iOS 14 reveals Apple may be developing a replacement for Google Search

Apple may be developing an alternative to Google Search, according to a report in the Financial Times.

That would be an ironic move because the push for antitrust appears to be creating greater competition among the big companies that already dominate the technology industry, rather than between those older giants and younger upstarts.

A small but significant change has been made in the latest version of the iPhone's iOS 14 operating system, and the activity of Apple's spider tool (Leifeng.com (official account: Leifeng.com) Note, also known as a web crawler, is a program or script that automatically grabs web information according to certain rules.) has continued to increase, which seems to be a sign of Apple's renewed interest in search technology.

Specifically, the iPhone now displays its own search results and links directly to websites when users type queries on the home screen of iOS 14. This practice has been in iOS for a while, as people have seen the feature appear in beta versions. Coywolf's Jon Henshaw pointed out that the search volume of Apple's crawler was increasing as early as August.

The Financial Times, citing sources, said the change marks a major shift in Apple's search development and could form the basis of a broader push into search.

Cupertino, California-based Apple certainly has the expertise. Less than three years ago, Apple poached Google's search chief John Giannandrea in what was widely seen as an attempt to consolidate Siri's presence in the artificial intelligence and voice search space. Because of the way Apple is organized internally, it's unlikely that Giannandrea will work full-time on potential "search products" and Siri. But it's possible that he could use his expertise to help teams developing separate features.

The development of any search tool is a third way for Apple, which now uses Google as its default search service thanks to a partnership between the two (search is also at the heart of the Justice Department's investigation into Google's alleged anticompetitive activities). The only other major search services on the market rely on Microsoft's Bing.

While this indication does point to an actual increase in activity from Apple's crawlers, there could be another explanation that aligns with Apple's stated goals.

While a story about Apple competing directly with Google in search would be appealing, the increase in Apple’s crawler activity can be reasonably explained by Siri, as users conduct more search queries through Siri and it becomes the interlocutor between Apple and Google or Microsoft’s search services. This disintermediation is something Google started several years ago and has been modified and expanded over the years to combat intermediaries like Siri.

Some of it comes down to semantics. A search engine is a website where people type in queries, or a voice assistant can use its own resources to serve up web results as if they were its own. Reducing the brand power of a behemoth like Google on any platform is a powerful motivator for any competitor.

Making Siri a one-stop shop might be a good remedy for Apple, in which case they enable search provider choice in iOS in order to get past regulation. However, Apple won't help Google, even if Google pays Apple billions of dollars, because Google believes that iOS users are more valuable than any other mobile web users. Google says that when people have a choice, they still choose Google.

Perhaps another reason to make Siri a search engine is that this is Apple's strength.

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