When the rumor of the announcement of a new search engine, potentially competitor of Google and Bing, returns to Apple through the keynote next Monday by the firm of Cupertino during the Apple WWDC event. Reality or fantasy?
A web search engine created by Apple is one of the oldest fantasies of the World Wide Web, and the rumor has been running for years. The last one dates back to 2020 with a possible competitor to Google and Bing… that never happened. But it was already talked about in 2008. Then, in 2010, an American analyst predicted this engine in the next 5 years. Oooppsss, fail in sight… In 2012, the apple company had hired William Stasior, former AltaVista and A9, short-lived web engine of Amazon. Then, in 2014, a robot named Applebot and coming – logically – from Apple began to visit some sites. A help page on Apple’s website introduces it and states that ” Applebot is the web crawler for Apple. Products like Siri and Spotlight Suggestions use Applebot. Last modification date of this page: July 10, 2020. And nothing since..
At the beginning of 2022, an information coming from the United States told us that a complaint filed in the United States accused Google of paying huge sums of money to Apple, not only to be its default search engine on iPhone and iOS, but also for the Apple company to wisely stay out of the search engine market and not develop its own… Information or intoxication? Hard to say..
A new rumor before the summer and a big Apple event..
In short, it did not take more than that (as often just before the summer and a “big mass” of Apple, as any good “chestnut” that respects itself), new rumors arise on this subject. Indeed, next Monday (June 6) will take place the Apple WWDC (World Wide Developer Conference) in Cupertino with the traditional Keynote, during which some new features are announced. Robert Scoble, an American blogger and podcaster, announced on Twitter:
Oh, and a new search engine is coming too. Will Siri finally get “smart?” Hmmm.
— Robert Scoble (@Scobleizer) May 28, 2022
That was all it took to unleash passions and the wildest of assumptions (but maybe that was the intended effect?).
So we’ll have to wait until next Monday to see if, as with every rumor or “sea serpent” of this type, the mountain finally gives birth to a mouse. Let’s stay calm and wait… But a priori, there are strong chances that this announcement is that of a very specialized engine for Siri, making Apple’s voice assistant more efficient on certain types of requests. In short, a specific tool that does not step on the toes of Google and Bing, at least not directly.
But these incessant rumors are certainly the expression of a real demand – fantasy? – of many Internet users: wouldn’t a search engine designed by Apple be like an old dream? And we are certainly very numerous to have the same dream… 🙂
The Google search engine on iPhone. Source : Phonandroid