9 ms·

Jobs at Apple-Search

69 points by no_gravity 12y ago

0x0 12y ago
This could explain the User-Agent "apple/0.1" that has started showing up in apache logs from IP addresses starting with "17."....
billclerico 12y ago
I think it's more likely associated with Spotlight vs a web search engine
- bsaul 12y ago
  Or a better search tool through all itunes content ( apps, books, courses, etc).
  - colinbartlett 12y ago
    I'd be thrilled if they took on Google. But just be totally happy if app discovery and search was even slightly less atrocious.
  - seattlewag 12y ago
    Agreed. And to do this "local" search you could imagine it being much better using signal from the web (who is linking to what content in iTunes, etc).
- spydum 12y ago
  I am fairly certain this is correct. Mail search, spotlight search, all are due for some improvements.
- abalone 12y ago
  Spotlight is a web search engine.
- jonathankoren 12y ago
  Bingo. There's nothing to see here. Any search for "search" makes it obvious. What I find interesting is that some of these <a href="https://jobs.apple.com/us/search?job=36607344&openJobId=36607344#&ss=Engineering%20Manager%2C%20Search%20Relevance%2C%20Apple%20Search%20&t=0&so=&pN=0&openJobId=37945640">jobs https://jobs.apple.com/us/search?job=36607344&openJobId=3660... are in San Francisco</a>.
spullara 12y ago
If there is one company that has the pockets and audience big enough to compete it is Apple. They will have to a hire an enormous number of the best search people to do it though.
- grecy 12y ago
  As with a few of their other skunkworks (POWER->X86) we have no way of knowing if they've already been hard at work on it for years and years.
  - fpgeek 12y ago
    The Apple Maps experience is evidence against that, though. We know that they were working on maps for years and things like PoI search were among the biggest issues. I find it hard to believe they would have done that badly if they had an in-house search team (if only because such a team would have been good at flagging problems and suggesting solutions).
    - spullara 12y ago
      I agree. I don't think you can hide hiring the right search people. They have pulled in a few search companies, but nothing at the scale necessary (e.g. Topsy).
    - captaincrowbar 12y ago
      Maps are a bit different to web search though. There was never a Google Maps-quality geographical database available for sale; to get good maps Apple has to send people out into the world to compile the data. It was inevitable that any competing map service would start out underwhelming, because mapping is a job that intrinsically requires a good deal of time and actual physical work to make it high quality. Web search is different; that's something you can build almost entirely in secret (apart from the odd hint when someone spots a new user agent string), without having to step out of your metaphorical basement until it's fully baked.
serve_yay 12y ago
It could be app search, pretty much everything about discovery on the App Store sucks right now.
- MrGando 12y ago
  I agree, Apple has a lot of efforts going on right now, I doubt they want to tackle Web Based Search (ala Google)... though it's just one position.
  - serve_yay 12y ago
    Sure would be fun to watch, though.
  - wlesieutre 12y ago
    If anything, web search would be counterproductive for them. Google likes search because you see ads on search results then go to other pages and see more ads. Apple doesn't have that incentive; if anything they want to keep you in the App Store's curated experiences. Why send someone to an Open Street Maps website instead of one of the various OSM clients on iOS where you can get extra features via in-app-purchase?
    - 0x0 12y ago
      Maybe they actually just want their end users to have a great web search experience? They added DuckDuckGo as an option to their OSes recently and I'm sure they would be happy to not feed any more traffic to Google than strictly necessary. It could benefit Siri making the built in web search more intelligent instead of leveraging a 3rd party API who might even charge for access since there's no ads. It might even sell more devices if they make it an Apple device exclusive service, or at least as a gateway to lure new customers kinda like the online versions of icloud/pages/numbers/keynote.
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
- 12y ago
mmanfrin 12y ago
I am doubtful this is to take on Google directly, and I am sincerely doubtful that they'd be able to pull it off if it was. Microsoft funneled billions in to competing, and it has mostly fizzled. Google has had too much of a head start to be competed with head-on.
- abalone 12y ago
