Slashdot Mirror


Bing To Become Default iPhone Search?

snydeq writes "BusinessWeek reports ongoing talks between Apple and Microsoft to make Bing the default search engine for the iPhone. The discussions reflect an accelerating rivalry between Apple and Google, one that some believe will be the most important rivalry in tech in the years to come. 'Apple and Google know the other is their primary enemy,' says one person familiar with Apple's thinking. 'Microsoft is now a pawn in that battle.'"

13 of 463 comments (clear)

  1. Marketshare gains misleading... by SuperKendall · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I like competition as much as the next guy.

    However, I am really suspicious of Bing's marketshare numbers. Has no-one else noticed that many of those demonic hoverover underline word links pull up Bing now? How much of the increase is because people lingered a little too long over a word on a web page?

    Furthermore, anything with a small marketshare can easily post impressive percentage gains quickly...

    Bing's results are as you say pretty decent, however I really don't like the super-heavy home page with the ginormous image. It's cool once but I just can't have that for a page I pull up so often... even if cached, the image is just too annoying over time. Goolge has the simplicity aspect right.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Marketshare gains misleading... by lorenlal · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The other thing that bothers me about the marketshare numbers is that Microsoft is working the Bing advertising to a point where I can't avoid seeing it. I also notice that somehow Bing seems to be popping up in places that I didn't even think they could. Notice what's powering the map on that page?

      Add in the $500 Bing agreement with Verizon.

      Add in the fact that Bing is really doing well taking share from their partner.

      To me, it boils down to this: I don't trust many people.

      I hardly trust Google, but I have yet to see them engage in practices where they abuse their market share. Please correct me if I've missed something.

      I know what Microsoft does when they dominate market share... And right now, this product is gaining market share because MS is pouring money into it at a pace that they can't intend on maintaining. I don't know what their plan is, but I have a feeling that this one's not following the "embrace" part of their normal business model. I can't wait to see what they do once Bing closes in on 30% (assuming it keeps gaining). My guess is that they'll find a way to blend it with the desktop OS, and "integrate" it with the desktop search. I'm also sure that desktop search will extend to the general web.

    2. Re:Marketshare gains misleading... by derGoldstein · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Have you looked over the hacks that Google Analytics uses? You think that click tracking is an issue? They make the browser effectively "watch you back" with that stuff. If you go over the source, you'll see a nice sliding scale of technology: The first options are always basic HTML, often with deprecated tags, for old/slow machines. As you progress upwards, more and more layers of interface interaction are added, along with huge amounts of data collection. After browsing through enough of their page sources, I'm starting to think that the privacy nuts aren't as nuts as I used to think.
      If you want to try this yourself, download Firebug, and add a bunch of monitoring add-ons to it. You'll be amazed at how "chatty" google pages are.

      --
      Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.
  2. Apple to force ads on the iPhone?! WHAT? by Jackie_Chan_Fan · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "Apple is also working on ways to manage ad placement on its mobile devices"

    What the hell is that line about. Apple better not be spamming the fuck out fo me when i'm paying for their fucking devices and software AND cell service.

    FUCK YOU APPLE.. Dont even try it.

  3. Re:Big Battle by Darkness404 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    MS has actually made their search engine better than Google (the different categories and combining them together shows this, and it's greatly improved over Live search).

    Citation needed. Live search was crap, being better than crap doesn't make something great. And I've compared the search results, 80% of the time I prefer Google's results (there was this site that compared Bing/Google/Yahoo and had you pick your favorite and then told you what it was, don't know the URL at the time)

    And now Bing keeps gaining marketshare faster than ever before.

    And I would imagine that most of that growth is caused by people using the default IE search option which uses Bing.

    It is actually a good product,

    Again, Citation needed. Is there really anything that Bing does better than Google for the general user?

    and actually something MS has left alone from their other marketing efforts (for example, they use flash instead of silverlight, because flash is installed on so many machines, and do not try to promote silverlight on cost of their search engine).

    Isn't that how -all- Microsoft's products start? First as nice, good projects with open standards, etc. Then they release that one program that breaks the standard and suddenly that becomes the new standard and then close it off to non-MS products.

    Google pulls out from China market.

    Um, not exactly sure what you meant by this statement, but assuming its anti-Google, I don't really see your point. Basically Google said that they are sick of being the pawns of the Chinese government which is a -good thing-, I really don't think Microsoft would have the guts to say that.

