We all have friends (people we know) and friends (people we not only know but hang out with). Maybe the better contrast might be between friends and buddies. Well Avram Miller is one of my buddies. He lives down the road from me and my kids prefer his pool to ours because his is solar heated. The retired Intel VP of business development is quite a character, knows a lot of people who know people, and understands the business of technology at a level few people do. So when he wrote a post this morning predicting that Apple will clean Google’s clock in search, I sat up in my chair.
Avram’s thesis is that Steve Jobs felt betrayed by Google’s development of Android and decided years ago to go after the soft underbelly of the Googleplex by building a superior search product called Found that Apple would have no need to monetize — the Switzerland of search. Please read Avram’s post and you’ll see he claims that Steve Jobs even pre-recorded his participation in the Found launch event scheduled for sometime next year. Which of course makes me wonder what else Steve may have prerecorded?
I believe Avram. We haven’t yet discussed this directly because Avram has spent the winter in Israel but that’s what makes this post so plausible. If there’s an Israeli scientist at the heart of Found, then Avram — who has been the toast of the Tel Aviv tech scene all season — would probably have bumped into him or her.
I love the Apple side of this but what gives it real import are the Google and Facebook aspects. Facebook has pivoted deftly to mobile, Google hasn’t particularly succeeded in social networking with Google+, so Google is more vulnerable than one might think. I’m not sure Avram is right that Zuckerberg & Company are the major threat, but if Apple can out-Bing Bing without needing the ad revenue, well Steve Jobs may well get his revenge on Google after all. As I guess he will be explaining to us sometime next year.
Entertaining gossip. I shall presume Avram Miller is credible but it makes no difference, so much can still go wrong it’s all speculation at this point.
Steve Jobs… the new Hari Seldon.
The sequel is called Apple and Empire.
Sorry, that should have been Found-ation and Empire.
Those comments have to be worth a side-splitting LOL!!!! Excellent! 😀
Ten points for style, Mark D!
Laughing my Asimov
😀 !!!
I was thinking the same!
“He is also the central character of the Second Foundation Trilogy written after Asimov’s death”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hari_Seldon . Maybe that’s why SJ named it “Found”.
Avram is definitely a credible source of information.
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If Microsoft were to lose its monopoly on Office it would be big problem for them. It is Office, not Windows that holds the market to Microsoft.
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If Google were to lose its leadership on search it would be a big problem for them.
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Google is trying to make its own office tools, but hasn’t really threatened Microsoft. Microsoft has created its own search service, but hasn’t really threatened Google.
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Apple is a major force in music players, music distribution, and smart phones. They took these markets from others. They took these markets by producing vastly superior products and services.
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If Apple chooses to get in the search business, they probably could. Given their history of producing vastly superior technology, they probably could become a serious competitive threat to Google.
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Over the years there have been many things I “thought” Apple should do and didn’t. Apple could dominate so many markets, yet they chose not to. Microsoft got into search and smart phones because they felt they had to be in these markets. Microsoft reacted to outside criticism and pressure to enter these markets.
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Apple is unique in that they choose their markets and rarely respond to outside pressure or encouragement. They do what they want to do. They pass up obvious opportunities in order to focus on others. If Apple chooses to get into search, it could be a game changer.
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If you follow Apple, you know there could be some substance to this column. I think the probability is high Apple is working on search. Whether or not they bring a major service to market or not depends, who knows? Only Apple understands which markets they enter and which they don’t.
Last I heard, Steve is still dead despite his appearance in videos. Without his maniacal driving force, Apple will become just another boring tech company. They will be dominated by bean counters until the engineers all have blank stares and innovation is crushed.
Forget about anything new coming from Apple. More slight alterations to flagship products, until they beat the brand into a dead horse. That is what mature companies do.
You’re wrong.
So we’re supposed to believe that Apple is going to crush Google with a better search, just the way they did a couple of years ago with maps?
Maps was a forced product because Google decided to punish people who didn’t choose Android by expiring the API access of vendors like Apple, which made results pop up with advertisements rather than the actual subject of searches.
Perhaps Justin, but it’s still inferior after all this time. That bespeaks a serious execution problem.
If you expect a 1.0 product that’s practically beta given its purpose (mapping the entire earth and all its towns and cities), that’s a gigantic feat especially against competitors who have been in the game longer and have collected much more data and expertise. It’s different than a hardware product with software, it’s all about the data and in real-time more or less. Think more critically than just being critical.
Hank – you can apologize for Apple all you want, but it won’t change the reality of the situation. I “expect” that Apple’s rumored search will be no better, comparatively, at release than Apple’s maps were, therefore the initial comment: I cannot see how this is a serious threat any time soon, even if Apple forces it down iPhone users throats the way they did with Apple maps.
Found-ation, very deep geek, I love it.
Most Apple products are only used by people on Apple devices. I could see a compelling, improved search experience on the iPhone, Pad, Laptop, and whatever passes as the desktop these days. Usually their tools on other systems are not great. For example, iTunes is the constantly updating pig on my wife’s Windows 7 PC. Linux would be ignored.
As Microsoft has demonstrated, there is plenty of market for those who are not the Apple faithful. A new search technology does not sound like the “killer app” that makes me switch out the old laptop for a shiny Macbook.
