Google and Apple have a helluva complex relationship, with the iOS 6 Google Maps fiasco making many a headline last year, and rightly so. That was some funny sh*t.
Continuing the notion of complexity, some guy at Morgan Stanley (Scott Devitt, to use his actual name) reckons Google might pay Apple around $1 billion in 2014 to remain the default search engine in iOS.
Scott’s figure is reached on a per unit basis. At $3.50 per unit in 2014, and with a projected 307 million iDevices sold, that’s circa $1 billion. Cripes.
Amusingly, back in 2009, $2 per unit and 41 million devices equated to just (ahem) $82 million.
Fire up Safari and tap the Search bar in the top right, and it’s Google that provides the results. Interestingly, said bar now reads ‘Search’, where it used to say ‘Google’. How friggin’ pedantic can you get?
“What’s the alternative?” you scream? Well, Microsoft is reportedly keen to get Bing on iOS devices, in addition to being the default search engine on Nokias and BlackBerrys.
Incidentally, I’ve been using the iOS Google Search app a lot recently, but I’m weird. The logic being - I guess - that most of the time I use my phone to browse, I’m googling something. Why am I telling you this? No idea. Bye.
via: TechCrunch