  Apple has two things Bing & Google don't: 1) an ad-free business model 2) control of Siri & Spotlight, the native search functions on a huge swath of devices I'd say they have a fighting chance.
  - robotresearcher 12y ago
    A fighting chance of what? Unless they monetize search, it's just a cost. What ad-free business model can monetize search? Unless they are paying Google a fortune to be the current engine, and rolling their own is cheaper. This seems unlikely.
    - abalone 12y ago
      > What ad-free business model can monetize search? The one where you make craptons of profits selling high-margin devices that come bundled with services that offer ad-free user experiences and maximum privacy. And it's Google that pays Apple a fortune to be the current engine, not the other way around. Just to give you an idea of who holds the cards here.
      - bobajeff 12y ago
        There is no way they would make enough from iPhones/iPads to pay for the costs of building and running a competitive web search engine. (At least not one built like Google and Bing are) There is a reason they take a cut of profits from App developers; it's to help pay for the cost of running the App store.
        12y ago
blackkettle 12y ago
> ... detailed oriented projects ...
porsupah 12y ago
Possibly not significant, but I noticed the location's given as San Francisco - normally, Cupertino-based positions are tagged as "Santa Clara Valley".
jyku404 12y ago
Search != Web Search. Besides web crawling almost seems quaint nowadays, they have other data they could better unearth or improve existing search functions.
tdfx 12y ago
Just curious, but what salary do you think an "engineering product manager" at Apple makes?
- inerte 12y ago
  http://www.glassdoor.com/GD/Salary/Apple-San-Francisco-Salaries-EI_IE1138.0,5_IL.6,19_IM759.htm?filter.jobTitleFTS=Engineering+Project+Manager http://www.glassdoor.com/GD/Salary/Apple-San-Francisco-Salar...
IBM 12y ago
I'm really not sure why people think Apple would get into the web search business. Web search represents just a fraction of the total advertising spending that other web companies like Facebook aren't even bothering to chase Google for it. Google's stock has been in the toilet this year because their core business is facing shrinking ad margins from the shift to mobile, it doesn't make any financial sense to get into that business. Add that to the fact that this is completely out of Apple's wheelhouse and their history of relatively never straying out of their circle of competence and it should be pretty clear that this isn't for web search.
zend3v 12y ago
I've wondered to myself why they didn't buy DuckDuckGo and just integrate. I'm sure there are 1000 good reasons not to do it, but I did wonder it to myself. Especially since they seemed to put it in the spotlight with the iOS8/Yosemite release. Privacy is now a legitimate selling point and people would probably be willing to pay for services and tools that value that. But I guess there is no value in buying it so that would be why.
Animats 12y ago
That job ad doesn't indicate that Apple is going into the search business. Getting into search would need a bigger team. Given the publicity, this may be a bluff by Apple. Yahoo did something similar. In early 2014, Marissa Mayer announced that Yahoo was going to build their own search engine. Nothing happened. That seems to have been a ploy to get a better deal from Bing.
- yeukhon 12y ago
  > Nothing happened. First hand or just based on trend?
  - Animats 12y ago
    Yahoo never staffed up to build a search engine. That would have been noticed in Silicon Valley. They hired a VP for search whose previous area of expertise was negotiating with Microsoft.
- unknownian 12y ago
  I was under the impression that large tech companies shift devs to different projects often, but Apple does seem like it is already strained by its number of software products.
yeukhon 12y ago
I suspect content search. Imagine people's home filled with Apple TV, Macbook and iPad. Now what you need is content search. TV program search is done, and it isn't really much exciting than Netflix's suggestion. What about content people bought? Browsing history? Payment history? Medical? Calendar? Travel? Weather? They have a whole ecosystem they built since last release. As other speculates, a refined but better, unified version of spotlight, not just for iOS or OSX, but a truly search with their devices connected. With Sri now you can ask at home like Amazon's Echo, or ask Sri when you are driving. Content search is what matter these days.
gazarsgo 12y ago
Apple was at Lucene Revolution in DC this past fall. It's a little silly IMO to extrapolate too much from a job posting -- Apple has had a large search infrastructure for a long time, as do most tech companies.

