The apple brand has just won paternity on a patent that gives even more credit to the idea that Apple will develop its own search engine in the coming years. Already since the release of iOS 14 the Financial Post noted that some searches carried out from the home screen found an answer in internal links, proposed by Apple, without the intervention of the search engine number 1 in the world.
For Bill Coughran, the former chief engineering officer of Google, who is now a partner of Silicon Valley investor Sequoia Capital, it is very likely that Apple will develop its own search engine . The hypothesis is, at least, not to be ruled out. “Apple has a credible team who I think have the experience and the depth, if they wanted to, to build a search engine,” he recently said.
The basic system of Apple’s search engine would be based on a “note” or a “score” depending on the sources, the latter would rank websites from the best to the lowest. This score would essentially be calculated in relation to the influence of the site and the traffic generated there.
Is Google’s monopoly at its worst?
If the idea of coming to compete with Google is more than ambitious, as the firm of Larry Page and Sergey Brin has imposed itself over the last two decades , it comes perhaps at the best time. Indeed, Google is targeted, like other GAFAs, by major “anti-trust” campaigns. Their domination of the Web seems to be coming to an end, as Menlo Park’s search engine has become too powerful, leaving no room for competition.
If Apple undergoes the same type of investigation for its own areas of undivided domination (the App Store being at the center of many criticisms), the Apple brand could very well benefit from this weakening of Google to offer its own solution. It would then be seen as an opening up of the market and a boon to competition by the main defenders of antitrust laws.
But Apple could above all take even more lead in its software and hardware system. If the Apple brand, which already offers its own browser with Safari, adds a “house” search engine, the latter’s capabilities can become very interesting in the Apple “ecosystem”, which would be even more successful.
Apple has demonstrated this perfectly with the release of its M1 processor for brand new Macs . An Apple product always works better when it is equipped with solutions, both hardware and software, from the Apple factories. The creation of a search engine would further enrich the ecosystem of the Apple, and could thus improve the user experience.
