After Mozilla inked the deal with Yahoo, the eyes turned to Apple and its Safari browser. Currently, the default search engine is Google on both iOS and OSX, although Bing is the primary engine used for other functions, like Siri and Spotlight. Until early 2015, they are tied into a contract with Google for those two browsers, but who will get the new contract?
Apparently Yahoo and Microsoft have both approached the company for the position, and Apple is not ruling any of the three out. Probably the most interesting part is how Yahoo is genuinely taking the search business seriously. The deal with Mozilla is fairly long-term, and with Yahoo approaching Apple as well, it probably was not just charity on Mozilla's part because no-one else wanted to be Firefox's default. Yahoo would probably need some significant monetary backing for an Apple deal, which suggests the same for their deal with Mozilla.
If both Mozilla and Apple leave Google, it will take a significant chunk out of the search engine. Power users, like those who read this site, will likely be unaffected if they care, because of how low the barrier is to change the default search engine. On the other hand, even the most experienced user will often accept default settings until there is a reason to change. The winning party will need to have a good enough product to overcome that initial shock.
But the money will at least give them a chance when the decision comes into effect. That is, unless the barrier to changing default search engines is less than the barrier to changing default web browsers.
Google will always be default on Google Chrome.
Well, you could say that of
Well, you could say that of the 3 options, only Yahoo isn’t a competitor of Apple, but Apple seems to have always been very concerned with the image it has in the eyes of non-powerusers, so I can’t really imagine them setting anything but the best- which is unquestionably Google- as the default.
The few times I’ve tried Bing, the results struck me as geared very much towards users in USA, while Google does a much better job indexing things relevant to my small, European homeland.
The incredible lack of
The incredible lack of competition in web search is really creepy. Google now has a power of censorship, regardless of whether they use it or not, that is beyond Orwellian.
If Google wishes it, it can make it as if a news story or scandal never existed for a vast majority of the global population.
That’s a bit far
That’s a bit far fetched.
Most people frequent one news website or another and people will share important stories on social media and offline conversations (those do still exist, right?)
I doubt bing can deliver what
I doubt bing can deliver what google do!what is bing missing ?time aggregation of search!(hour,24hour,week ,month)yes bing get some but not enough to warrant bing as default!don’t get me wrong,bing is awesome but it lack the main feature that make google
With the resources that Apple
With the resources that Apple has, I a little surprised they don’t walk away from this and have one of their own.