Google CEO Sundar Pichai pitched pre-installing a Google Search app on every iOS device to Apple CEO Tim Cook back in 2018, as revealed in Pichai’s recent testimony.
Pichai testified in the ongoing U.S. v. Google antitrust trial on October 30th. While his testimony touched on various topics, The Verge reports the focus was on Google’s lucrative search deal with Apple — a deal which reportedly saw Google pay Apple $18 billion USD (roughly $24.9 billion CAD) in 2021 to hold onto its position as the default search option in Safari.
According to Pichai’s testimony, Apple raised concerns in that 2018 meeting about a decline in revenue growth from the revenue-sharing deal the companies had. Google’s overall revenue was growing faster than what Apple was getting from the partnership.
Google offered up a few ideas about what could be causing the problem, such as Siri Suggestions, a newish iOS feature at the time that bypassed Google for some queries to help users find some things faster. The search giant also told Apple that “Google is not in control of the amount or type of traffic received by Safari; Apple is.”
According to meeting notes from partnerships executive Don Harrison, Pichai then made the case for a pre-installed Google Search app:
“When discussing how to encourage search, [Pichai] spoke about the fact that this is what we do — people trust us to get this right and trust us with the content of what they are searching for — and weaved in them considering us building an app or other experience that people associate with us and connect to us (vs. flowing through Siri/suggest.) Tim listened but did not react to this specifically other than noting we had different strengths.”
In court, Pichai testified that he was trying to find a solution that worked for everyone, noting that a Google Search app helped drive increased usage on Android. “So I proposed that we could build a Google search application for iOS,” Pichai said.
Apple, obviously, didn’t go for it. As The Verge points out, Apple famously doesn’t preload third-party software on its devices (plus, Apple’s senior vice president of services, Eddy Cue, previously testified that Apple likely never would). Of course, Apple sort of did preload third-party software on the iPhone back in the day — until iOS 6, there were Apple-made Google Maps and YouTube apps.
It’s not clear what Pichai’s proposed Google Search app would have looked like. It could have been Apple-made software like the preloaded Maps and YouTube apps, or perhaps it could have been a widget or a reinvented Spotlight feature. Regardless, it’s interesting to think about what could have been if Apple and Google went a different direction in their partnership.
Source: The Verge
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