13 other browsers this year).
bing's not bad, and i have silverlight installed, but i prefer google for the same reason i perfer iphone: it's a whole ecosystem, with and ever-growing number of apps that do all sorts of cool/useful things, and those things work very well together.
anyway, you can also look at this in reverse: apple's tacit acknowledgement that google and search are so closely linked that the name "google" is not even needed.
not saying that's true, but more that we're all just guessing.
Posted by iquanyin | April 16, 2010 11:18 AM