Here’s why Apple won’t make its own rival in Google Search

Google Search has contributed prolifically to shaping the Internet in the same way that Android has shaped the smartphone market. Google has successfully leveraged its two businesses to grow each other, which creates expectation from its competitors. However, its notable competitor Apple prefers to integrate Google search on iOS instead of working on a competing offering, and we now know more about the reason for such a decision.

Apple has requested to participate in Google’s upcoming antitrust trial in the United States over online search because Reuters reports. The company says it can’t rely on Google to defend its revenue-sharing deals to make Google the default search engine on Safari on iPhone. Apple received around $20 billion from Google in 2022 alone.

As Macrumers spotted in a statement in the court recordsApple’s Senior Vice President of Services, Mr. Eddy Cue, explained why Apple does not want to create its own search engine. Developing a search engine would cost billions of dollars and take many years, diverting resources such as capital and employees from other areas of business growth. Additionally, Apple does not have enough specialized professionals and operational infrastructure to successfully build and run a search engine business.

The statement in the court documents explains that research as a business is rapidly evolving due to artificial intelligence, making such an investment economically risky. To create a viable search engine business, Apple would have to “sell targeted advertising,” which is not a core business of the company and would run counter to its long-standing privacy commitments.

Mr Cue is asking the US court to allow Apple to defend its revenue sharing deal with Google by calling its own witnesses to testify at trial. If the deal can no longer continue, Cue said it would hamper Apple’s ability to continue providing products that best meet the needs of its users.

It remains to be seen whether the court would allow Apple to participate in Google’s antitrust lawsuit and defend the billions of dollars it could potentially earn through future revenue-sharing deals.