Apple and the silent war against Google with Maps and its search engine – Corriere.it

And if Apple decides to offer users its search engine as an alternative to Google Search or its map app instead of Google Maps, just when the Mountain View group in the crosshairs of the US Antitrust, which has sued it with the accusation, in the delicate sector of digital advertising, of an anti-competitive, incorrect, pervasive and systematic behavior to greatly reduce if not destroy competition, causing damage and higher costs to publishers, advertisers and consumers? The Justice Department’s request for a stew, which wants to force Google’s parent company Alphabet to separate the activities of buying and selling ads and controlling the AdX exchange market from its core business, could light the fuse to openly flare up the silent war that in recent years the two giants of Silicon Valley have been carrying on under cover.

Google-Apple, the rivalry and the move on Android

The rivalry dates back nearly 17 years

when in July 2005 Google bought Android for just 50 million dollars, then a Palo Alto startup unknown to most and today the most popular operating system in the world, used in about 70% of the planet’s smartphones.

For Apple founder Steve Jobs, Android was a stolen productwhich imitated the iOS mobile software of the iPhones, and reacted to that acquisition, ousting from the board of directors of the Apple company, Eric Schmidt, at the time CEO of Google, recalls the Financial Times. A bombastic gesture, which should be the norm and Top executives shouldn’t sit on the boards of competing companies, the Justice Department attorney general said. Merrick Garland, in the press conference to accuse Google, speaking of anti-competitive conduct.

The operating system challenge

In the following years, the war between the two technology giants continued subdued. mto Apple continued to push forward the goal of making its mobile operating system increasingly independent of the services offered by Google. Starting with maps and research.

Apple Maps

The last noisy act of war came in 2012, when Apple decided to exclude Google Maps with pre-downloaded app

, offering its own Maps service instead. A flop, since Maps didn’t work at all and forced users to download the rival App. After the uncertain debut, 10 years later, the Apple map app has improved a lot. And In early January, Apple announced Business Connect, a feature that allows businesses to enter their digital locationin order to be able to interact with users, show photos and offer promotions in direct competition with Google Maps, which has a partnership with the Yelp platform for the same function.

Search engine

But Apple has also made great strides in research, albeit under the radar. When we ask Siri for something, the digital assistant does it using Apple search, an internal app that performs billions of searches a day. Siri is able not only to provide the most diverse information, to read our messages upon request, to write a reply email, to let us listen to our favorite song by choosing it from our music library or from the web, but it can also translate words and phrases in many languages.

The service, known within the company as Apple Search originates from the 2013 acquisition of the startup Topsy Labs, then used to facilitate searches on Twitter. In addition to Siri, the technology is also used by Spotlight, the real-time search function available to Mac users. Apple Search was then enhanced with AI brought to you by Laserlikea startup bought in 2019, specialized in machine learning and creator of an app at the time described as a search engine of interest, able to offer news, web content, video and local content relevant to the individual user.

If Apple decides to no longer use Google as the default search engine on iOS, by offering its Apple Search instead, it could aim to steal a share of the market, now 92% controlled by Mountain View. Even if by doing so he would be giving up a sum between $8 and $12 billion a year that Alphabet pays Apple.

For sure it would be an act of blatant war, which would cause a conflict that has remained silent up to now to explode, taking advantage of Google’s moment of weakness following the accusations by the US Antitrust for abuse of monopoly in advertising. And it might meet users’ favor since the new Apple search service would not associate targeted advertising provided by Google’s advertising tools linked to the search engine. For the benefit of data privacy, another battle that Apple is engaged in, unlike other Big Tech groups, including Google.

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