Let’s make it a conspiracy theory, and that will be more fun.
The big Valley companies just got slapped for colluding to not steal each others engineers. This is the second half of the deal. Google competes with Apple in the phone market, so they will not get the Feds interested in anti-trust lawsuits. Steve had learned the Bill G. lesson all too well. Android can have China until 2013.
In exchange, Apple and Microsoft will make search engines. They will be just good enough to keep up the appearance of real competition, not good enough to really impact revenue, and certainly not impact take home executive bonus. All of this was done in a Godfather style hospital scene before Steve’s passing when he made Tim Cook the new Don. Google gets the web, Apple the devices, and Microsoft the enterprise, and the feds, no taxes, no anti-trust, nadda.
They should have put that in the movie.
“Most Apple products are only used by people on Apple devices. I could see a compelling, improved search experience on the iPhone, Pad, Laptop, and whatever passes as the desktop these days. Usually their tools on other systems are not great. For example, iTunes is the constantly updating pig on my wife’s Windows 7 PC.”
Here’s a problem. Most Apple systems are used on apple gear because they are intended to be a software-hardware -symbiot. IF, Apple was to launch any product or service mainly as a spoiler, there would be no need for that symbiosis, and Apple could even distance itself branding wise from that service/product. Only thing left would be to make sure it’s a good enough product. There’s no doubt whether Apple’s software people are able to design a good web service if they want to. The question is, whether they would be able to produce a search which would equal Google’s in quality. MS tried, and MS lost. Many others have also been left dead at the wayside.
If someone was to offer me a decent quality search, which would not try to monetise, I’d try it, but I doubt Apple would refrain from that. Apple is already very interested in tallying whatever we download on app stores and iTunes stores…
Avram’s idea would also finally be one more clue on why Apple started building those huge data centres – first in N.C., then in Oregon. I remember someone (can’t offer link) speculating on that Apple would not need those data centres only for Cloud storage… Apple may be up to something, but I really can’t see Apple just running a spoiler…
RGDS,
Sorry, but not going to happen.
1. Google’s search products, especially with Google now, and what they have done on the language processing side are too good for anyone to catch-up. Google has in a sense reached escape velocity.
2. The problem for competitors is that one idea won’t cut it. Google can implement your idea before you can get the data to implement the deep understanding already built into Google’s search.
3.The problem for google is that search is declining in importance on mobile. that is why Apple won’t invest in it.
4. The problem for apple is there is no way that siri can’t keep up with Google, because ultimately the compenents that make us siri are all Google’s core competencies. NLP, deep understanding, making inferences from existing user information.
5. Maps was a bad move for apple and will be an albatross around their neck. Maps is a core part of google’s business is a distraction for apple, and 2 years later its still basically useless.
Nothing you list here is actually all that guaranteed, and Maps certainly isn’t useless in any manner. It’s quietly gotten better a lot faster than Google Maps did as a 1.0 product. Also, the natural language side of Siri is better than Now, and the predictive nature of Now is not that useful to anyone I know who uses it regularly. The problem with predictive computing is that we are, by and large, not that predictable in our actual behavior. Apple’s “Today” screen in NC does as good a job as Now does of telling me where I should be going, how long it will take to get there, and it even learns the small predictable patterns I do have, without requiring anywhere near as much access to my life as Google does to make Now useful. Siri doesn’t have to compete with Now on every facet of it’s existence, other parts of that functionality will be handled by other parts of Apple’s products. Siri doesn’t have to single-handedly beat Now, Apple’s devices just have to take enough of a bit out of Google’s core business to cause Google some pain. If Apple defaults to Found for searches on all iOS and OS X devices, that will hurt Google tremendously.
Lastly, search isn’t declining in importance on mobile at all. Google’s problem is that it hasn’t properly monetized mobile as well as it did the desktop, and if Apple does these things without having to monetize through data collection for ads, then Google could be in for a world of hurt.
I’m not convinced Apple would ever create a competitor to Google Search, but if they did, I wouldn’t be dumb enough to automatically write it off as if Google is somehow untouchable. That mentality, that Google is untouchable, is the exact type of mentality that would make them much more vulnerable to losing a good chunk of their business. Apple doesn’t need to take a majority of search share to succeed with a search product. If they just took away 80% of iOS search traffic, Google’s income would plummet. Apple’s “useless” maps product cost Google 23M users. If that happened to Google’s search traffic, it would be devastating. It wouldn’t kill Google or anything, but it would be a huge hit.
What is “Now”? A Google search came up with things like “What Analysts Are Saying About Apple Now”
Sorry, I should have searched for “Google Now” instead of “Apple Now”. https://www.google.com/landing/now/
Google too good? Seriously? They were better 10 years ago for what I am trying to find. Now all it gives is links to useless copy/paste pages. Maybe not their fault the web is mostly copy/paste crap, but still…
I am NOT an Apple fan (quite the opposite) but a new search player would be awesome..
