Google currently pays Apple around $8 billion annually to stay as the default search engine on all Apple products, including iPhones, iPads, Macs, and others. However, it appears that Apple would be able to make much greater revenue if it deployed its own search engine.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman who is a trusted voice on all things Apple has said that Apple has been working on its web search capabilities to use it as a bargaining chip with Google.
The iPhone maker is focusing on developing its own next-generation search engine that has been codenamed Pegasus. Interestingly, the team that is working on delivering more accurate results is headed by former Google executive and machine learning and AI head John Giannandrea. It is expected the resulting app will soon be made available on the Apple Store.
Google and Apple’s partnership goes all the way back to 2002 when the latter signed it as the default search engine in the Safari browser. Since then, the deal has been revised many times.
During the Google antitrust case trial last week, Apple’s senior vice president of services Eddy Cue said that there was no viable alternative to Google at that time.
“And going with any other was never something that we ever truly considered,” the senior Apple executive added.
Microsoft’s Satya Nadella also made startling revelations earlier this week about how Google had used its dominant position in the search engine domain to throttle competition like its Bing.
He said that Microsoft was ready to even drop the Bing brand name to be made the default search engine in Apple devices.
Nadella testified as a witness for the US Justice Department.
The justice department has alleged that Google has abused the market dominance of its search engine to kill competition and innovation at the expense of consumers. Google currently has nearly 90 percent of the search market.