Apple showing signs it may soon launch a search engine(coywolf.news) |
Apple showing signs it may soon launch a search engine(coywolf.news) |
there are parts of Microsoft that are also very honest
For that matter there are even divisions within Google that want to do good stuff
However, Amazon, Facebook and 90% of Google are basically just the precursors of The Matrix now
Their ideal is that all people are mindless zombies, living on universal basic income, like vegatbles/animals, and spending all their money on AmazooogleBook
While I largely agree with your impressions, I find it ironic to see Apple mentioned in that context. They are the third most valuable company on Earth, worth about $1.3 trillion: https://fxssi.com/top-10-most-valuable-companies-in-the-worl...
Personally, I'd love if Apple put this out there ad-free. Getting clean, honest search results was why I switched to Google to start with. Google's current platform where almost all search results above the fold are paid for is what we switched to Google to get away from. DDG is piles better in this regard now.
Apple isn't a charity.
for me, if this follows the trajectory of apple maps, i will never have any reason to consider using apple search
The only way I can find (non-programming) information that is 50% reliable rather than 10% reliable is to append "reddit" to any queries.
And while DDG's front end was innovative 20 years ago when Google did it, it's pretty basic (which I love) and shouldn't be too difficult to copy.
The big challenge with search is the index.
Went back to the iOS ecosystem last year after being in Android/Google land for the past decade. I used Google Assistant on a daily basis easily 20-30 times and 99% of the time it got me what I needed. Siri can't even do a 1/10th of the things I used GA for, and that 1/10th that it does, it does so poorly that I don't even bother anymore.
Apple is notoriously horrible when it comes to localization: Apple Maps (localization, regional maps, regional traffic data, turn by turn), iOS supported languages, Siri supported languages, their new Apple Translate that only has 7-8 languages, Spotlight suggestions, etc.
They're also very slow to expand their services, I think Apple News still only supports 4 countries.
Just buy DuckDuckGo
Apple is the most valuable company in the world, they really have no excuse.
On the other hand, you can't "click" on Android and suddenly switch to Android (or from Android to iOS) if Android this year becomes slightly better. It's designed to be a real uphill battle to switch (re-purchase all the media: apps, movies, shows, etc.), unhook imessage, transfer photos out of iCloud photos, etc. etc.
This isn't new in iOS 14, Spotlight has had a basic web search (supported by Apple's crawler) for several years.
That said, it would be nice if Google had some proper competition to drive innovation for once. Search really hasn't changed in any fundamental or even noticeable way for a long time.
https://www.barrons.com/articles/apple-stock-services-busine...
It’s not all about the hardware anymore.
I don’t completely trust Apple with doing ads as they already do plenty of self-dealing with their own ad system.
If anything, they should jedison their ad product altogether.
[0] https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/google-assistant/id1220976145
Or a great way to make it so no one competes with their partner google — by offering a totally free (and ad-free) search that’s good enough for many use cases but not great.
On that score, this doesn't look like it will happen, despite appearances.
On the other hand, if Apple is also working on another, secret, project that would integrate well with search, that would be a different matter.
Every news article will be exclusively published to Apple News, all websites will have to switch to Apple Sign-in, users will need to pay $100 / yr to "cover the cost" of running Apple crawlers and all websites will pay 30% of their revenue to Apple to stay listed.
On the other hand, Apple's search in the App Store app is so bad that I use DDG or Google to search for apps.
How many places does Apple Maps have their version of Street View for?
I want a search engine I can use the search term "rockets" to get me actual fire breathing rockets rather than some US sports team...
You might be onto something though since DDG and Apple signed a deal on the default maps for DDG.
When you type anything in google, very often with very high accuracy suggests the correct spelling.
I believe the search engine data can go a long way in helping apple improve basic stuff like spell checker and auto correction.
I just updated my iPad Pro to the latest 14 beta this morning, tried Splotlight search, and I didn't see this effect.
EDIT: I forgot to add that I look forward to a privacy respecting search from Apple.
I use mine to turn a smart plug on or off, and set a timer when cooking.
Nothing else I've ever wanted to do via my Pixel 2 is reliable enough to waste time trying.
Sending a WhatsApp while driving is the one thing I keep wanting to do, but it's hopeless.