69 points by no_gravity 12y ago

0x0 12y ago

This could explain the User-Agent "apple/0.1" that has started showing up in apache logs from IP addresses starting with "17."....

billclerico 12y ago

I think it's more likely associated with Spotlight vs a web search engine

bsaul 12y ago
Or a better search tool through all itunes content ( apps, books, courses, etc).
- colinbartlett 12y ago
  I'd be thrilled if they took on Google. But just be totally happy if app discovery and search was even slightly less atrocious.
- seattlewag 12y ago
  Agreed. And to do this "local" search you could imagine it being much better using signal from the web (who is linking to what content in iTunes, etc).
spydum 12y ago
I am fairly certain this is correct. Mail search, spotlight search, all are due for some improvements.
abalone 12y ago
Spotlight is a web search engine.
jonathankoren 12y ago
Bingo. There's nothing to see here. Any search for "search" makes it obvious. What I find interesting is that some of these <a href="https://jobs.apple.com/us/search?job=36607344&openJobId=36607344#&ss=Engineering%20Manager%2C%20Search%20Relevance%2C%20Apple%20Search%20&t=0&so=&pN=0&openJobId=37945640">jobs https://jobs.apple.com/us/search?job=36607344&openJobId=3660... are in San Francisco</a>.

spullara 12y ago

If there is one company that has the pockets and audience big enough to compete it is Apple. They will have to a hire an enormous number of the best search people to do it though.

grecy 12y ago
As with a few of their other skunkworks (POWER->X86) we have no way of knowing if they've already been hard at work on it for years and years.
- fpgeek 12y ago
  The Apple Maps experience is evidence against that, though. We know that they were working on maps for years and things like PoI search were among the biggest issues. I find it hard to believe they would have done that badly if they had an in-house search team (if only because such a team would have been good at flagging problems and suggesting solutions).
  - spullara 12y ago
    I agree. I don't think you can hide hiring the right search people. They have pulled in a few search companies, but nothing at the scale necessary (e.g. Topsy).
  - captaincrowbar 12y ago
    Maps are a bit different to web search though. There was never a Google Maps-quality geographical database available for sale; to get good maps Apple has to send people out into the world to compile the data. It was inevitable that any competing map service would start out underwhelming, because mapping is a job that intrinsically requires a good deal of time and actual physical work to make it high quality. Web search is different; that's something you can build almost entirely in secret (apart from the odd hint when someone spots a new user agent string), without having to step out of your metaphorical basement until it's fully baked.

serve_yay 12y ago

It could be app search, pretty much everything about discovery on the App Store sucks right now.

MrGando 12y ago
I agree, Apple has a lot of efforts going on right now, I doubt they want to tackle Web Based Search (ala Google)... though it's just one position.
- serve_yay 12y ago
  Sure would be fun to watch, though.
- wlesieutre 12y ago
  If anything, web search would be counterproductive for them. Google likes search because you see ads on search results then go to other pages and see more ads. Apple doesn't have that incentive; if anything they want to keep you in the App Store's curated experiences. Why send someone to an Open Street Maps website instead of one of the various OSM clients on iOS where you can get extra features via in-app-purchase?
  - 0x0 12y ago
    Maybe they actually just want their end users to have a great web search experience? They added DuckDuckGo as an option to their OSes recently and I'm sure they would be happy to not feed any more traffic to Google than strictly necessary. It could benefit Siri making the built in web search more intelligent instead of leveraging a 3rd party API who might even charge for access since there's no ads. It might even sell more devices if they make it an Apple device exclusive service, or at least as a gateway to lure new customers kinda like the online versions of icloud/pages/numbers/keynote.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
12y ago

mmanfrin 12y ago

I am doubtful this is to take on Google directly, and I am sincerely doubtful that they'd be able to pull it off if it was. Microsoft funneled billions in to competing, and it has mostly fizzled. Google has had too much of a head start to be competed with head-on.

