The web is extremely hostile to web crawling to anyone but the Google bots.
Apple couldn't pull off a competitor to Google Maps, it would have no chance in Search.
"Apple Maps is bad" is a meme that is about a decade old and no longer relevant now.
It’s a pity because Google Maps is one of those last Google holds outs for me.
Blocking iPhones to block Apple's search bots means blocking your more valuable customers.
Which is not to say I think Apple can pull off web search, but making the crawling work isn't going to be their problem.
The only problem with Maps was the bad first impression (which clearly consistently lingers to this day even though it is no longer true).
With Bing search, everyone already knows that it is inferior to Google search, so there's really no reputation hit to take like that. All they have is upside from making it better than Microsoft could and the story would be all about how close the horserace was getting.
Given that they've actually made Maps better than Google, then could make Search better than Google as well.
Google search gets slated by the tech community. As does Bing.
MS have sensed the blood in the water, and realise they have an opportunity in Copilot.
I wouldn’t be surprised for the Bing brand to go away.
Copilot is a far superior brand and opportunity for MS.
Google should have learned that the thing that kills you is never what you think it is. You don’t see it coming, and Google clearly didn’t see Copilot coming.
Unfortunately the tentacles of advertising have been creeping into Google Maps for a while - but that’s one more input into the mapping space that Apple can’t replicate (for better and worse).
That’s why they decided to introduce Apple Maps a year early.