Search is Google’s underbelly. Web search is a solved problem. All you need is enough money and servers. Bing’s search results are just as good as Google’s search results. However, Google is now a habit. Plus, Google has tied many people to its service via other services. It’s Yahoo’s old attempt to be a destination (aka Web Portal) instead of a mere search site, but a lot more successful.
What you’re not going to have is an Alta Vista moment where a new search engine is so good, people will abandon their old one. However, Apple doesn’t have to be the end-all be-all search engine. All Apple has to do is be good enough. Make the Found search engine the default on iPhones and Macs. When a user queries Siri, use Found. Google will still be the biggest search engine company, but Apple will be taking away the prized eyeballs. It’s how Apple can control only 20% to 25% of the smart phone market but make 75% of the profits.
Google’s search market will merely drop between 10% to 15%, but the value of Google search advertisements will fall by 50%. Even better Google will still be the biggest search engine, and all the SEOs will be gaming Google’s search results — driving the value of Google search results even further.
I really like the idea that Steve pre-recorded messages. but don’t think revenge is a productive business motivator, and I would hope Steve would not succumb to it.
Reading the Isaacson biography and other books about Steve, I often thought that, yes, Steve would and did succumb to revenge. He’d probably think he was being strategic about it, but it was part of his character.
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Some people don’t let go of things.
“Would” or “Did” not succumb to that?
Steve Jobs absolutely would have done it. Or tried it, anyway.
Sadly he was the only one at Apple with the force of character and ability to spin a situation to have actually achieved it to any degree. Tim Cook have to grow a personality first, and get rid of that big “TEMPORARY” sign round his neck.
So, if this does indeed come to pass, will that negatively impact the other Google systems, gmail, google docs, etc? My company (a school district) is so heavily dependent on gmail and google docs that the idea of them going down would send our IT Director to the roof for a jump!
But isn’t this the main argument against “the cloud” and basing your business on someone else’s good fortune or profitability? I assume that the system is backed up … no?
If he doesn’t have a backup plan, you need a backup IT director.
timing is ripe for non monetized search. I’d like hear more about solar heated pool and pictures of heat device.
Somebody is going to clean Googles clock on search – it’s a fickle field and up against constantly evolving gaming of the search results by just about everyone. For the items that I search for in my business I’ve found that Google is becoming less and less reliable since it moved to the Social side – quite simple searches that used to hit the correct result within one or two lines now feed pages of gibberish and social comment with suggestions like “did you mean?” instead of an answer.
Remember AltaVista anyone …?
I Couldn’t AGREE With YOU MORE !
That’s EXACTLY What I Have Felt about ” Google’s Search ” Of Late.
Probably Because They’ve Moved The Center of Gravity, Even Scattered to Social Side & MalDroid, Google Glass, etc. etc., Whether They’re Aware or NOT, They LOST Their IDENTITY – ” REASON D’ETRE “.
Though I Still Think Google’s Superiority in Normal Search is Relevant Today, As Far As ” Image Search ” is Concerned, I Found Bing EXCELS Google at Bigger Margin and Was Very Surprised to Find that ” Google’s Image Search ” Has A Vital Shortcoming ! Try Bing When You Search Various Images. You’ll See What I Mean.
Key Word is ” Other Sizes “.
At Their Latest Conference Call on 16/April/2014, Google Big Missed Earnings Estimates !
Google Reported Revenue ex-traffic Acquisition costs of $11.33 billion, Well Below the Wall Street Estimates at $11.9 billion.
Non-GAAP EPS of $9.03 a Share was Down from $9.72 a Year ago, and DRAMATICALLY BELOW The Street Consensus at $10.65 a Share.
Non-GAAP Operating Margin Plunged to 27%, from 37% in the Year ago Quarter.
While revenues were strong, EPS missed TAC as a percentage of revenue increased, MARGINS SHRANK and Cost-per-Click was DOWN.
SOMETHING VERY CRUCIALLY DESTRUCTIVE TO THEIR CORE BUSINESS IS HAPPENING !!!!!!
There were problems elsewhere on the balance sheet as well, namely in Google’s Core Department : SEARCH.
Cost-per-click was Down by 9 % Annually, although it was Flat Sequentially.
And “Click Prices Declined for the Fourth Consecutive Quarter after Rising for Eight Consecutive Quarters before then, ” he said. “That’s a VERY VERY NEGATIVE. This is the mobile problem. ”
So REGARDLESS OF Apple’s ENTRY to Google’s Core Business, Their Business is ON THE VERGE OF COLLAPSE, Isn’t It ?
Settle down, Beavis.
I just had a mildly frustrating but entertaining experience: I tried searching Google for a topic involving “California,” and I got a lot of search results from Canada.
Because Google’s clever word substitution algorithm matched the “.ca” in the domains with “California.”
Apple has a horrible record when it comes to large scale web applications. I can’t’ think of anything of medium complexity that they have ever built successfully at that scale (10-20% of global searches).
That was my thought exactly. It does not matter how good an algorithm they build, if the flub the speed and stability then it will fail. Just like mobileme and icloud. In fact there is an inverse property here. The better it works, the more demand there will be and that could be a huge task to go from zero to even a fraction of Google’s size in search would be a daunting task.
