Seeing as Google pays Apple $12bn to be the default search engine on iOS devices I’m tempted to call hypocrisy here...
http://fortune.com/2018/09/29/google-apple-safari-search-eng...
http://fortune.com/2018/09/29/google-apple-safari-search-eng...
You can call it hypocrisy but it doesn't affect the validity of Tim Cook's argument [0].
I think perhaps you should. It would improve the quality of the discussion.
Each person's idea of where something sits on the spectrum of right and wrong differs.
If someone is being hypocritical, it can lead people to question the motive behind the words.
I recently built a new laptop and set it as the default, after several failed attempts in the past. I now rarely find myself struggling with tech related searches as I had done previously. Consequently, it has stuck this time. YMMV obvs.
By my experience DDG usually provide way more appropriate answers when you are looking for a reference or a documentation entry. Google still is better for recently pushed contents like news and is still marginally better for finding result inside Q&A sites. After 1-2 years of DDG by default I tend to know in advance which query is best for which search engine and so I half conscientiously add the !g while typing when needed.
Some of the other bang commands do look useful, though.
(and like you, a lot of my work-related searches are technical in nature)
It's that you never know whether it's missing 10%.
Given that the source on this is one guy at Goldman Sachs, I’d treat that number with some suspicion.
Apple could do it, but they are a trillion dollar company that hasn't even gotten Maps completely right yet - let them work on one thing at a time...
A search engine is a big enough process—and difficult enough—that you can't just throw money at it and expect it to work in the end. They could try, certainly. And maybe they'd succeed, and maybe they'd fail. And maybe they'd succeed but end up with a successful business unit whose goals are opposed to the rest of the company's.
I think the issue is that besides the money they don't really have a competitive advantage so it'd be difficult to catch up given how long Google has been doing this for.
First of all Search is well outside their domain expertise; they aren't really well known for doing either search/MI or even web services well.
Secondly, it takes a long time just to get all the infrastructure set up. There is an unbelievable amount of build/test/deploy infrastructure that Google has been able to set up over the many years of doing search. I certainly think Apple has engineers smart enough to make it happen but in the end building the stuff takes a large amount of time.
And this is all assuming they use AWS/GCP/Azure instead of deploying their own data centers.
It's very much the same difficulty that Google has trying to make hardware to compete with Apple. They have so much experience and expertise in that area already. There's no way Google could make a phone faster than the iPhone: Apple makes their own chips! So instead Google has to compete in the areas where they have a competitive advantage, for example by using AI to make very good cameras.