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>Building a generalized search engine better than Google is hard. True, however, through a combination of advances of general tech/stack accessibility over the

>Building a generalized search engine better than Google is hard. True, however, through a combination of advances of general tech/stack accessibility over the long term, and regressions in Google's feature set in search in respecting a user's specific query, and falling victim to its own SEO-anti-SEO cat-and-mouse, the thirst for a search input box that can respect the anything more than the very most basic "advanced options" grows. I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels the growing gap between "show me 10 links that have something vaguely to do with <str> that have been hyper-gamified with next-gen DL personalization" and "SQL for the whole internet". This feels like a ripe field for apple. Probably the hardest part would be branding. Apple search could imply just local or user-uploaded files. Apple web search sounds like it's for geezers. iSearch is too on the nose. Binoculars would tie it too much to Safari.

ehzy 4y ago
Idk, maybe they would just call it Spotlight like they do currently?
- bqmjjx0kac 4y ago
  Then what is Finder?
idiotsecant 4y ago
While I think the HN audience is definitely on the 'SQL for the internet' side of that gradient I don't think very many people (on the scale of the whole internet) are at all interested in that. I think if you were to graph the level of 'nuts and bolts' level interest among internet users it would follow an exponential decay and I don't see that turning around any time in the future. The internet is not for tinkerers any more, it's for regular humans with regular human interests. We had our brief, glorious time when the internet was for people who liked to know how things work. That time is over and I don't think there's much money to be made targeting that market in general search. The average person not only doesn't mind if they see listicles in their results, they often look at them!
- MichaelZuo 4y ago
  That doesn't preclude a specialized search engine for 'tinkerers'.
  - sagarm 4y ago
    The doesn't seem like Apple's usual market.
    - MichaelZuo 4y ago
      Maybe not, though beats by Dre also didn't seem like Apple's usual market. So they may yet have more surprises.
      - idiotsecant 4y ago
        No? I think that's exactly Apple's usual market - sell some hardware with (maybe) some small difference, attach some marketing mystique to it, and sell it for a premium.
        MichaelZuo 4y ago
        I can’t think of any new apple product launch in the last 15 years, since the iPhone, that had only a small difference in hardware compared to incumbent offerings. With the exception of Beats and some accessories. Even some of their dongles were groundbreaking, like the lightning to hdmi video adaptor with a full ARM computer inside to compress and decompress the video stream in real time.
AlbertCory 4y ago
I was at Google, although not in Search. Search-adjacent, you might say. Like Maps, it's much, much harder than it looks. They have whole teams that concentrate on one particular vertical, and there are a lot of verticals. That said: they're also heavily invested in solving problems of 15 years ago that have gone away. Someone taking a fresh look can probably do a lot better, but it would take enormous resources. It would make more sense to build "what Search is going to be" rather than "a better version of what's already been done."
GoOnThenDoTell 4y ago
Just call it Siri.com For the public, web search is just text-mode siri/alexa

ehzy 4y ago

Idk, maybe they would just call it Spotlight like they do currently?

bqmjjx0kac 4y ago
Then what is Finder?

idiotsecant 4y ago

While I think the HN audience is definitely on the 'SQL for the internet' side of that gradient I don't think very many people (on the scale of the whole internet) are at all interested in that. I think if you were to graph the level of 'nuts and bolts' level interest among internet users it would follow an exponential decay and I don't see that turning around any time in the future. The internet is not for tinkerers any more, it's for regular humans with regular human interests. We had our brief, glorious time when the internet was for people who liked to know how things work. That time is over and I don't think there's much money to be made targeting that market in general search. The average person not only doesn't mind if they see listicles in their results, they often look at them!

MichaelZuo 4y ago
That doesn't preclude a specialized search engine for 'tinkerers'.
- sagarm 4y ago
  The doesn't seem like Apple's usual market.
  - MichaelZuo 4y ago
    Maybe not, though beats by Dre also didn't seem like Apple's usual market. So they may yet have more surprises.
    - idiotsecant 4y ago
      No? I think that's exactly Apple's usual market - sell some hardware with (maybe) some small difference, attach some marketing mystique to it, and sell it for a premium.
      - MichaelZuo 4y ago
        I can’t think of any new apple product launch in the last 15 years, since the iPhone, that had only a small difference in hardware compared to incumbent offerings. With the exception of Beats and some accessories. Even some of their dongles were groundbreaking, like the lightning to hdmi video adaptor with a full ARM computer inside to compress and decompress the video stream in real time.

AlbertCory 4y ago

I was at Google, although not in Search. Search-adjacent, you might say. Like Maps, it's much, much harder than it looks. They have whole teams that concentrate on one particular vertical, and there are a lot of verticals. That said: they're also heavily invested in solving problems of 15 years ago that have gone away. Someone taking a fresh look can probably do a lot better, but it would take enormous resources. It would make more sense to build "what Search is going to be" rather than "a better version of what's already been done."

GoOnThenDoTell 4y ago

Just call it Siri.com For the public, web search is just text-mode siri/alexa