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Apple showing signs it may soon launch a search engine

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Re: Apple showing signs it may soon launch a search engine

#141

Post by kinkrtyavimoodh »

punnerud wrote: post #71
nostrademons wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[Disclaimer: I work on Google Assistant. I just started though; I'm much more of a user than an engineer at this point.] I use it a lot for media stuff. "Play by ", "Watch 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 productivit…

My toddler can’t turn Google Home on. He have probably tried over 300 times the last year. Seems like it is not trained on enough child voices in foreign languages. I had to record my voice for him on the iPad, so he can use it. Just with the short “Hey Google”, in Norwegian. He pronounces it correct. The only difference is the high pitch/tone of a child.

Do you really want your toddler to be able to turn it on though?

Re: Apple showing signs it may soon launch a search engine

#142

Post by dylan604 »

jessedhillon wrote: post #90
nostrademons wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[Disclaimer: I work on Google Assistant. I just started though; I'm much more of a user than an engineer at this point.] I use it a lot for media stuff. "Play by ", "Watch 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 productivit…

Google Assistant really wow'ed me when, to settle a dinner table debate, I asked "Ok Google, on the TV show 'Friends', what was the name of the game show Joey hosted?" Before that, I'd never engaged with this device, which we got for free as part of a promo, and which sat on our bookshelf doing nothing. It truly amazes me that GA is able to give a relevant response here. First, Joey never hosts it, he just auditions…

>and which sat on our bookshelf doing nothing.

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.

Re: Apple showing signs it may soon launch a search engine

#144

Post by saagarjha »

stock_toaster wrote: post #56
devinl wrote: post #8

~1/5 of Apple's Services revenue comes from having google be the default search ($9-10B per year), so I wonder if this new search will coincide with them ramping up their own search ads business [ https://9to5mac.com/2019/11/15/apple-ad-revenue/ ]

Could be that contract is up for renewal? Google seemed like it was going to stop paying Mozilla this year, then changed their mind. Threat of building a search engine competitor could just be part of contract negotiation (a BATNA).

Might be, since you can swap out default apps in iOS 14.

Re: Apple showing signs it may soon launch a search engine

#145

Post by frio »

mantap wrote: post #95
ogre_codes wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, this is the big reason to celebrate this. A duopoly in search is at least marginally better than a monopoly. If Maps is any indication, people will bitch about it for a year or so, but after 2 years, 80%+ of users will be using it. 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 al…

Apple maps is probably a good example because outside the US it is still useless, 8 years later. I don't expect an Apple search engine to be any different.

Depends where you are, I guess? I'd've thought NZ's little backwater roads would be useless still, but Apple Maps has been fine for me for a long time now. I still occasionally use Google (Apple doesn't integrate cycling information where I live), but it's very very rare these days.

Re: Apple showing signs it may soon launch a search engine

#146

Post by lern_too_spel »

gerash wrote: post #123
blazar wrote: post #18

Finally, a way to opt out of AMP links on Safari -.-

Yay! no AMP! 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.

Apple News links are the worst. They hide the source of the article and make me wait for a redirect before I can read the article. Why does Apple News share that apple.news link instead of a link to the underlying article? Just to track me? What are they hiding in that path string?

Re: Apple showing signs it may soon launch a search engine

#147

Post by throwawayinfo »

elihu wrote: post #72
mgh2 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't like my search results mingled with the advertising industry: there is bias in all results, you can't trust in information if it is not impartial. People used to create content to advance knowledge, but the amount of crap nowadays motivated my money (even if it is good quality) concerns me about the education of the human civilization as a whole. "The love of money (greed) is the root of all evil": G…

I think there's a great opportunity now for a new search engine that evaluates the general spamminess of a site, and then punishes sites that link to spammy sites.

Google already does this. It's an NP hard problem for sure.

Re: Apple showing signs it may soon launch a search engine

#148

Post by throwawayinfo »

ogre_codes wrote: post #86
danudey wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they should build their own indexing backend and buy up DuckDuckGo for the frontend/user base/etc.

Apple doesn't buy companies for their user base. 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.

I don't think the index is the challenge. Anyone with enough machines and gigabits can index a big enough portion of "the web". The real difficult part is ranking and understanding web pages themselves.

Re: Apple showing signs it may soon launch a search engine

#150

Post by lern_too_spel »

stock_toaster wrote: post #56
devinl wrote: post #8

~1/5 of Apple's Services revenue comes from having google be the default search ($9-10B per year), so I wonder if this new search will coincide with them ramping up their own search ads business [ https://9to5mac.com/2019/11/15/apple-ad-revenue/ ]

Could be that contract is up for renewal? Google seemed like it was going to stop paying Mozilla this year, then changed their mind. Threat of building a search engine competitor could just be part of contract negotiation (a BATNA).

Or they could just say they'll use Bing instead. That's cheaper, provides a better experience for their users than their own search engine, and is a stronger threat to Google if they want Google to increase payment by encouraging more ad dollars chasing big spenders to go to Bing.
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