It would harm Google's primary revenue source Ad-words. Reducing the revenue of your competition is beneficial since they will have less money to fund their competing products with.
So Apple should invest billions of their profits in a technology they have no experience or skills in and over a decade away from being able to catch up and provide a competitive service against arguably the smartest company in the world whose core competency is search, so they can devalue the Apple brand with a sub par service that has nothing to do with their strengths, absorbs the billions required to develop and maintain the infrastructure (see: Bing), forgo billions of Service revenue their now receiving from Google to provide an ad-free Service that will never be profitable so they can force a worst end-user UX on their Customers?
I don't see how offering ad-free Internet search that's available in the OS (like in spotlight) would be a bad UX experience for the customer. Also, Bing is doing pretty well bringing in 5.6 Billion in revenue in 2016 [0]. And since DuckDuckGo has 21 employees and is doing a pretty good job of providing a search engine, I would think Apple could probably handle putting together a solid search engine fairly quickly. [1] Apple could always add keyword based ads like DuckDuckGo does, so that they can still charge for some ads without tracking their users.
It still costs Microsoft billions to run Bing for which an Apple ad-free Service will always be a profit sink hole without any chance of recuperating their investments whilst foregoing their billions of nearly pure profit Services Revenue they're getting from Google now.
And for what? inflict a worse experience on their customer base so they can try to hurt Google the way Microsoft tried to do with Bing? Google has enough successful properties that there's nothing Apple can do that would hurt Google's profits enough where they can't maintain their level of R&D on Android (which is itself ludicrously profitable).
I just don't see what this would achieve and how it would help them achieve their core mission, diluting their talent and resources doesn't help them make the most enviable products and would cost them billions in the process, both of which are against their DNA.
I think Apple needs to expand (or as you call it dilute) their core mission. They've become a smart phone company that can't even remember how to build a desktop for professionals. You say that they would be offering an inferior search service compared to Google, but I don't see why that would be the case. In my opinion a search service that doesn't track you is superior to Google (see DuckDuckGo for an example) and if it's built into Spotlight, even better.
Google survives on it's ad-words revenue as far as I can tell. Android only generates money for google through ads (which is again dependent upon tracking the user) and they've never released revenue numbers for Youtube, so we can probably assume Youtube loses money. And even if Youtube makes money, it is still from ads. So if Apple can cut into Google's ad-words business model, they will deal a blow to their chief competitor, Android.
Apple definitely needs to expand its vision. A major tech player like Apple shouldn't be spending all their time iterating on the iphone and making their laptops a tiny bit thinner. They should really have a serious AR product like the Hololens by now at the absolute minimum. Honestly, Apple seems to think that their mission is to be a computer sculpture company at this point. They are totally obsessed with design to the point that they can't create a usable desktop computer. They've lost the plot.
> over a decade away from being able to catch up and provide a competitive service against arguably the smartest company in the world whose core competency is search
> In my opinion a search service that doesn't track you is superior to Google (see DuckDuckGo for an example)
DuckDuckGo leverages existing infrastructure and uses existing sources (Bing, Yahoo...) to power their search results [1]. It also doesn't matter what an anecdotal data point thinks is superior, only what their customers prefer in aggregate. DuckDuckGo has so little market share it doesn't even register as a line item [2]. Microsoft started trying to compete with Google with Live Search in 2006 and after bleeding billions and evenwith the help of their Windows Desktop Monopoly and IE, MS Edge market-share they've still only managed 7.5%.
> Google survives on it's ad-words revenue as far as I can tell. Android only generates money for google through ads
Google doesn't disclose their profits they get from Android, but Oracle did it for them where they've disclosed that Android's generated $31B revenue and $22B profit.
> they've never released revenue numbers for Youtube, so we can probably assume Youtube loses money.
Alphabet not disclosing their internal numbers for their revenue sources doesn't mean anything, most mega corps don't breakdown their segments for not wanting to give away competitive secrets.
> And even if Youtube makes money, it is still from ads. So if Apple can cut into Google's ad-words business model, they will deal a blow to their chief competitor, Android.
