Google May Lose To Bing In Safari Search Sweepstakes

When you're searching via Safari on your iPhone or iPad, Google is your default choice. You can change it to another search engine, obviously, but Google is the de facto option — and who's complaining about that? Google's results are top-notch. Starting next year, Google may be riding the search pine on the biggest platform around. A new report says Google may be out as top search dog in Safari, as their deal with Apple ends soon. In its place could sit Bing, or Yahoo.

It's worth noting that this only refers to the default search option, not Apple getting rid of Google altogether. That would just be silly. Or stupid.

Apple has been keen to keep Google at a distance for some time, with YouTube coming unbundled from shipped apps and the whole Google Maps/Apple Maps/Everyone is lost fiasco. Moving away from search, which is what Google does best, might sound far-fetched, but it's not.

Bing is the search backbone for Siri, and provides the results you see in Spotlight Search on OS X. Yahoo recently made inroads with Firefox, coercing Mozilla to ditch Google in favor for their own search features. Could they do the same with Apple? We've heard for some time Yahoo was working on strengthening their ties with Apple for just this purpose.

At the end of the day, this only applies to default search options. It could also have a further reaching negative effect for Safari, should unwitting consumers find their way to Chrome in a confused effort to bring Google back to their devices. Apple proudly puts consumers first, though, so Bing or Yahoo over Google would be a tough sell.

Source: The Information