Apple had never shown its self to be nimble. Innovative yes, but methodical and plodding. I do not think the corporate culture would deal well with search.
iWork for iCloud is leaps and bounds better than Google or MS’s alternatives.
iMessage handles huge volume pretty easily.
Maps has improved much faster and better than Google Maps did over it’s first 18 months, even it’s first 36.
Apple’s search product wouldn’t have to be a huge market leader in search. Even if it just took 60% of the search market on iOS devices only, by just being the default search engine, it would be a tremendous hit to Google’s bottom line.
So…what about china? baidu? You think found is going to work there at all?
Better than Google, which is barely present in China.
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Unlike Google, Apple has many good relationships with China, via tremendous amounts of manufacturing and 10 brick and mortar Apple Stores; which they just announced they’re going to triple over the next two years. Plus Apple is held in very high regard as a brand in China.
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If Apple enters the web search market they won’t be locked out of China like Google was. Baidu will just be the major incumbent there, with 60%-70% share, like Google has the majority of search engine share in most other places.
I just hope it’s true. Offer me an alternative to Google and Bing that isn’t full of advertising and doesn’t have the NSA monitoring me and I’ll be a happy camper. I don’t even care if it works better or not. No advertising, no false leads because of targeted advertisement tainted results and the feeling I’m watched by the NSA makes me cringe every time I search for something. If Jobs delivers from the grave I might even buy an Apple iPhone with iOS 6!
Don’t know if it’s better than Google or Bing, but DuckDuckGo.com doesn’t save any tracking info about your searches. It’s my default search engine.
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The results are different than Google’s, but they are pretty good as far as I’m concerned.
I second DuckDuckGo.com !
Did anyone else stop using Yahoo for search simply because they didn’t want to use it for both search and email? It’s a pretty toothless rule of thumb these days but I still abide by it and was surprised others have imposed that rule on themselves as well.
If Apple’s search product is too good it might encourage people to move away from its other products.. wouldn’t that be interesting.
Doesn’t have the NSA monitoring you? You’re not just drinking Apple Kool-Aid, you’re drowning in it. Apple is in bed with the USA. Every USA based corp is…and many that aren’t based in the USA as well.
I could definitely see this happening. They would use it to fill in siri results. The world is moving to mobile so if they simply use siri as the interface to the search they would take a lot from google. Also think of all the data they have on what people search for in a mobile setting. They can work on optimizing the results for 90% of those queries and they would have a pretty good solution. Not sure if they would go for a desktop challenge, but they certainly could roll something out slowly over time.
Maps is improving on iOS. The last few queries I have run through siri on maps have worked fine. The interface is much better than google maps on iOS. So is speech recognition (http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/03/speech-recognition-pioneer-novauris-bought-by-apple-team-now-works-on-siri/). Combine it with carplay. Interesting times…
Also anyone notice all the spam results in google lately. You know the ones that are copies of forum posts or those half page article summaries that are created by algorithm… Google is distracted searching for the next game changer. Maybe they will find it. The biggest asset google has is youtube. That is hard for apple to copy or index.
I love the photoshopped image you used for this article. Very funny.
An unfortunate occurrence, I suppose, is how much this business parallels the oil industry described in the book “The Prize”.
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First, companies have to spend a lot of money drilling dry holes before they get a wet one, but usually the wet ones pay for the dry ones.
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Second the companies use as much science and theory as they can to hedge their bets, but despite all that they still get dry holes and surprised findings.
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Third is the concept of invading other firm’s turf. In the very early part of the 20th century and the end of the 19th century, Shell Oil had a monopoly of sorts in selling kerosine in Asia. But eventually Rockefeller’s Standard Oil invaded Shells turf. Standard at the time had a monopoly in North America. Standard used their cash cow of a monopoly position in North America to underwrite and under price Shell in Asia. Shell realized that it had to create, develop a presence in North America to off set Standard’s position there. Basically, they had to build a business in North America to shrink Standard’s margins (away from a monopoly) in North America so that Standard couldn’t use those margins to undermine Shell in Asia.
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This might explain why all these companies invade each others turf. They are trying to squeeze each other’s margins in their core business areas, even if it’s a little. Even if it loses money. It it loses less money than the margin squeezed at a competitor it might still be a worthy effort. Bing, and perhaps Found, at the very least, might squeeze Google’s margins in the search engine business. These businesses, once developed and up and running aren’t too expensive to keep going.
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Shell never pushed Standard out of business nor vise versa, and I”m not even sure if we as consumers benefited from that competition. But it is what businesses do.
Sounds like an interesting read… I see there’s also a 6 hour documentary based on it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prize:_The_Epic_Quest_for_Oil,_Money,_and_Power
I enjoy reading about these kinds of developments where human endeavours take on a life of their own. Bob’s last article speculating on our data giving rise to new forms of intelligence fits into this as well.
“Oh yeah, one more thing…”
That would be awesome.
Mr. Cringley,
Remember your post about the apple data centers being built too big for their stated purpose? Maybe it was for this?
https://www.cringely.com/2011/06/28/have-you-heard-the-one-about-apples-data-center/
Starting to make sense.
That’s one of the first things I thought of too.