How can an ad-free Apple Search Engine possibly have any tangible effect into Google's ad-words business model? Are the companies currently buying Google's ads going to stop buying them because a company with <13% of Android's market share (and 5% Desktop Browser Share) dilutes their focus, resources and talent in providing an alternative inferior Search engine that no-one can buy ads for? Is everyone buying ads just going to give up and stop online advertising altogether?
Microsoft has poured billions, have invested over a decade and tried their hardest to hurt Google and steal market share away from them, a technological super power with deep roots into developing technology and infrastructure at all layers as part of their core competency. They're the #2 cloud hosting provider (who also counts Apple as a Customer) that even with leveraging their Desktop Monopoly and IE/Edge browsers can only command 7.5% market share. How is Apple, starting over a decade later with no skills or experience, no ad infrastructure or corporate customer base, first hope to be able to build a competitive search engine then use it to steal market-share from everyone else who's search engine habits have been hard-grained into users daily lives for years. Apple can't keep an AI lead with their Siri voice assistant even after acquiring the technology years before everyone else. I don't see how they'd be able to compete with Bing let alone Google.
> Apple definitely needs to expand its vision.
Apple is the most valuable company in the world, so it's executing better than everyone else.
> Apple shouldn't be spending all their time iterating on the iphone and making their laptops a tiny bit thinner.
Other than being a ludicrous assertion on what they spend their time on, Apple's focus on the iPhone has made it the most successful product in history.
> They should really have a serious AR product like the Hololens by now at the absolute minimum.
Hololens is a commercial failure that's selling units in the 1000's [4] and Apple's already leading the race in Augmented Reality [5] and is expected to release a stand-alone AR headset next year [6]. Unlike other companies Apple only releases products when they believe it provides the best experience and stands the best chance of becoming a consumer success. They also have a commanding lead in developing the fastest mobile chips which is going to help greatly in their AR future.
> Apple seems to think that their mission is to be a computer sculpture company at this point.
In addition to being the most valuable company, Apple's also the most valuable brand in the world [7].
> They are totally obsessed with design to the point that they can't create a usable desktop computer.
I've been using iMac's for over a decade and am currently writing this on their latest 27" iMac w/ Retina 5K, it's by far the best Desktop I've ever seen or used.
> They've lost the plot.
Being the most successful company in history suggests maybe not. Apple got to where they are by focusing on making the best consumer products possible, not by focusing on ways they can throw away billions of profits in trying to hurt a competitor.
Apple invested in Maps so they have control over their destiny of one of the most popular use-cases people use their Smart Phones for as Google was with holding key features like turn-by-turn directions which would've given Android an edge. Apple always wants to be seen as the best, they love to say they offer the best Smart Phone with the best hardware, best OS, Apps, etc. Having a sub-par experience on a core feature would've hurt both their brand and sales. Although it required a significant investment and Apple Maps still isn't as good as Google Maps, end-users still end up with a first-class experience in iOS with their choice of either.
This isn't the same as Search, Google wants to provide the best Search service for iOS as possible and is now paying Apple billions for privilege of being the default. Attempting to develop an ad-free Search alternative would dilute their focus, cost them a fortune and their Customers would be worse off for it.
It's funny that you talk about Apple developing maps because Google was withholding features like turn-by-turn direction, and Apple wanted to give a better user experience.
In the country where I live (Brazil), Apple Maps does not have turn-by-turn direction available, while Google Maps has.
Actually companies often invest in areas to weaken the competition, Oracle and IBM invested in Java over the years because they didn't want to see Microsoft dominate corporate development for example.
A search engine by its nature allows computation on content that you can't do through an external web API. For example you can invert Walmart's pages on their online site into a catalog of SKUs, prices and equipment.
A search engine can create (and provide access to for a fee) meta data around the digital footprint of people and what they are interested in, afraid of, and where fashion is headed (query traffic)
A search engine can develop and maintain a robust connected graph of commercial entities and data about them which can be resold to banks, bundled into subscription ratings services, and mined for market trends and "inside" information.
You could also deliver a customer friendly advertising platform but much like opioids are ok for treating pain it seems nearly impossible for people who own a decent sized index from being seduced by the cash possibilities there.