    This shows competition is good. It surely leads to innovations.

    Competition is good, but corrupt competition is not. Both Microsoft and Google use software patents to discourage competition, both don't care about privacy, and both are willing to be tossed along and won't fight for their user's rights.

    --
    Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
  4. Re:Microsoft a pawn? by jim_v2000 · · Score: 5, Funny

    >a Jobs search engine.

    It would be like Google, but the only button would be the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button.

    --
    Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
  5. Re:It's not a search engine by westlake · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm pretty positive that Steve hates Microsoft, what it stands for, and the way it does its business. Pretty much like many Linux folks do

    Apple and Microsoft have had a mutually profitable - symbiotic - relationship for thirty years.

    Apple sells an upscale urban lifestyle.

    Microsoft solid middle class value.

    Both have a very clear notion of how to profitably leverage the other's platform. Windows gets iTunes. The Mac gets MS Office.

    Hate makes good theater - but rarely good business - and the geek needs to remember when he is watching a show.

  6. Re:Big Battle by __aajfby9338 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Has Microsoft really damaged you so much that whatever they do meets so much resistance that the sheer *thought* of using a product would make you cringe?

    Yes. I hate everything about their software products. I will not use them unless I have no viable alternative, and I will go out of my way to use not-quite-viable alternatives instead if I have to.

    And on a related note, what should Microsoft do to regain your respect?

    Nothing. My respect is not available to them.

    On a social analogy, is a thief always a thief, even when he shows remorse and changed his ways?

    He may no longer be a thief, but I still won't trust him. There are plenty of other people who have not already demonstrated their untrustworthiness, so I can get by without that former thief just fine.

  7. Re:Big Battle by node+3 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    On a social analogy, is a thief always a thief, even when he shows remorse and changed his ways?

    The thief will have always done the thieving, regardless of what he does later in life. In order for the thief to regain trust, he'll have to admit to that. Has Microsoft done that?

    Microsoft hasn't "shown remorse and changed their ways". And this is all assuming one accepts the premise that corporations deserve forgiveness or a second chance in the same way a human does. I'm not convinced they do. Not so readily or so easily, at least.

  8. Re:Big Battle by Nikker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just because Microsoft might actually get off their collective asses for once in their lives doesn't get them a cookie in my book. You are talking about a multi billion dollar corporation that has done nothing but hinder an entire industry. There will always be competition where large sums of money are involved and Microsoft while being an extremely 'innovative' and cunning business wise they have coasted happily when it has become the path of least resistance product wise. The entanglement of these three massive companies so directly will evolve some amazing solutions across the board but thanking Microsoft for getting up for Google after they were pissing on their lawn doesn't get them any more from me then before. Microsoft is like a world heavy weight boxing champion that won't get off their chair to dance in the ring, sure they win but they put on a really shitty event. Now Google comes along and they finally have to get off the chair to connect a punch and we all become enthralled but we are supposed to thank a boxer for boxing? I don't think so.

    --
    A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
  9. Re:Big Battle by rtfa-troll · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If I had moderator points, I would mod you up.

    You and so many people that forget how Microsoft got here. Any other search engine as garbage as MSN would have been forgotten by now. Microsoft has driven their search engines through many generations each of which was terrible. If there was real competition in the IT market, other search companies than MS would be able to compete with Google.

    The thing to remember is that Bing is great at everything except actually delivering search results. In your search results you want something you can trust and understand, but as we've discussed before. Even today, when Microsoft has tried to hide these problems, when you search for "Why is Microsoft Windows so expensive?" you'll find that on Microsoft's results the page "Why are Macs so expensive?" is high in the top ten whilst doing the same search on Google manages to find plenty more on topic material.

    Microsoft amnesia is astounding. Take the last example; Microsoft has biased results, they get caught; they change their results to hide the bias better. Within days we have postings all over the internet denying they were ever biased.

    --
    =~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
  10. Re:Big Battle by FreeUser · · Score: 5, Insightful

    He may no longer be a thief, but I still won't trust him. There are plenty of other people who have not already demonstrated their untrustworthiness, so I can get by without that former thief just fine.

    Exactly right. As a middle-eastern friend of mine once said: "If someone steals from you, forgive them. But tie up your camel." Or put in more familiar terms: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." Microsoft has fooled everyone at least once. Let them do it to you again, and you have only yourself to blame.

    --
    The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
  11. Re:Big Battle by DJRumpy · · Score: 5, Informative