At the time of this writing, there is no official announcement by Apple that they are working on or preparing to launch its own web-based search engine. And yet, some speculate that Apple may want to end its deal with Google that makes Google the default search engine on the iPhone. Reportedly this deal is over $12 billion a year! With all the conversation around ChatGPT and the New Bing powered by AI, it has never looked so advantageous for Apple to get into the search game. blow is our reasons to believe that Apple is readying a launch of their own web based search engine and what things you could be doing to be prepared.
Apple Invests a LOT in AI
You may find it hard to believe but Apple is the leading buyer of companies in the global artificial intelligence space, according to data shared by GlobalData. In fact, from 2016 to 2020, Apple acquired the highest number of AI companies, beating out Accenture, Google, Microsoft, and Meta. This kind of market activity has made many within the financial sector believe that Apple is working on a ChatGPT-esque search engine that could leverage its AI capabilities. According to Apple, their AI research and development is focused on creating “innovative and magical experiences” for its users across every product, while protecting their privacy and data. Some of the areas that we have already seen Apple utilize this investment includes accessibility, machine learning, speech, and natural language processing. Something that is specifically interesting about how Apple is approaching things like machine learning is on device computation versus cloud computation one of the things that has been reported on why Google has been late to the game in a ChatGPT-esque search engine update is due to the computational cost. If there’s any way Apple can leverage the user’s A-Series processor found in their phones to provide a ChatGPT-esque powered Siri 2.0, they will do it.
Applebot is on the Move
Applebot is Apple’s internal web crawler that collects website data for its products like Siri and Spotlight Suggestions. It is used to rank search results in order to deliver higher quality results. but it could also be used to power a web based search engine that could be a direct competitor to Google and Bing. What’s specifically interesting is that Applebot is very active in crawling the web, especially recently. Some website developers and search pundits have noticed a spike in Applebot activity, which suggests that Apple is scaling its efforts to index more websites as it builds a database. While this could be a sign that Apple is just improving its existing products that use Applebot, this could also be a sign that Apple is working on its own search engine.
Apple Has Hired Some Important Googlers…
There are two major hires that Apple has made in recent years that lead us to believe that Apple is serious about search. That first hire was John Giannandrea, Google’s former chief of search and artificial intelligence, who joined Apple in April 2018 as senior vice president of machine learning and AI strategy. the other is Samy Bengio, a former distinguished Google scientist who left the search giant amid turmoil in its artificial intelligence research department. That turmoil within Google’s artificial intelligence department started with the controversial dismissal of two ethical AI co-leads who reported to Samy Bengio, Timnit Gebru and Margaret Mitchell. Gebru was fired in December 2020 after she refused to retract a research paper that criticized Google’s large language models. Mitchell was fired in February 2021 after she used automated scripts to find evidence of discrimination against Gebru. Both firings sparked outrage and criticism from many Google employees and AI researchers, who accused Google of censorship and bias. Samy Bengio expressed his support for Gebru and Mitchell, and resigned from Google in April 2021 after 14 years, saying he could no longer work there. He joined Apple in May 2021 as a director of artificial intelligence research under John Giannandrea.
Apple Needs to Grow Services
One of the main reasons we believe that Apple will get into the search game at this point is due to their need to grow their services revenue. Growing their services has been a focus of Apple for years now and is becoming increasingly more important as their iPhone sales and (smartphone sales in general) start to slow. the search business is quite lucrative for Google’s parent company Alphabet, generating over $282 billion from Google search in 2022. If Apple’s theoretical web search web-based search engine was competent enough, they could easily take$12 billion a year away from Google’s business without having to receive that payment and actually own their own search engine at the same time. They could continue to grow their advertising division and drive up services revenue that way.
But it’s not just advertising that Apple could benefit from. Some other possible opportunities for Apple if they created their own web search engine would be:
- Apple could integrate its search engine with its other products and services, such as Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple News+, Apple Maps, Apple Pay, etc. This could create a more seamless and personalized experience for users across different platforms and devices.
- Apple could leverage its reputation for privacy and security to attract users who are concerned about their data and online activity being tracked and monetized by Google or other third-party advertisers. Apple could also offer more control and transparency over how users’ data is used and shared by its search engine.
- Apple could use its search engine to promote its own content and services, such as podcasts, books, apps, games, etc. This could increase the exposure and revenue of its content creators and developers, as well as enhance the value of its subscription-based services.
- Apple could use its search engine to innovate and experiment with new features and technologies that could improve the quality and relevance of search results, such as artificial intelligence, natural language processing, voice recognition, image recognition, etc. This could give Apple an edge over its competitors in terms of user satisfaction and engagement.
How Do You Prepare?
if you’re already a customer of mcnair media, you are ready to go! We have been optimizing for Applebot for our clients with our Voice SEO services, as well as our traditional search engine optimization services. Key things are to make sure that Applebot understands the content and context of your pages. Also, optimizing your site for speed, mobile friendliness, security, and accessibility. If you haven’t worked with us in a while or are unsure of whether your site is ready for such a change, you should reach out! We’d love to talk with you more about your site and how we can help grow your visibility on Apple devices as well as every other mobile and desktop device.
