Apple to Release Its Search Engine

Apple will launch its own search engine. If media reports are to be believed, an important deal between it and Google is coming to end. As per the deal, Google pays billions of dollars every year to Apple to be the default search engine on Safari.

Moreover, a report by Coywolf states that with iOS 14 beta and iPadOS 14 beta, Apple’s Spotlight Search bypasses Google Search to show search results.

According to reports, Google has been paying Apple for several years to remain the default search engine on Safari for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. The deal ensures that iPhone, iPad, and Mac users search with Google when they use Safari. This is unless users manually change the default search engine preferences.

However, the deal is anti-competitive in nature, as per the UK Competition and Markets Authority and gives rise to regulatory concerns. As per the report, the regulators may force Apple to remove Google as the default search engine and have users choose which search engine they want to use when they first launch Safari.

Later, Apple is set to open third store the new outlet, located at Marina Bay Sands, will be the first store in the world that sits on water, TODAY reported. The new Marina Bay Sands store appears to look like an odd spacecraft of some sort or perhaps some form of futuristic theater.

During the day, the store’s glass panels reflect the towering skyline of the Downtown Core and motion of the rippling water. At night, the sphere glows with a gentle warmth, evoking the design of traditional lanterns carried during Singapore’s Mid-Autumn Festival.

Noteworthy, it opened its first store in Singapore at the Knightsbridge building along Orchard Road in 2017. Its second store, located at Jewel Changi Airport, opened in July last year.

Last week, the firm became the first publicly traded US company to reach US$2 trillion in market value due to robust demand amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Later, it started trial production of semitransparent lenses to be used in an AR device of the future.

According the firm, the lenses are at least one to two years away from mass production, as is the product they are being created for. It is not established within the report whether these lenses are for AR/VR headset, or its lightweight notification glasses dubbed Apple Glass.

The report notes Apple needs to establish whether it can “reliably manufacture” millions of lenses in order to mass-produce these devices.

The Information’s report is yet another indication that Apple could be in the process of developing an AR headset, which is widely expected to be its next major product category since the Apple Watch.

The company is aiming to release the headset in 2022 before debuting AR glasses in 2023, as reports from the Information and Bloomberg have previously indicated.