The real competition to Google won’t come from Apple. It will come from a company outside the US, free from the NSA and others interference. Something that Apple and Microsoft/Bing can’t offer.
outside the US, free from the NSA and others interference
And where could a company like that be based? Any country advanced enough to host the company would also be advanced enough to monitor it, and would do so.
The Netherlands comes to mind.
Steve declared all out war with Google after its CEO sat on the board of Apple and betrayed Steve by going into the phone market. Pretty sure that is similar to a past betrayal by a CEO who had source code access to early Mac OS source code for “Mac application development” Not to make a windowing OS or anything.
This makes sense, Apple want to make excellent things. I believe Apple is legally going after Google’s hardware partners while getting ready to cut the balls off Google for their property theft.
Just a thought….
When you frame it as a ‘betrayal’ you make Steve Jobs sound more like Al Capone.
Come to think of it… the more we learn of Jobs the more gansterish he seems… “don’t hire my guys if ya knows whats good fer ya”.
“Found” will be a flop as Ping was. People are already used to things, google search works fine, why even try something else. Apple should focus on hardware I’m so sick of this superpower concerns who try to rule the world. Those people really should get a life.
Interesting post – but there’s not enough information to scrutinize it. First of all, is it possible to build a search engine to rival Google(in terms of speed, accuracy and indexing capabilites) and not monetize it –
Secondly, the site will have to start indexing- so my guess is all the websites, at least the ones who matter will be seeing a new spider indexing their pages –
does apple have so much money and will it be willing to bet the farm on it just to satisfy some moronic Jobsian fantasy, especially when he is no longer around- not so sure.
Also will the board approve of this- again not so sure- Are we to believe that Tim Cook, probably the spectral anti-thesis of jobs, would actually consider doing something like this?
I remember Robert’s old post – https://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2008/pulpit_20080728_005308.html – so it may not be so difficult to make a better search engine –
But Google is now much more than search- mail, maps, phones, browser, phones, tablets, drive etc etc etc- and its all synced with your google account. Now I use google chrome as every time I sign in, all my bookmarks, history, extensions are all available to me across all devices. Search is just a small component of my digital life- my entire online experience is with Google irrespective of which device I am using. I remember discussing with my managing director about integrating more and more google services in our organization and he was worried about Google being big brother and I quipped that google was a big brother that served you ads and nothing else(I got away with it because he is also my father). Yes google seach is not as good as it was ten years back- but the web was also not so full of crap ten years back and search was easier.
So this might be possible when google first came out. But now if you want to compete with google, you have to compete with them on hardware and software and personal data – After the maps fiasco, I just don’t see the tech chops with Apple- sorry!
Vivek
I’m not sure how practical it would be for Apple to build a web search engine. If they are, we’d see some spider traffic, no?
What is really interesting to me is the possibility for Apple to build a search engine for Apps, with Siri at the helm. If I wanted to search for recipes, you’d think that recipes in my purchased apps would come up first, wouldn’t you? If Apple can convince app developers to structure their data in a way Siri could understand it semantically, I think we’d see a search engine that could disrupt Google.
I was thinking about the spidering traffic as well. I suppose they could disguise it as coming from Google (the Purloined Letter approach?), but someone surely would have noticed that it came from a non-Google IP address by now.
[…] journaliste Robert X. Cringely (de son vrai nom Mark Stephens) a récemment écrit un article évoquant “Found”. Sous ce nom se cache un projet qu’Apple garderait secrètement […]
Integrate search with what Siri can do and you’re starting to see where it could go. Microsoft already are going down this route with their Halo search on mobiles. I, for one, would welcome a credible alternative to Google.
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People like to criticise Apple, but when they improve they genuinely get better. For Google and especially Microsoft their improvements are usually to add more clicks to do any one operation, and to move how to do that somewhere almost impossible to find!
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And yes, my first thought was on the data centres that Apple built.
My first thought was also on the “extra capacity” of the data centres that Apple built. That capacity is there for a reason. Nothing is left to chance.
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Matt H. “Google has in a sense reached escape velocity.”
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Similar comments were made about the Hittites and their military strength, the Phoenicians and their success in trading throughout the Mediterranean, the Celts and their superiority in iron-making, the military prowess of Alexander and his Macedonian forces, the Romans in military and bureaucratic/administrative superiority, the dominance of the Merovingian Dynasty or the Carolingian dynasty, the British, French, Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish Empires and on and on and on and …
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Nothing lasts forever. Ask the former coal barons, the masters of wagon wheels and carriage builders, the former newspaper tycoons, the former executives and staff of Blockbuster, and almost any chain of music stores …
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Hubris arrives in many forms.
I’d argue that Apple’s hubris is ripe for a humiliation as well as Google’s is.