I use it a lot for media stuff. "Play <song> by <band>", "Watch <TV show> on Netflix", etc. My wife is very fond of the combined alarm + YouTube functionality: "Wake me up at 7:00 AM with deep meditation music". My toddler has learned to say "Hey Google watch videos of dump trucks". I use it a bunch for basic productivity stuff too: "What's my agenda for today?" "What's my agenda for tomorrow?" "Check my e-mail".
I'm not opposed to an Apple search engine if it works. Would happily use it. But the way Siri has stagnated doesn't inspire a whole lot of confidence for me.
"Hey Google, turn on the lights"
"Hey Google, good night" -> reads me my agenda, asks me for an alarm time
Wake up, walk to the bathroom, "Hey Google, play the Economist podcast" while I brush my teeth. "Hey google, shuffle my thumbs up playlist" as I walk to the shower.
"Hey Google, set a timer for x seconds" while I'm cooking.
Fantastic tool.
Maybe I just speak really unclearly? Unfortunately, basically all of my friends have iPhones (even at Google), so it's hard to know if it's just me.
Google really does shine at location based searches though. If I'm looking for a physical place in any location or region, Google can be scary good (even when I misspell something).
Apple would be better off just using the Bing API too.
I think the central problem is that 'getting better' is mostly a function of having more users in the first place because that is the very data that helps Google improve the service, it's probably one of the most simple cases of network effects.
This is a great time for a big competitor to start a search engine. Google's reputation and search quality aren't what they used to be. Google is also in a MS antitrust situation, where they have to fight with a hand behind their back.
If Apple were to work with others to set up some sort of "search foundation," I'll bet its search product could mop up a lot of the search market. As a result, Apple would have more leverage over Google, and more momentum. They'd have some measure of control over the user experience, even via a shared "foundation".
But that's not what is going to happen!
Apple management is going to release some weird, overly strategic product with Apple-branding all over it. Users don't want a "Siri" or "Spotlight" or "Apple" branded search engine (assuming Apple isn't so deliriously drunk on "clever strategy" that they don't make search an "app" instead of a webpage). It will also detract from Apple's "privacy" messaging, because they'll not only be pushing users aggressively to store all their data in iCloud, but also appear to have access to users' search histories.
I think Apple's search engine is going to fail horribly, despite fate giving them a golden opportunity to plough into Google's market. Apple is going to "sherlock" itself.
Perhaps I’m cynical but I do think search has changed in fundamental and noticeable ways in the last five years but none of the change has been for the better. More ads, more “personalized” with more tracking, more results based on what the algorithm thinks I mean instead of what I’ve actually typed. I much preferred Google circa 2006 when it was much more intuitive and much less “innovative.”
2000 to 2002 was "peak Google" (and "peak internet") according to my preferences.
I remember the rumor that Apple was going to get into search back when altavista was a thing.
Whether or not a search engine should be barred from showing snippets is a different topic IMO.
Kind of like Apple Maps, which "competes" with Google Maps but only on Apple devices. You can't just point any web browser at an Apple Maps website the way you can with Google Maps. I doubt that Apple would launch a search engine that you can just browse to from anywhere like Google or Bing.
The effort of migrating an email address I've used for over a decade just to get this one feature back doesn't quite make sense, but I'm considering it...
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/26/apple-map...
Apple Maps used on iOS 3x as often as Google Maps, from 2015.
https://9to5mac.com/2015/12/07/apple-maps-usage-numbers/
I can’t source the 80% but it’s probably not far off that on iOS these days. Even so, Google Maps still has about 2/3 market share overall. It dominates on Android, and a significant number of iPhone users still use it. However for Apple Maps on iOS if it’s the default, it just has to be good enough and most people will stick with it.
These days there are more attributes to add subtlety to your outbound links of you want the search engines to take you seriously.[1] I'm sure other search engines make similar judgements based on them.
[1] https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/96569?hl=en
(One could do this separately for various kinds of undesirable content and let the users choose whether they want to avoid spam, hate speech, plagiarized content, nsfw content, misinformation, Rick Astley videos, and so on.)
There's plenty of room for improvement in search. DDG is already edging ahead because it searches for what I want, not what it thinks I want.
Visualizations of results have improved so much in the last 10+ years, hopefully "visualization of search results" can also be advanced.
