well ...
Who do i Make fun of here.
Im torn !!
Apple has used its annual Worldwide Developers Conference, held this week in San Francisco, to play internet giants against each other. On Monday, the iPhone maker revealed a pact with Microsoft to make Bing the default web search engine for its desktops and devices – swapping out Google. The change will affect Spotlight in …
Gawd!
Not that old "Microsoft owns part of Apple" sawhorse. FYI, in 1997 MS purchased 150,000 shares of Series A nonvoting convertible preferred stock at $1,000 per share. They sold their entire holding several years later.
Ergo, Microsoft do NOT own any part of Apple and haven't done for over ten years. Go take a gander at Apple's 2003 10-K filing.
To quote F.E. Smith, you may be none the wiser but at least you're now better informed.
=:~)
Knowledge graphs, conversational voice search are basic technologies that Google and MS share. Now that the PR genius behind Scroogled is no longer in control, MS is free to provide personal assistance based on (horror of horrors) private personal info. MS, Google and Apple all know that Notes during the user's day are the key to scoring sales credit.
Apple Maps fiasco all over again.
Firstly I don't think Bing's all that bad. Oh, except Bing maps. Which I used a few times on my old Nokia Lumia, and sucked. Fortunately I had HERE maps from Nokia, so it didn't matter. I've been using Bing occasionally for the last few months - and it doesn't seem to be all that different. One of these days I might change my default search to it, but although it doesn't seem any worse, it also doesn't seem any better.
As for the Apple Maps fiasco, didn't Google force that on Apple? As I recall they wouldn't license voice navigation to them, so the iPhone would no longer have been able to operate as a sat-nav.
Given all the advantages of keeping the iPhone customers (all that lovely data), the cash from Apple, and avoiding the risk of looking too monopolistic, that always looked like a rather short-sighted decision from Google. One they may come to regret now.
"I don't think Bing's all that bad. Oh, except Bing maps. Which I used a few times on my old Nokia Lumia, and sucked."
MultiMap.com was my favourite Map site until they got borged by MS and became Bing Maps. Within a few days of the new logos appearing on the site maps were displaying incorrectly or not showing up at all in the browser. Microsoft pushed me onto Google maps by F'ing up a perfevtly good product.
The good news is that Nokia phones use the same data for Bing maps now as Nokia/Here maps, built-in, no data connection required. The Here maps do have the extremely useful indoor complex directories such as where every telephone, toilet and lift etc. is in a given airport as well as the floor plan and departments for Harrods and other shopping emporia (and they look marginally better I think). And yes, they are built-in too, also requiring no data connection. Believe it or not but they have the platforms and toilets etc. for railway stations too, amazing.
As for Bing itself, people constantly bang on about it but I was tracking a flight today, which happened to be delayed by a reasonable amount of time.
For some reason FlightStats couldn't track it (large body of water, I don't think so) so I type track flight into Bing and looked at the options only to see a special 'result' detailing the flight information.
The point is, however, that it showed all the relevant info AND the fact that it was delayed along with the expected TOA etc. as well as a link to track it live (which went to the non-working FlightStats!)
So, as a fair person, having not done it before, I entered the info into Google, another popular search engine, only to have it display a natty picture of the plane flying across the screen (ok, stationary at its expected fraction of the flight time across the screen).
The difference was, of course, that it had no information whatsoever about the delay or expected arrival times, so, effectively useless except to see what the time it might have arrived at. Certainly hopeless for anything useful.
So, apart from liking the pictures more, especially the clever ones, Bing can also outdo Google at its main job, search, at least on occasion.
The fact that I get by just fine with it suggests it is fit for purpose and a nice plus is that video results are not always the YouTube ones (and that they play in preview so you can avoid spammy ones more easily).
And of course, in the UK, you get direct access to OS maps, unparalleled for walkers and other off-the-beaten-track types. I wish to God (no other suitable phrase comes to mind) that OS maps were available on WP Bing maps, even online only to satisfy those OS peeps. Failing that, an app from them that was as good as the OS maps app that disappeared from the store.
Just seen todays Bing 'video', very nice one indeed.
I use Bing in two situations where Google Maps can't help:
1) It lets you view the OS 1:50000 and 1:25000 maps.
2) Its isometric aerial shots are often very good for getting an overview of an area, especially since you can rotate 90 degrees to get four different views of the same place - better than overhead satellite shots.
Unfortunately, even the desktop version suffers from quite easily-fixed issues with interaction with the mouse, which always drives me away to google maps when I don't want to use those features above.
Back in 2008, Apple morphed .mac into MobileMe and had a feature called iDisk, which was essentially the same thing as Dropbox but integrated into the OS on both the iPhone and Mac. I used to use it all the time - was quite useful to keep stuff in the cloud at the time. It was the days before Google Drive, and not many people used Dropbox.
