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This, combined with a few reports from a couple months ago, sounds like Apple might be ramping up a search engine competitor that could be more privacy-focused.

mark_l_watson 11y ago
I would like to see that happen. In an ideal world, I believe, we would be able to pay for search, cloud storage, email, etc. with strong privacy and security guarantees.
- madeofpalk 11y ago
  Search engine and email is always going to be 'free'. The difference, what Apple claims, comes from who pays for that. Google's free services are subsidised by advertisers. Apple's free services are subsidised by hardware, the software costs are lumped in when your purchase an iPhone or a Mac.
- jethro_tell 11y ago
  Apple has shown they aren't really into your data, but they've also got a pretty atrocious security record (poor handling of data on phones and slow OS patching among others) making it seem like that's also not as much of a concern as it should be. I don't trust google and I would love to pay for 'cloud' but I think trusting Apple is also misguided.
- vacri 11y ago
  'Private search' already exists. If that's what you want, then use duckduckgo. As a bonus, it's outside the Apple ecosystem, so you're diversifying your risk.
- 72deluxe 11y ago
  I had never thought about paying for Search but I think it's a really good idea. A subscription to a search engine would be really useful.
  - 72deluxe 11y ago
    Haha I got downvoted but in truth search as a service (perhaps call that SaaS.... :-) would be useful.
MCRed 11y ago
I think that's possibly the case, but what I wonder is why they don't just buy DuckDuckGo. I've built a search engine, from scratch (Eg: before Lucene and Solr existed) it's not a trivial endeavor, and due to VC interference we lost to google... these days not only do you need the infrastructure technology (something that google, notably, is not open sourcing) but you need a decades worth of historical info from past crawls to train your systems. EDIT: Ah, I see all of my comments are being downvoted, in a vindictive fashion. I guess I should expect nothing less. This site needs to reform itself. I'm signing off for awhile.
- pervycreeper 11y ago
  I downvoted this comment. Your claims that your startup could have been where Google is if it weren't for "VC interference", and that a search engine necessarily requires "decades worth of historical info from past crawls" are both of the sort that require at least some explanation beyond mere assertion.

mark_l_watson 11y ago

I would like to see that happen. In an ideal world, I believe, we would be able to pay for search, cloud storage, email, etc. with strong privacy and security guarantees.

madeofpalk 11y ago
Search engine and email is always going to be 'free'. The difference, what Apple claims, comes from who pays for that. Google's free services are subsidised by advertisers. Apple's free services are subsidised by hardware, the software costs are lumped in when your purchase an iPhone or a Mac.
jethro_tell 11y ago
Apple has shown they aren't really into your data, but they've also got a pretty atrocious security record (poor handling of data on phones and slow OS patching among others) making it seem like that's also not as much of a concern as it should be. I don't trust google and I would love to pay for 'cloud' but I think trusting Apple is also misguided.
vacri 11y ago
'Private search' already exists. If that's what you want, then use duckduckgo. As a bonus, it's outside the Apple ecosystem, so you're diversifying your risk.
72deluxe 11y ago
I had never thought about paying for Search but I think it's a really good idea. A subscription to a search engine would be really useful.
- 72deluxe 11y ago
  Haha I got downvoted but in truth search as a service (perhaps call that SaaS.... :-) would be useful.

MCRed 11y ago

I think that's possibly the case, but what I wonder is why they don't just buy DuckDuckGo. I've built a search engine, from scratch (Eg: before Lucene and Solr existed) it's not a trivial endeavor, and due to VC interference we lost to google... these days not only do you need the infrastructure technology (something that google, notably, is not open sourcing) but you need a decades worth of historical info from past crawls to train your systems. EDIT: Ah, I see all of my comments are being downvoted, in a vindictive fashion. I guess I should expect nothing less. This site needs to reform itself. I'm signing off for awhile.

pervycreeper 11y ago
I downvoted this comment. Your claims that your startup could have been where Google is if it weren't for "VC interference", and that a search engine necessarily requires "decades worth of historical info from past crawls" are both of the sort that require at least some explanation beyond mere assertion.