Consistency is Apple’s main motivation given for switching the results from Microsoft’s Bing to Google in these cases. Safari on Mac and iOS already currently use Google search as the default provider, thanks to a deal worth billions to Apple (and Google) over the last decade. This change will now mirror those results when Siri, the iOS Search bar or Spotlight is used.
“Switching to Google as the web search provider for Siri, Search within iOS and Spotlight on Mac will allow these services to have a consistent web search experience with the default in Safari,” reads an Apple statement sent this morning. “We have strong relationships with Google and Microsoft and remain committed to delivering the best user experience possible.”
Interesting move. The only logical move, of course – Bing is terrible – but still interesting if you look at the relationship between Apple and Google.
Bing is terrible, i know Google like to collect data but i would love for apple to throw out Apple maps and replace this with google maps.
The ability to download and with much better direction/navigation (Apple maps has on numerous times got stuck in a loop, turn left, turn left etc..) is why i use the google maps app all the time, however it would be nice to have this more tightly integrated into iOS and the apple watch.
Bing is terrible everywhere, but pretty good in the USA.
Here in The Netherlands I only use Bing for it’s Image Search which is better than Googles, though not by much anymore
With Yahoo soon “gone” and now Apple “gone” as the two big reasons why Bing was still alive, all that Bing has left now is “Edge-Default” and that shouldn’t be enough to keep it alive.
There already is hardly any competition for Google’s search engine, so this step by Apple is yet another nail in the MS-coffin
DuckDuckGo works quite well. I’ve been using it for a few months and I don’t miss Google. It’s my default search engine in my iPhone and in my computers.
Good searches and a nice privacy policy.
Not well enough for me. I wish it did. DDG sucks when trying to research technical material compared to Google’s results.
I just did my yearly comparison test and searched for a few things in google/bing/duckduckgo. DuckDuckGo is just to elementary. For example when I search for my wife all 3 searchengines find her linkedin profile as the first result, but while Google and Bing mention most of the relevant information in their results (occupation, place of residence) I only get a generic “View NAME professional profile on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the world’s largest business network, helping professionals like NAME discover inside”
Basically the same happens for Youtube/FaceBook/etc. With DuckDuckGo I have to click through the results to read anything useful
When I switch to images in DuckDuckGo it only finds 3 while Google and Bing have pages full of them.
When I switch to videos in DuckDuckGo it does find many.
In my simple test DuckDuckGo couldn’t keep up with the others and only had the “we don’t track you” as it’s advantage.
However, when searching for more complicated things (for example the word ‘access’ or abbreviation ‘wca’) I discovered the “Meanings” option in DuckDuckGo which simply put DuckDuckGo ahead of all the others in quality/relevance.
So which is best? From now on I will use:
* Google for most searches
* Bing for images
* DuckDuckGo for ambiguous terms
So you’re disappointed that Duck Duck Go doesn’t give guys searching for your wife enough information, like where she lives?
The Googs gave me the address of yo mama as well
Does anyone use Edge?
Doesn’t look like it. Even Microsoft don’t, just try visiting the VLSC with Edge. The results are, to put it bluntly, hilarious. Visit the VLSC with a browser other than Edge and watch it pop up its advertisement for Edge, and you’ll really be laughing. As if that isn’t enough, Microsoft themselves don’t even include Edge in Windows Server 2016; they only include Internet Explorer 11, a product they’re supposedly phasing out.
don’t they keep ie for corp deployments? in that light, keeping ie in a server release makes sense…
Lol, fat chance. That would, quite literally, be an exact turn-around if they did. Not to say I don’t wish the same sometimes, but I doubt it’s likely.
I don’t have a source for this, but if I recall correctly, though I may be remembering rumors as opposed to facts, the main reason Apple dropped Google Maps was because of data collection. Google knew they had the best product on the market at the time and told Apple that they wanted more user information or Apple couldn’t have Maps anymore, so Apple chose to build their own.
I think Google Maps and Apple Maps can vary greatly based on where you live. These are of course my experiences where I drive and use navigation. The first positive for Apple Maps is the integration with the OS and Siri. Being able to just tell Apple Maps where I want to go without making sure the app is open is the number one reason I use Apple Maps.