abalone 12y ago
Apple has two things Bing & Google don't: 1) an ad-free business model 2) control of Siri & Spotlight, the native search functions on a huge swath of devices I'd say they have a fighting chance.
- robotresearcher 12y ago
  A fighting chance of what? Unless they monetize search, it's just a cost. What ad-free business model can monetize search? Unless they are paying Google a fortune to be the current engine, and rolling their own is cheaper. This seems unlikely.
  - abalone 12y ago
    > What ad-free business model can monetize search? The one where you make craptons of profits selling high-margin devices that come bundled with services that offer ad-free user experiences and maximum privacy. And it's Google that pays Apple a fortune to be the current engine, not the other way around. Just to give you an idea of who holds the cards here.
    - bobajeff 12y ago
      There is no way they would make enough from iPhones/iPads to pay for the costs of building and running a competitive web search engine. (At least not one built like Google and Bing are) There is a reason they take a cut of profits from App developers; it's to help pay for the cost of running the App store.
      - 12y ago

blackkettle 12y ago

> ... detailed oriented projects ...

porsupah 12y ago

Possibly not significant, but I noticed the location's given as San Francisco - normally, Cupertino-based positions are tagged as "Santa Clara Valley".

jyku404 12y ago

Search != Web Search. Besides web crawling almost seems quaint nowadays, they have other data they could better unearth or improve existing search functions.

tdfx 12y ago

Just curious, but what salary do you think an "engineering product manager" at Apple makes?

inerte 12y ago
http://www.glassdoor.com/GD/Salary/Apple-San-Francisco-Salaries-EI_IE1138.0,5_IL.6,19_IM759.htm?filter.jobTitleFTS=Engineering+Project+Manager http://www.glassdoor.com/GD/Salary/Apple-San-Francisco-Salar...

IBM 12y ago

I'm really not sure why people think Apple would get into the web search business. Web search represents just a fraction of the total advertising spending that other web companies like Facebook aren't even bothering to chase Google for it. Google's stock has been in the toilet this year because their core business is facing shrinking ad margins from the shift to mobile, it doesn't make any financial sense to get into that business. Add that to the fact that this is completely out of Apple's wheelhouse and their history of relatively never straying out of their circle of competence and it should be pretty clear that this isn't for web search.

zend3v 12y ago

I've wondered to myself why they didn't buy DuckDuckGo and just integrate. I'm sure there are 1000 good reasons not to do it, but I did wonder it to myself. Especially since they seemed to put it in the spotlight with the iOS8/Yosemite release. Privacy is now a legitimate selling point and people would probably be willing to pay for services and tools that value that. But I guess there is no value in buying it so that would be why.

Animats 12y ago

That job ad doesn't indicate that Apple is going into the search business. Getting into search would need a bigger team. Given the publicity, this may be a bluff by Apple. Yahoo did something similar. In early 2014, Marissa Mayer announced that Yahoo was going to build their own search engine. Nothing happened. That seems to have been a ploy to get a better deal from Bing.

yeukhon 12y ago
> Nothing happened. First hand or just based on trend?
- Animats 12y ago
  Yahoo never staffed up to build a search engine. That would have been noticed in Silicon Valley. They hired a VP for search whose previous area of expertise was negotiating with Microsoft.
unknownian 12y ago
I was under the impression that large tech companies shift devs to different projects often, but Apple does seem like it is already strained by its number of software products.

yeukhon 12y ago

I suspect content search. Imagine people's home filled with Apple TV, Macbook and iPad. Now what you need is content search. TV program search is done, and it isn't really much exciting than Netflix's suggestion. What about content people bought? Browsing history? Payment history? Medical? Calendar? Travel? Weather? They have a whole ecosystem they built since last release. As other speculates, a refined but better, unified version of spotlight, not just for iOS or OSX, but a truly search with their devices connected. With Sri now you can ask at home like Amazon's Echo, or ask Sri when you are driving. Content search is what matter these days.

gazarsgo 12y ago

Apple was at Lucene Revolution in DC this past fall. It's a little silly IMO to extrapolate too much from a job posting -- Apple has had a large search infrastructure for a long time, as do most tech companies.