Take a look at the below search [0], it is distinctly different from the SERPs of the other search engines for the same query, but you are correct that we still focus on just listing information vs. visualizing it. Maybe something for us to explore.
From a search visualization perspective, check out Carrot2 [1] for something more innovative. Swisscows [2] also has some nice visualization elements.
[0] https://www.runnaroo.com/search?term=full+text+search+php
This is what I was referring to.
I don't necessarily expect this will be the case, I was just saying that I would very much prefer it. Apple doesn't charge for or have advertising on quite a few services so it's a crap shoot which way they will go. But if they want large-scale adoption, they need a big differentiation and zero adverts is a good start.
I do doubt Apple would launch a search page that is as buries organic results below the fold the way Google does now though.
For me, the clean look DDG sports is Apple's big competition at this point. If they don't deliver as-good-as-or-better results and interface as DDG, then I'll stick with DDG as my default (and Google as my "I can't find it on DDG" backup).
I'd love it if they made Apple Music and Apple TV free too.
They also offer content services like Music, TV+, and News+... services which they pay 3rd parties to use or develop content for. These are all quite distinct from Apple most other Apple services in that they are about the content someone else creates. Search definitely doesn’t fit into the same bucket as Apple Music and Apple TV+.
Apple News and the App Store itself are the only parts of Apple which get some revenue from advertising platforms.
If they see search the way they see maps, it could be free. It’s possible they will push an advertising platform with search. I don’t think it’s anywhere near a slam dunk though, and it’s possible it will have a small advertising load to support some costs like the App Store does.
Apple doesn’t need Search to be a profit center. They might put advertising on the platform (in fact I’d say it’s likely). But they don’t need it to look like Google’s pile of adverts with a few organic results at the bottom.
Of course, there's also the regular "I'm sorry, but some of your devices did not respond" response from my Watch, forcing me to issue the same command to my iPhone for it to work.
The underlying implementation must have basically no error case handling, because half the time I open the controls I'll get "device not responding".
the fact that they are not a monopoly is going to be a problem when they enter a highly monopolistic market like search
Well, maybe most people just don't find it that useful, as an idea, rather than as an implementation? I don't personally find myself wanting to talk to my phone, and I certainly don't want smart speakers listening to everything I say and giving it to intelligence agencies or whatever.
Failing to take advantage of that early lead has been one of the biggest failures of the Cook era.
The only real issue Siri has there more often is when I ask it a more complicated query for playing music a certain non-trivial way, like "Play music by X from their latest album" or similar.
If you fall outside that range... It might get one in three words correct.
(It was my children who were unwell.)
That’s not to mention the desktop app - it’s a step change in performance versus Google Maps being a sluggish browser experience.
It just seems that Apple doesn't invest much in maps if they don't see a profit motive. They are very much capable of competing with Google Maps but they choose to build a more limited product that only works well in certain parts of the world where there are high concentrations of iPhone users. That's fine but it's not what I want in a maps app, I want consistency.
The main missing feature for me used to be public transit routing, but they added that a few updates ago and it generates pretty much identical itineraries to Google Maps.
He pronounces it correct. The only difference is the high pitch/tone of a child.
I don't think my Nest Hub Max or Google Home Mini has ever caught the "Hey Google" when he says it, but it doesn't really matter for our use-cases with him.
Maybe I'm out of the loop, but when Alexa/Google/Siri started coming out in home-accessible versions, I did think there was a beat missing in terms of recognising a voice-print (if such a thing is possible) or similarly requiring some form of authentication.
It truly amazes me that GA is able to give a relevant response here. First, Joey never hosts it, he just auditions for it. Second, GA reads a paragraph or so from IMDB's summary of the one episode where this happens.
Very impressive, IMO
(It was called 'Bamboozled')
For example, I asked "what kind of soap can I use on my cats" and it gave a one word "castile soap" followed by the sentence. (I actually Googled it, and it's like that on Search too).
It's super useful when you quickly want an answer to something you were wondering. A nice touch is also how it sends the link to your phone to look deeper into it.
Google has a huge knowledge graph so naturally they'd be better at answering questions, but I think between Google Assistant and Alexa the race to win will come down to integrations/partnerships with third parties.
I seriously doubt it was doing nothing. I has been listening the entire time you had it connected. You might not have utilized it, but it has utilized you.