The agreement that exists between Apple and Google is known to all and allows users to have the famous Google search engine on their iPhone by default. However, this deal may be in jeopardy right now, and Apple is already stepping up its efforts to create its own search engine.
Apple is already working on its own search engine
The fact that Apple is creating a new search engine is not entirely new. In 2014, evidence was found that its own tracked was being used and in 2015 Apple officially confirmed the existence of Applebot. Although, until today this had remained as a simple internal crawler but the idea had not been taken that it would be implemented as a search engine established to use in the browser. Now, from the Cupertino company they have had to get fully with this development after the threats with their contract with Google.
Right now Google pays Apple around $ 10 billion to make its browser the default in the ecosystem . This is a large amount of money that you are trying to achieve to have the best market share right now. The problem that is emerging now is not that Google wants to break the contract, but that it could be anti-competitive. Right now this agreement is being studied by antitrust regulators, since it could be violating different normal by not offering users to be able to switch to another browser initially. This can end up causing Apple to be unable to renew its agreement with Google and have to take action on it. Obviously the Cupertino company would lose several million in revenue but it would also be left without a default browser. That is why the company is intensifying work on its own search engine before this possibility that has been opened.
Different appointments have been made in the FT report reinforcing the idea of this development. Specifically in iOS 14 a feature has been included that has gone unnoticed. As of this version, it has been seen that the operating system is showing its own search results that show that it is working in this regard.
If we are objective, Apple is one of the few companies that has the capacity to create a new search engine that can compete with the Google search engine. Obviously this has a lot of internal connotations for Apple, as it will have to do a search log and possibly profit from it to try to have the income that it is receiving right now from Google. There are many times that Apple has repeated that in no case do they try to earn income with user information and this in the end would be somewhat contradictory. What is clear is that they must have an alternative in the event that they cannot use Google as the default browser, or simply give the option to choose between several in the first place.