What I think is that if Apple does forge ahead with search, it will wait until Samsung decides to cut the cord with Android and then approach Samsung to work out a deal. The enemy of my enemy…
I Don’t Know Why. But the tone and conviction of the nay sayers makes me curious. Of Course, it is all speculation but it is not as such WILD speculation, the hooks are right there in software. And they have been for YEARS, (actually much of the paradigm is in the OLD MacOS 7-9 DNA) With Applescript/Automator and a little bit of knowledge it is quite possible to -extend the User’s personal experience. Most Apple devices know where I am, All of them will have quite a bit of ad hoc information about WHO I am and what I do when and where. [And I can bracket off the so called privacy issues in this as it is a whole separate discussion]
So how hard would it be for the system to be more of an Intelligent-Agent? The notification that I just got 2 emails, could also remind me to exercise. (Hey you went to the Gym on three thursdays and missed two. Hey you took some photos of flowers would you like to buy some flowers) But without the necessary commercial buy in that Google’s integration requires as Apple already has it’s own deeply entrenched revenue streams. Much of the crowdsourcing hooks are already there and it should be no more intrusive than the iTunes Music store. And if they do not do it then someone else smart will.
Time Will Tell.
Part of the reason why some of us are naysayers is because we keep expecting Apple (and Google) to have a Napoleon Invades Russia moment, that the relentless advance of global domination has to have an eventual setback. I know I’m in the camp that says you can’t keep having good luck forever, but what form the eventual disaster will take is an unknown.
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As for search, the recent NSA disclosures, browser bugs, and OpenSSL exploits will make any “integrated experience” a bit more suspect. Just who are you giving the keys to the kingdom to? And are you willing to take that risk without understanding what it might entail, and who might be snooping on you?
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If Apple can answer those questions to enough people’s satisfaction, then they might have a chance with search. But if they fall victim to an exploit this year, you can forget it.
Avram is obviously a smart insider who knows what he’s talking about in general, but has anyone tried to read his blog? The man seriously needs an editor. His spelling and grammar are so atrocious that his message almost gets lost. Notice I said almost.
First of all, Mr. Jobs is no longer with us and although I am not a part of the Apple ecosystem, I wish he was still with us. I find it hard to believe, with as much money that is involved with search from Google to Yahoo to Microsoft, they would spend resources with the intention of bringing down another company and try not to monetize it in some way. I know it happens, such as with Internet Explorer and Netscape, but why would Apple, which is a hardware company, waste resources for that? If I was a shareholder, and I probably am through mutual funds, I wouldn’t be happy spending money with little to no ROI attached to it.
Apple has $150 billion in cash. They can build global search for a few billion if they feel like it.
Apple’s stock buyback will give $90 billion to the stockholders, but that leaves $60 billion to play with.
Most of Apple’s cash is locked up by taxes outside the US, but they can build globally.
Samsung competes with Apple phones, using Android and whatever they can code. Motorola isn’t Samsung, but Google bought it anyway.
I don’t see why the current board and current stockholders would want to spend big bucks on revenge.
some pretty ignorant comments here, the usual data-filled Apple-bashing — Google Maps is better than Apple Maps? This is the level of debate? Apple Search will fail like Ping? Mention Mobile Me whydoncha? (Just don’t mention iOS or iTunes.) Apple will integrate its search function in stages, as it does everything else. It’ll get better as it goes or it won’t and that’ll be that. Like Maps, which works just fine thank you.
Mr. Cringely, your naivete is astonishing. Ever since Siri was introduced, it was abundantly obvious that Apple was going for Google’s search jugular.
Searches spoken into Siri are routed to the most logical engines, as noted in the attributions in the results: calculations often come from Wolfram Alpha, sports results from Yahoo!, encyclopedic answers from Wikipedia, restaurants and local businesses from Yelp!, etc. Rarely are results from Google for good reason.
Apple’s deliberate omission of everything Google (no Google maps, no Google buttons, etc.) in iOS 6 was the declaration of war. Apple’s success need not even depend on some genius’s algorithm. Apple has enough money to farm it out to the aforementioned engines the way Duck Duck Go does. Apple made search implicit, independent of Google’s brand, and this strategy is working. You don’t type a URL when you ask Siri questions.
It was also obvious from the evolution of Apple’s App Store back end (available to developers) that they are very, very, very busy using the terrabytes (maybe more, maybe less) of data that are coming to them daily as fodder for the development of better search oriented services. The fruits are born in iTunes search results, as well, where Apple has practically infinite amounts of data to analyze statistically.
Both you and Miller miss another salient point. Apple need not destroy Google. All Apple has to do is to turn Google’s biggest moneymakers–search, maps, apps–into commodities. A commodity outfit has low profit margins. It cannot compete with Apple anymore. Just look at the sorry states of commodity sellers like Dell and HP. Google will soon face the same dilemma that is hampering Microsoft: how do you destroy your vendors but maintain market share? Google is struggling very hard not to be relegated to commodity, and this increasingly adversarial relationship with its vendors (like Samsung) is NOT helping. In a most sinister way, Apple could make its Found engine cheaper on the Android platform to induce Samsung and others to use Apple’s service instead.
Map searches are quickly becoming a commodity. Apple will soon trivialize digital payments with its fingerprint reader. Whence will Google find revenue?
Bob, if you didn’t see this coming, then you must be losing your edge!