I drive to several remote locations and for me Apple Maps gives the best directions. It seems like Google Maps is trying to purposely make me drive by businesses when it isn’t necessary. For example, when I go to my parents it is almost 15 minutes faster to get off on one exit and take the back roads to their house. Apple Maps tells me to go that way. But, Google Maps wants me to go to the next exit, where all the restaurants and shops are, and then go through town. It is only 15 minutes extra in a five hour drive, but for me every minute counts. I could be wrong but I feel Google does this on purpose because they know that retailers are the ones that pay for advertising and they want to try and lead you toward them when possible. But, this 15 minutes is the longest extra time I have ever seen Google Maps take me. Often it is only a few minutes and 80+% of the time the routes are exactly the same.
As far as rerouting around traffic I have found them to both be equal. My wife, she still prefers and uses Google Maps, and I tested it a few times on long road trips and every time an alternate route was suggested due to traffic they both suggested the same alternate route within a minute of each other.
The one thing where Google Maps is better is with telling me which lane to be in. But, for me at least, I don’t find it all that useful because I have been driving for decades before we got turn-by-turn navigation in our smartphones so I still read the road signs.
I use Bing and Edge on my Surface tablet. Just because I want to keep trying other options than Firefox and Google.
Bing is surprisingly good for what people say about it. I could use it for all my searching and it would be good enough.
Maybe as someone else said, it’s only good in the US. But it is good.
Billions paid by Google to have this set as default.
Bing was added back when Apple was trying hard to get rid of everything Google under iOS umbrela.
Unless you’re doing illegal shit, you shouldn’t care whether a search engine tracks you or not. Google is not going to divulge your embarassing pr0n searches.
“Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.”
For me it has nothing to do with “doing illegal shit”, I prefer not to have my searches logged just as I prefer not to live in a house with glass walls and no curtains. Privacy is rarely about legal vs illegal activity, it’s about a feeling of owning one’s own information and controlling access to it. Why demonize the natural desire for privacy by framing it as presumed guilt?
If you want to know more about me, ask me, don’t follow me everywhere I go and log everything I do. If someone did that in the physical world, they would be arrested for stalking, why should it be any different online?
That’s exactly my view; people are giving up their freedoms under the guise of righteousness stemming from this need to conform and see eye to eye with everyone else, along with assuming people that do not conform are involved in illicit activities by default and are therefore guilty until proven innocent… which is completely backwards.
Especially when the sense of righteousness tend to switch from time to time and has already led mankind a few times into “the darkest times of its history”. What kind of society that promotes democracy and freedom needs such kind of mass applied surveillance ? Ain’t that a little hint already ?
” I prefer not to have my searches logged just as I prefer not to live in a house with glass walls and no curtains”
If you lived in a house with glass walls anyone who sees you can easily and permanently identify you as an individual and link your actions to you. To google, you are merely a tiny dot in their statistics, statistics they use to generate advertisement money.
Certainly, if the data fell onto unscrupulous hands they could also identify you, and I’m sure google has succumbed to government pressure to use their data, but in those cases, again, if you’ve not done anything seriously illegal on the internet, you’d be dismissed and continue to be a statistic. Installation of dictatorial government in the US is extremely unlikely with the amount of guns the population has.
Sure, in a perfect world, full privacy on the internet would be easily achievable. I should’ve added ” you shouldn’t care enough about user tracking on a search engine to use a much inferior alternative” to my original comment, because I do care, since it bothers me a bit.
I stand by my opinion that, unless you’re doing something illegal, or are paranoid, you shouldn’t ditch google for something with much inferior results like DuckDuckGo.
Data does fall into unscrupulous hands all the time. You just said it. What a silly post.
His whole post is an ode to dissonance.
Conditioned minds have to go through all sorts of logic loops to make the indoctrination work.
You keep worrying about the important things in life, like whether some government slime is laughing behind your back at your excentric porn tastes.
You do realize that guy wearing the tinfoil hat in your mirror is you, right?
I’ll just add one word to this: Equifax.
Your searches, or even browsing history, are quite possibly still logged by some secret NSA programme or the like
I like google logging, I can see what’s logged myself; I don’t feel like it infringes my privacy; I own and control this info.
