Is Apple Building A Search Engine?

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/13/is-apple-building-a-search-engine/

by jasonlbaptiste • 18 years ago

20 28 18 years ago

ovi256• 18 years ago

The TechCrunch formula: take any interesting rumor ("Apple is building a search engine"). Throw technical platitudes around it ("you need people who know what they're doing"). Do not commit - neither assert ("why invest all that capital into search? The answer is they’re not.") nor deny too strongly ("There are pieces of this we are still putting together"). Be sure to stick ads on the page. Finally? Profit of course.

unalone6• 18 years ago

Yep! No question mark there.

I'm still surprised HN hasn't banned TechCrunch stories. When they do have a good story, usually somebody else has the story as well. And TechCrunch attracts a lot of spam.

sundeep3• 18 years ago

are you really advocating a ban?

centuren• 18 years ago

I've imposed my own ban on TechCrunch, with the BlockSite extension for Firefox (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3145). I actually installed it specifically to prevent getting lured to TechCrunch articles from sites like HN where I'm just looking at headlines. It's the only site I have listed, and the links show up as visited and unclickable, saving me wasting precious minutes everyday.

kirubakaran• 18 years ago

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=181539

walterk• 18 years ago

I avoid TechCrunch as much as possible, but my impression is that most of the crap is coming from Arrington.

That TC story about Loopt that had "Told you" in the headline? Yeah.

mdasen• 18 years ago

Um, is today the day to make up implausible rumors and then say that they're implausible?

Apple doesn't have the scale to do web services like that. Yes they have MobileMe, but that's very different - people pay for it which makes up for inefficiencies. Google (and even Microsoft and Yahoo) are very efficient (cost-wise) when it comes to web services compared to Apple. Now, there is always the possibility that Apple will replace Google with a competitor in Safari should Google's agreement become less lucrative for them.

Seriously, their evidence is Apple not liking Android? If it were a real fight Google wouldn't be developing for the iPhone awesome stuff like the street view that auto-pans as you move the phone. Companies both compete and cooperate all the time. Toyota sells hybrid technology to Ford and also produces cars that compete with Ford's. Likewise, Apple and Google will both cooperate and compete.

petergroverman• 18 years ago

It makes sense... why not? Maybe it could be as good as Cuil??

Angostura• 18 years ago

I Apple is tinkering with Internet search, my guesses would be:

1. Extending Spotlight to handle remote data as well as local 2. ... No, actually I can only think of that.

unalone6• 18 years ago

I think they made my all-time favorite online search engine. Try the one on their site. It indexes all their pages, including support pages, and runs basically like Spotlight does. Extended search includes iTunes music results and a bunch of other cool things.

If they could expand that unto the entire Internet, it would be glorious. But they can't, and they won't, and they don't stand to profit. So... oh well.

ntoshev2• 18 years ago

No.

unalone6• 18 years ago

As amusing as comments like these are (I've seen another story today that had a "no" response), I'm worried that comments on Hacker News are starting to become diluted. A similar thing happened early on with Reddit, before it started its decline.

Hexstream• 18 years ago

Ok. We get it. We've read that kind of message hundreds of times. We know the reddit/digg/slashdot decline cautionary tale. It's enough. Just stop. No more. No more!

virtualdarwin• 18 years ago

stay away from the TC aura of rationality nullification. too many stupid ideas are touted on TC for it to be of any use. ever.

mnemonik2• 18 years ago

More visual way of searching, huh? Reminds me of that failure that was Cuil...

justindz• 18 years ago

I used a lot of visualized search engine technologies being pitched by different research groups or startups in my last job. They were all pretty (well, okay, they were 50 footers) but they all had the same problem: horribly inefficient as search engines. Which is, you know, what they were supposed to be.

mnemonik2• 18 years ago

Horribly inefficient is still better than presenting porn in unrelated searches while safe mode is on.

Is Apple Building A Search Engine?

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