Interesting, but I would think that the company would work on the next great thing (or things) in its pipeline instead of on something that doesn’t make money for the sole purpose of revenge. Sounds silly when I type it, but I guess I don’t have the ego, or wealth, that the Execs and Board at Apple do. That’s what a good manager would do, focus on making money, and maybe there is a grander, more genius plan that they aren’t telling us (and are they even working on this?) I know Apple is very secretive and it probably has products in the pipeline, but a bigger screened iPhone isn’t one of them and the iPad is maturing as many, including myself, are finding that it really isn’t the replacement for the laptop. This is just silly in my opinion, but maybe they are trying to get more into their ecosystem and if that’s the case, it’s going to take more than a search engine to do that with me, despite the lack of ads.
Point well taken. Destroying Google is NOT, indeed, Apple’s sole business strategy. It’s just something they are doing because $130 billion in cash allows you to do that. This strategy, however, has the added benefit of making it harder for Google to supply a competitive OS experience, to divide the enemy, and to prevent them from copying Apple they way Windows and Android copied MacOS and iOS, respectively. As I noted earlier, what Apple will likely do with mobile payments is one of the next big things.
Apple is trying to make it very difficult for anyone to copy its next big thing, whatever that may be.
Of course, Google could scoop Apple and come up with the next big thing. Nothing points to that eventuality.
So the singularity is in fact a vengeful CG Avatar of Steve Jobs ? Where can I find a sledgehammer to throw at the screen ?
Clever thought!
Why all the Google hate ? I trust Larry Page a lot more than most of these resentful “also rans.”
1. Page Rank has evolved over time. It’s not a point in time target.
2. If someone had a radically better solution to search, and since search loyalty isn’t sticky (though I’m not sure about that) – um why would they give it to Apple just so a deceased Steve Jobs could spite someone ?
3. It was Larry Page who brought Android into Google, not Schmidt.
4. Besides as Thomas Jefferson correctly observed “The earth belongs to the living . . . ”
5. RIP Steve. You had your moments of greatness, but the RDF doesn’t work posthumously.
Google keeps abusing the trust people have given them, and they’re getting fed up with it. Google’s products keep getting gunked up, too, like the amount of non-content in search results, sponsored results in Google Maps, Google+ being forced on users all over the place, YouTube being frequently messed with, etc.
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More and more Google seems to be paralleling Microsoft of the mid-90’s, where their products are used more as the de facto choice because that’s just what ones uses rather than because they’re best.
The domain Found.com is owned by and redirects to Epicor, an enterprise resource planning company. Not that I would expect Apple to let such a secret slip that easily. 😛
Take a look at iFound.com.
According to the Wayback Machine, that gif first appeared in early 2007…….coincidence?
🙂
If they can’t use the name “found” for some reason then they could always call it “finder”.
They can always call it “lost”.
oh goody, the possibility of the Reality Distortion Field from the great beyond is very enticing
oh goody, the prospect of experiencing the Reality Distortion Field from the great beyond is very enticing
Some people are too much obsessed with Steve Jobs. Get over it…
Anyone have the server log files showing “found” crawling their site? I don’t see it, but maybe it’s hiding somewhere in there…
No. But but logs show “lost” is crawling my site.
Hey-hey… Samsung is going to present their new search engine after this news: Sam-Found. Or it would be strange not to unveil Sam-thing.
Okay I don’t buy this.
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How many times have you had to look past the first page of Google search results? I almost never see past the first page, or even top few results. That’s indication of pretty good search functioning.
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The spooky seance of Steve Jobs is inspired and totally possible to see an eerie emaciated Steve hovering over WWDC. Great idea, IF Steve thought of it. He was dying you know.
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So what’s going on? Perhaps Avram did meet someone in Israel who talked up their technology (who doesn’t?) and Avram put the sales pitch into a column. I don’t see Google being disintermediated in search just like Microsoft still owns Office despite its clones.
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I agree with other comments that search is declining in importance on mobile. Actually the entire browser is declining in importance and we’re diving into an app-centric world, for better or worse. Worse in the sense it’s more native and proprietary than the open world of browsers.
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I also don’t see Facebook hurting Google, not yet. The wild card for Google is Yahoo. Their CEO Marissa Mayer came from Google so knows what’s sensitive to them. So far she has poked a bit, signing an agreement to get Yelp reviews into Yahoo search results. That’s the kind of dealing I think that can hurt Google, real content delivery, not some new hocus-pocus algorithm finding what’s already out there.
This article is not plausible. Apple doesn’t develop that much technology, they are all about design.
So much of their stuff is outsourced, including the one item mentioned in the article, SIRI.
So what search company has Apple secretly purchased?
I read the post of Avram Miller and even he doesn’t confirm his own story. And Bob didn’t speak to him. So this is all just pure, funny, speculation.
[…] that Jobs once vowed to destroy Google. With that last thought in mind see these two articles. <I, Cringely Avram Miller says Steve Jobs has one more Apple intro – I, Cringely> <How Apple crushed Google in the fall of 2015 from my book> Those articles seemingly […]
[…] Geek, Cringely, […]
Give people a reason to change hard to change habits, and they just might…. Apple customers are fanatics and will switch for no other reason than the product being from Apple. Market it just right and we could eventually see wide adoption by users from other platforms.
Apple could execute an iTunes developer model with Found – allow users to opt in for advertisements, if they so desired, keep 30% of the ad in house & pay the user a % of the remaining 70% for viewing, clicking, tracking, and other accumulated marketing data. This micro-payment would be credited to the user’s iTunes account, and essentially, would brilliantly come out of Google’s pocket.
