Google Search is vulnerable for the first time in years.
If I type "king" into Safari's address bar on my iPhone, even with Google search suggestions turned off, it prominently suggests "Wikipedia: King Games". Spotlight on Yosemite does the same.
Apple are quietly relegating Google results to second place or worse. Is there a better result in Wikipedia? In iTunes? In the App Store? On Maps? Spotlight highlights that; it's probably what you want. It's not hard to imagine deals with Amazon (tablet/ebook rivalry aside) and Yelp, too.
The remaining search results are supplied by Bing for Spotlight, Google for Safari. But I expect Bing to replace Google in Safari for iOS 9.
This is how Google will be dethroned. Not by someone building a better text-based search engine, but by Apple and Microsoft routing around them. And this is why Android remains so important to Google, and why Google were so anxious to prevent Samsung going their own way.
What share of the global market for smartphones does Apple + Microsoft currently possess?
Most of the rest of the growth in smartphones - the next two billion users - will come from poorer countries where relatively few of the people can afford iPhones. That means that market share for search will, as of today, go to Google via Android.
Apple and Microsoft pose zero threat to Google's search dominance unless they can unseat Android globally.
There are multiple fronts. There are the microsoft/apple fronts where they use every opportunity to not provide google search results. Then there's European antitrust investigations which microsoft is funding via 'grassroots' organizations. Basically every large player not named google is determined to see google fail. Which is ironic given the push for antitrust, but I digress.
If I type "king" into Safari's address bar on my iPhone, even with Google search suggestions turned off, it prominently suggests "Wikipedia: King Games". Spotlight on Yosemite does the same.
Apple are quietly relegating Google results to second place or worse. Is there a better result in Wikipedia? In iTunes? In the App Store? On Maps? Spotlight highlights that; it's probably what you want. It's not hard to imagine deals with Amazon (tablet/ebook rivalry aside) and Yelp, too.
The remaining search results are supplied by Bing for Spotlight, Google for Safari. But I expect Bing to replace Google in Safari for iOS 9.
This is how Google will be dethroned. Not by someone building a better text-based search engine, but by Apple and Microsoft routing around them. And this is why Android remains so important to Google, and why Google were so anxious to prevent Samsung going their own way.