Then in 2011 it announced iCloud and killed iDisk in the process. And Google Drive appeared almost at the same time and Dropbox grew and grew.
Now it's announced iCloud Drive. Isn't that Apple just turning back on the iDisk service that it turned off in 2012 when it killed MobileMe?
No. Have a look to see what it's for.
http://www.apple.com/ios/ios8/icloud-drive/
This is more than MobileMe - a failed toe-in-the-water exercise - could do.
It think they're slightly different offerinings, but it certainly suggests a short memory from everyone suggesting that it's a new foray into cloud storage that will have people like Dropbox worried.
As you say, they offered something similar that was discontinued two years ago and they've now brought it back, why are people getting in a flap?
...and I do use DuckDuckGo instead of Google on principle, but there are searches for which I do have to switch back to Google, because it finds what I need. Bing and DuckDuckGo, don't.
I fear users will not like Apple for this move once their search result take a nose dive.
Most won't notice. Those who do can download the Google Search app and use it instead, just like they can download the Google Maps app and use it if they prefer it.
Actually, given the announcement that iOS8 will add secure APIs for apps to communicate and replace OS level functions such the keyboard, it might be possible to have searches on the iPhone work via the Google Search app and maps functionality work via the Google Maps app. So this might be much ado about nothing - those who care can use what they want, those who don't are steered away from Google.
Sound by Beats.
Hmm.. Apple Corp. founded by Beatles. with an Apple based logo.
The Steves like Beatles so use a colored Apple logo and Apple Computer as company.
Twice Apple gets sued (and loses) by Beatles.
I have an image in my head of a Kafkaesque giant Beetle munching an Apple while listening to Hip Hop and Rap on giant Headphones.
Microsoft saved Apple once with real money.
Just a little fact correcting for you: Apple Computer Inc won against Apple Corp in the High Court on 8th May 2006 before Mr Justice Mann.
When in 1997 MS bought $150 million of non-voting stock in Apple (which was to fend off a bigger lawsuit by Apple) Apple had over a billion $ cash in hand.
Don't let facts get in the way of your delusions, though :)
=:~)
The article reads as if the iCloud Drive is non Android, if so its a failure for anyone with an android phone or tablet and a mistake by Apple.
As to bing ? its ok if your in the USA but not so good in the rest of the world, its not as easy as google to use (try looking for shopping results).
So Apple have shot themselves in both feet (again) and restricted their users from choice once again. Walled garden ? More like a max security prison to me.
The Chinese do have a national spoken language and it's known in the west as Mandarin - in China this is known as Pu-tong-hua which just means general ( Pu-tong) language (hua). Cantonese, Shanghainese, etc., are dialects that's just spoken in the various of China.
As far as their written language is concerned - it's the same throughout China and can be understood by the people of all dialects.
"if, or when, it rolls out its own search alternative"
Apple don't have the manpower to build a compelling search engine themselves.
They could buy Wolfram Alpha but that's not traditional search.
They don't have the infrastructure.
This is not going to happen any time soon. I wish it would, I'm surprised that the US Authorities haven't looked at Google's dominance and considered the Sherman Act provisions ensure there is true competition.
"Apple’s Safari web browser will work with DuckDuckGo"
I've been using DuckDuckGo on Safari 6.1.4 for about a month. For all I know there is further functionality to be integrated. In fact, if you want to switch search engines, you do have to change preferences, there's no UI switch. Perhaps that's it.
I just use it for search, and it works pretty well. I've had to go to Google a couple of times, but I normally leave it in DDG and usually don't notice a difference, except the absence of that "Big Brother is watching" feeling.
I do wonder about Yandex sometimes. (DDG is somehow based on Yandex.) Russia is not exactly Switzerland, and Yandex is all over my access logs so often it gives me the creeps.
Let's face it Apple just have no choice but to team up with one of their enemies to combat their biggest enemy when sales of their phone worldwide had dropped significantly whilst that for Android continue to climb.
Apple fans would just snuff and say that all these gains are just happening in the 3rd world but unfortunately it's in their home market the USA that Android had made the biggest gain rising from 49% (1Q-2013) to almost 58% (1Q-2014) while that for Apple fell from nearly 44% to just 36%.
The 2nd and 3rd quarters should be interesting to see how Apple is faring in the years to come.
It's the business model, stupid :-). This is all about APPL and MSFT defending a business model that dictates you sell goods and services, for money. Google's business model is disruptive, allowing Google to give things away but then effectively own the end user. Google is so big, that Apple and Microsoft would both struggle to gain critical mass, at Google's own game.