The “house” the “user” and who gets the remaining part of the 70%? Of ad revenue, I suppose? How is Google involved?
This would be the revenue that Google currently generates from these ads being re-routed to the iPhone/iPad, etc., user instead. Found could be ad-free & tracking free – or – users could opt in to be spied on just as much as Google’s spying on them now, only they’d get paid for it.
So now your search will only work if you have created an account with Apple that includes credit card info?
Don’t mean to be out of bounds here, but Avram Miller, no matter who or what he was, is also the guy who has a post on the same blog asserting that turning his smartphone “off” means that it’s actually…well…off.
http://twothirdsdone.com/2014/03/23/its-not-big-brother-that-should-worry-you-its-little-brother-the-spy-in-your-pocket/
If Miller believes that turning a smartphone “off” means saying “goodnight” to brother big, small or Apple, I am left to wonder about his judgement on the current topic. Some people are brilliant in some ways. That doesn’t mean they are brilliant in all ways.
“Found”? Will believe it when I see it. (And frankly, even if I see it, I expect Apple to be as big a fool with it as they were/are with OS-X. All about the margins. Could dominate…but will wall it off and demand an insane hardware premium, thus losing…always.)
[…] on Apple’s Search project (written while I was in South Africa last week) and posts about it here on his blog, which has a lot more readers than I have. Please read his post. Also the 90 or so […]
[…] É no mínimo bombástica essa declaração. O interessante é que vem de um ex-executivo de alto escalão da Intel, o que pode indicar uma veracidade deste projeto. Será que a Apple estaria mesmo com o projeto “Found” já bem encaminhado para desbancar o Google? Só nos resta ir atrás de mais informaçoes e aguardar se esse boato é verdadeiro. [cringely] […]
[…] É no mínimo bombástica essa declaração. O interessante é que vem de um ex-executivo de alto escalão da Intel, o que pode indicar uma veracidade deste projeto. Será que a Apple estaria mesmo com o projeto “Found” já bem encaminhado para desbancar o Google? Só nos resta ir atrás de mais informaçoes e aguardar se esse boato é verdadeiro. [cringely] […]
Apple’s core DNA is several light-years removed from the festering swamp from which Google has crawled. And that isn’t my opinion – that was very much Steve’s opinion.
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If there was one thing Steve hated above all else, it was a lack of respect for the human mind. He hated one-dimensional, linear thinking – that something could not be done because it could not be done. If you had a hint of that odor on you when he was near, he would pounce with absolutely merciless ferocity.
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Google is the antithesis of that viewpoint. Google’s “search” does a tremendous disservice to its users by presenting data that has been combed, pressed, filtered, and stained with monetization. It is not a Thanksgiving turkey – it is turkey loaf you get from a Google search.
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If schools taught classes like Google presents data, the kids would get to vote on what would be most popular and the day would be all lunch and recess.
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Steve had absolute disdain for people who could not see past the hype and get to the soul of the product. For most products, their soul was based on profit, and not achievement of a higher standard. That is why he labeled most products as “crap.” Steve wanted people to learn, grow, and share. His products focused on exactly that. Google’s products focus on how you can be parsed, funneled, and sold.
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Google is evil. Steve knew that. And if this comes true, I’d love to see him laughing from beyond the grave – not just that he got even. What is better than getting even is to completely demolish a paradigm with a simple shift toward the elegant – what Steve labeled as the “truth” of the product shining through.
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It’s a paradox that the Internet is the world’s largest collection of knowledge; yet we always say “you can’t believe what you read on the Internet.” Why not? No, really… why not?
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If you listen carefully, you can hear Steve asking that very question…
The most important use of computers and the internet for me is search. I find what I need from anywhere in the world and get the best price at the same time. Google’s unbiased, ad free, page rank was the first thing to make that possible. The ads are now even more clearly labeled than before and thus can, and should, be ignored to see the unbiased results. Steve is mostly angry at Google for the competition in cell phones resulting from Android. Google bought Motorola for their patents thus legitimizing Android’s competitive position in the patent game. I don’t need to use any of Google’s other services except search and Android, and also prefer not to pay the Apple tax, or use their walled garden, for products and services.
This is “… the most secret project ever undertaken at Apple”. In fact, we’re asked to believe that despite the secrecy a complete Apple outsider has learned about it and disregarded the secrecy policy, to tell the world.
Hmmm … perhaps I am missing something.
I’d prefer to do all my search using IBM Watson if I could.
It never ceases to amaze me that the vast majority are perfectly OK with whatever Aplle does.
Why didn’t Jobs get therapy for his mental illness? Didn’t anyone on the Apple board realize he suffered from NPD? Did they know but just ignored it as they were afraid curing his NPD would destroy the ‘magic’?
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In terms of search the only thing that matters is being able to correctly interpret voice commands and give correct results. No easy task but the right one.
Then again Elon Musk makes everyone else look like a kindergartener and is gonna eat everyone’s lunch while he really invents the future.
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Did you know about this lawsuit against Apple Inc? I think I might qualify.
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