The secret is out! Apple is building its own search engine

Apple won’t be able to compete head-to-head with Google in search overnight. But the fact that it is trying? This is the interesting move, for a company known more for its brilliantly-designed products. Just as interesting is the answer to “why now?”

This ties into the DOJ antitrust case against Google that I analyzed last week. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) is putting the $8 to $12 billion every year that Google pays to Apple at the center of its case. Google pays that amount to appear as the default search engine on iPhones. Certainly, before this came to light, Apple was already looking to de-couple from Google.

Apple’s profits from Google are certainly nice — but it creates a dependency on Google.

Also, don’t forget ‘Hey Siri’ vs. ‘OK Google’ — Siri will need its own source of information. Otherwise it will constantly provide data to train Google, its competition.

It surely won’t be easy for Apple to disengage from Google. But then again, building its own technology is nothing new for Apple. Most recently Apple announced that is is moving away from Intel’s chips — and unifying all the hardware (Mac, MacBook, iPhone, iPad) using the same code and dev environment. Where there’s a will (and about $200 billion in the bank) there’s a way.