Google Pays Apple $100 Million for iPhone Search

[Paul Daniel Ash]

According to a report in Silicon Valley Insider, Apple pockets a cool $100 million US every year to keep Google as the default search engine on the iPhone. Though that amount is small change compared to the company's reported $50 billion in annual revenue, it may be enough motivation to keep Apple from building its own search engine, as rumors have suggested. However, another company with deep pockets is reportedly in talks with Apple: Microsoft.

Apple and Google's war has come more and more out into the open since Google CEO Eric Schmidt resigned from Apple's Board of Directors. At the iPod unveiling last month, Steve jobs reportedly said flat-out that "Google wants to kill the iPhone." The two companies are directly competing in online advertising (Quattro vs. AdMob), browsers (Chrome vs. Safari), and, smartphones (Android vs. iPhone). However, Google powers the Maps application in addition to online search, and Apple's recent purchase of mapping company PlaceBase raised speculation that they were thinking about developing their own inhouse map engine. PlaceBase's CEO Jaron Waldman became part of Apple's new Maps Team, which began searching for engineers to help "take Maps to the next level, rethink how users use Maps and change the way people find things."

Years of rumors that Apple was working on its own search engine have never been substantiated. In November 2008, TechCrunch surveyed all the major search players and found that Apple wasn't hiring away the programming talent that would be needed to mount a serious challenge to Google. And today's Silicon Valley Insider report quoted its source - someone that it said was "familiar with Apple's operations" - as saying that the rumor that Apple is building its own search engine "isn't credible" because "there's too many options" for search on the market. Last month reports began coming in of Apple and Microsoft negotiating over making Bing the default search engine on the iPhone. BusinessWeek reported today that those talks are proceeding well, with a financial analyst saying that the "likelihood of Microsoft winning Apple search deal for iPhone is high."

[StealthBravo]

yikes. I wonder what Bing would offer

[jdm.accord]

I think you meant iPad (not iPod) unveiling.

And I prefer Google so much more than any other engine. Hopefully Apple sticks with them.

[battlecrushr]

Whoa.

[StealthBravo]

I do hope google stays on as default search engine

[Zeal]

Pancakes?

[battlecrushr]

No zeal waffles

[battlecrushr]

ya google is basically a verb now
go Google it
i googled it last night

never been to bing

[Myque]

ya google is basically a verb now
go Google it
i googled it last night

never been to bing

+1

[awesomeSlayer]

ya google is basically a verb now
go Google it
i googled it last night

never been to bing

+2

Google is my #1 search engine. Dang, that's a lot of money.

Google>All search engines.

[whereswaldo]

ya google is basically a verb now
go Google it
i googled it last night

never been to bing

It actually is a verb now, it was certified as a verb and a noun (as in "i am going to google") in 2007

[PAKIS-RULEZ]

Google is best b/c using it gives you access to sites that are vulnerable to attack and hack in to :P by using different mysql and mdb dorks

even if google was not default i would have made it default.

and google is not a verb ... people just use its name as a verb if apple was famous you would be saying go apple it lol nothing special

i even use with my co-workers a parody i made

"i'm a google it", "i'm a google it"

[NumbaOneI]

lol thats funny wat else would u use?? i wouldnt use yahoo or ask.com. Only other thing would be bing but everytime I go online first thing i do is google.com its something i dont even have to think about, my fingers just do it. Im sure regardless every1 would save google as the default search engine. lol come to think of it when i first saw the bing commercial I googled it xD google ownsss!!

[PAKIS-RULEZ]

lol thats funny wat else would u use?? i wouldnt use yahoo or ask.com. Only other thing would be bing but everytime I go online first thing i do is google.com its something i dont even have to think about, my fingers just do it. Im sure regardless every1 would save google as the default search engine. lol come to think of it when i first saw the bing commercial I googled it xD google ownsss!!

LMFAO lol this is a nice one i haven't even seen the bing ad or their site yet.

[matthew1111]

Is bing literally like Microsoft Google? Beacuse if so, I'm sticking with Google, screw Bing!

[yahoowizard]

Also might want to add on in the article that Google also pays Mozilla 57 million a year to make Google the default search engine in the search bar. Mozilla makes about 75 million a year in total revenue, so I guess Google's making enough to support giving up these millions.

[steve-z17]

Google is best b/c using it gives you access to sites that are vulnerable to attack and hack in to :P by using different mysql and mdb dorks

Uhh..who cares?...

Google is the best search engine. I have had some fun using the Bing App though, it's just something different.

[TooSlo]

Bing has far better multimedia results in comparison to Google.

Using the image search engine brings up relevant results when I'd have to alter my search 5-10 times to come up with what I would be looking for.

I've set all of my search engines to Bing, but then again I know people on the Dev team and have played around with internal MS builds of it so I have a good idea of what's on the horizon.

[L00i3]

and google is not a verb ... people just use its name as a verb if apple was famous you would be saying go apple it lol nothing special

Google - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary

google
One entry found.

Main Entry: goo·gle
Pronunciation: ˈgü-gəl
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): goo·gled; goo·gling -g(ə-)liŋ
Usage: often capitalized
Etymology: Google, trademark for a search engine
Date: 2001

: to use the Google search engine to obtain information about (as a person) on the World Wide Web

Ahh, the irony though if Microsoft had one of their services as a default on an apple product. IE Mobile will soon replace crappy Safari Mobile...

[Melech518]

I hope google stays. I hate BING!