The iPhone could have its own search engine: how it can affect Android

In Spain, the Google search engine has a relevance that could be considered almost a monopoly. This is usually more evident on Android phones, but also on web browsers and even on Android’s main rival, the iPhone itself.

Since its inception, the iPhone has had Google as the main axis of its experience, both in the Safari browser and in the integration of Siri and Spotlight. In a framework in which Google is being sued by the United States Department of Justice, it seems that your browser could be without one of its largest contributors.

Google’s search business could lose the iPhone: can it affect Android?

A few days ago we learned how Google was facing a historical lawsuit as it was the United States Department of Justice itself, which accused the Mountain View people of being “the main guardian of the internet”, given the evident dominant position of the search engine itself.

In this lawsuit, special emphasis was placed on the agreements it had with Apple to be the main internet search engine on Mac and iPhone. This agreement implies that Google would pay Apple around 11,000 million dollars a year, which would represent between 15-20% of Apple’s income.

It seems that this agreement is about to come to an end, and according to the Financial Times, Apple would be working on replacing Google on its iPhone, creating its own search engine on the internet. In addition to the hiring of John Giannandrea, Google’s former head of Artificial Intelligence, Apple is offering jobs for artificial intelligence experts to “define and implement the architecture of Apple’s revolutionary search technology.”

Is it good or bad for Android?

At one point, it may seem that the end of the agreement between Apple and Google could be directly beneficial to Google. After all, if they stop paying those $ 11 billion a year to Apple, it means they can reinvest it within the company to further improve the search engine and its integration with Android.

However, before thinking about the money that Google will not have to pay Apple, we must think about where the money that Google paid Apple comes from for being the default search engine for the iPhone. These high figuresrepresent a profit sharing. In exchange for being the search engine for the iPhone, Google shares the benefits of searching on iOS with Apple itself, meaning that Google was making more money from being on the iPhone than it was paying for.

Apple’s search engine is not confirmed, but when it arrives, the Mountain Viewers will not have “the budget to pay Apple” free for other projects, but simply the search division will have lower income. Division that continues to be the most profitable in the company.

What can change for Android?By the time Google stops making so much money from its deals with Apple, one of the avenues Google could take is to invest even more in its search experience to create a noticeable difference in the Internet search experience between Android. and iOS. It is not foreseeable that Google applications will abandon the iPhone, but it could translate into an even greater investment for Google Assistant and Lens, to create a difference between both systems.

Last year we already saw how the big G was forced in Europe to allow users to choose the default search engine on Android, so in the situation of dominance it has for its search engine, it will not be seen with good eyes that they start a strategy to strengthen its dominant position, so it is possible that all this ends with a Google that makes less money and is not in a position to be more aggressive either.

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