Is this sarcasm? If you did not pay for that info, you don’t own it.
Oh but I do, before it’s submitted; I decide for it to be “out there”
Maybe not but some of us don’t like being targeted and tracked. Some other realized the dangers it opens up to – oppressive regimes would love to get dirt on everyone, hackers don’t need governmental support to use private information to ruin lives.
In most cases this tracking doesn’t give us users any advantage. In theory it can improve what the search engine (or other services using tracking) presents for a certain search. In practice the effect is minimal or even in the noise – there have been research about this so not just my opinion.
TL;DR it’s generally useless, the company needn’t divulge anything willingly for it to be dangerous.
I like being able to search for what I read in the past…
Just like Equifax isn’t going to divulge your personal information…
Google still makes maps, gmail, calendar,chrome, search apps for ios and Mac OS, right?
Its not that odd. Just a realization that Microsoft isn’t investing that much into bing anymore. Google never stops improving search.
Edited 2017-09-26 20:42 UTC
Citation needed!
Maybe now that Steve Jobs is long dead, any animosity from Apple towards Google is over.
Its because of the way the global mobile computing device business has unfolded, there are now few material sources of tension between Apple and Google.
a) Android hasn’t stopped iOS from running on a billion devices and becoming a hugely successful platform (in terms of usage and money perhaps the most succesful), basically Android poses no serious threat to Apple’s business or the viability of its platform.
b) Apple is doing stuff to differentiate its products that Google can’t easily copy (at the moment). Apple is now innovating in silicon so fast and so successfully that its hard see how anybody can catch up in the medium term.
c) Apple is not in a position (at the moment) to create its own search engine that could deliver the same quality as, or compete with, Google search (or even Bing). If it could it would, as Apple seeks to control the entire product stack.
d) The reason Apple is comfortable (at the moment) with using Google^aEURTMs search system is because Google has not tried to deliver a deliberately inferior search product on iOS, as it did with maps under Rubin^aEURTMs misguided reign. He actually thought that Android was the product and failed to notice that Google only has one significant revenue earning product which is advertising and that everything it does is designed to support that core business. His desire to use Google^aEURTMs systems such as maps to give Android a competitive advantage actually damaged Google^aEURTMs real business interests and hence he was dumped. Google does not have to make Android win, or beat Apple, in order for its business to succeed, similarly Apple does not have to beat Android or Google in order for its business to succeed.
Android has gone from 0% to 90% of the smartphone market. Even in Apple’s last remaining stronghold – the USA – Android has twice the market share.
Every indication is that the iPhone 8 is not selling as well as expected.
Apple should be terrified.
I would be interested in a source for this, but especially in a source that says that Apples total iPhone sales are not as high as expected. Apple changed from selling only 1 “latest and greatest” device in the past to 2 sizes, to 2 sizes and an older model, to 2 sizes and several older models and an ultra-high model
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/25/citi-thin-lines-quicker-ship-times-m…
http://www.scmp.com/business/money/stock-talk/article/2112763/share…
Usual nonsense. If you think iOS and Apple are in trouble you are delusional.
I think this would say otherwise, https://goo.gl/dU5Fyi
That’s probably the most the honest, objective statement I’ve ever seen you post here. Of course, you left out a key difference: Google understood that from the very beginning – while Apple (and their fanbase) has only just clued into that in the last few years. Coming from a die-hard Apple apologist, that’s a bit like a creationist trying to lecture the scientifically literate on the importance of intellectual rigor.
There was no animosity between Google and Apple. Heck, I think Jobs was a mentor to the founders of Google at some point.
You can go over to google’s campus and see plenty of apple gear all over.
What apple was doing was simply not rely on a possible competitor for strategically important sectors of their business. Just like google or microsoft do themselves.
Corporations are, and in a sense act, just like countries; there are no “friendships,” just “interests.” The dramatic personification people, usually not in the industry, throw when dealing with these huge corporations is mainly a creation of the press.
Offtopic (since the original discussion timed out): Are you saying here http://www.osnews.com/permalink?649289 the image sensors in phones can approach or even surpass tech in DSLRs?