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Marissa Mayer planning to push Apple to make Yahoo! the default iOS search engine

Jony Ive and Marissa Mayer eat pizza with other industry executives

Jony Ive and Marissa Mayer (right) eat pizza with other industry executives

Re/code reports that Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer is planning an attempt at persuading Apple to switch its default iOS search engine from Google to her company’s own offering. According to Re/code’s sources, Mayer has built what she hopes will be a convincing arguement in favor of the change.

Yahoo! current powers the weather and stocks apps and Notification Center widgets found in iOS 7 as well as a few Siri functions, such as sports, but lost out on the chance to power Siri’s web search to Microsoft’s Bing. Both Yahoo! and Bing are included as optional search engines in the Safari browser, but the default selection is Google.

Yahoo! was said to be in talks to Apple executives last year about increasing the company’s presence on the iPhone, though it seems not much came of those discussions.

Mayer is in a solid position to make her case to Apple, though, and Re/code reports that she has already spoken to several executives, including Jony Ive, who is now Apple’s head of software design and a friend of Mayer. Still, it’ll be a tough sell, considering how ubiquitous Google has become these days (after all, have you ever heard anyone say “I’m going to Yahoo! it”?).

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Comments

  1. I’ll still just set it back to Google.

  2. James.L - 10 years ago

    I got one word for you, “NO”.

  3. vmax - 10 years ago

    Unless Yahoo search become a compelling alternative, that is, independent of Bing and better, privacy wise better than Google, or follows Duckduckgo’s footsteps, I don’t see a compelling reason to adopt Yahoo as default search engine. Although I do use Yahoo services. I never search on Yahoo.

    • Mr. Grey (@mister_grey) - 10 years ago

      This makes no sense at all. In the first case, yahoo already *is* “better privacy wise than Google.” Secondly, the best way to make Yahoo able to violate your privacy *more* than Google, is to use Yahoo services, which you admit to willingly doing.

  4. RP - 10 years ago

    It’s a great premise, one that Apple would jump at if the tech behind it were comparable to Google. There would have to be something more than out spite for Google.

  5. rlowhit - 10 years ago

    If the three are compared Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Yahoo is by far the worst in terms of search, along with their cluttered tabloid like homepage.

  6. coolguyme - 10 years ago

    To sum up the four previous comments:

    no.

  7. rtoolstechnology - 10 years ago

    great scoop:)

  8. Is it just me or is every new rumor getting progressively shittier than the last? First the new iPhone being excessively large, then the price increase and now this? Oh well… I guess we’ll see what the future holds…

  9. Matt Sims (@Mercifull) - 10 years ago

    As long as you can change it back to Google I don’t care.

  10. Mark James Luzzi - 10 years ago

    Yahoo’s search engine is garbage.Add to the fact their articles are very poorly written.They will be missing pictures,and the daily Kim Kardashian article’s are too much.Even though 3/4 of the people respond NO MORE .Send Marissa Mayer to Walmart where she belongs!!!!!

  11. Cary Groneveldt - 10 years ago

    This is UTTER RIDICULOUSNESS.

  12. Mark James Luzzi - 10 years ago

    Even if they make it the default search engine,it can and will be changed in settings.Yahoo SUCKS

  13. ichicolco (@ichicolco) - 10 years ago

    people actually use yahoo? really?

  14. drtyrell969 - 10 years ago

    Apple should buy them for $10.

  15. Deal Spam (@dealspam) - 10 years ago

    Yahoo still exists? And people still actually care about what they are doing? (well, I’d care if my iPhone suddenly stopped working well because it used Yahoo for search.)

    As others have said, in a word. No… in three words… Please NO please!!!

  16. 311sie - 10 years ago

    Best of luck “pushing” Apple…

  17. chudman85 - 10 years ago

    I would actually like to be able to find what I’m looking for when I do a search haha

  18. Steve Grenier - 10 years ago

    Apple should have presented us with a choice since the beginning (for Siri). As long as Apple doesn’t remove Google, I don’t care what the default is.

  19. as long as Yahoo makes Google the default Yahoo

  20. Mark Granger - 10 years ago

    Here is an alternate plan: Let’s mend the fences with Google and see what great things these two companies can do together.

  21. Petert (@petert89) - 10 years ago

    If the accuracy of Yahoo Search is as good as Yahoo Weather then why bother – Yahoo Weather is always inaccurate in my experience (for Australia)

  22. searching on yahoo is like watching videos on MTV

  23. 9Rose - 10 years ago

    No way. It would be a dumb move for apple.

  24. Felix the Guy (@felixwcf) - 10 years ago

    Go to Settings -> Safari – > Change Search Engine:Google. Simple.

  25. Joel Pederson (@jrp95) - 10 years ago

    No thanks, but why in the first place is search on iOS so fragmented? Siri uses Bing, safari defaults to Google, but stock app and weather are powered by Yahoo. I have never understood that.

    • Derek Brown - 10 years ago

      but how has this negatively effected you?

      • Joel Pederson (@jrp95) - 10 years ago

        It hasn’t at all. To me it just is strange that Apple would split up the company that it gets app information from. But as you pointed out, it has no negative effect on me.

  26. Derek Brown - 10 years ago

    I’ve been using Bing (powers Yahoo’s search) out of curiosity.. give it a try.. I’ve been impressed with the search results. It even looks like Google these days (not applauding the apparent copying.. just saying).. screw google… why would Apple continue to send money to their main platform competition? switching would put a knife in the bloated balloon that is Google.. sure you can switch back but millions won’t.. look at maps.

  27. Thomas Bechard - 10 years ago

    I already hate them for asking you to change the default every time you do anything on yahoo.com. I won’t even tap on the weather app info because it takes you to yahoo to give you exactly zero more info than you had in the app.

  28. Kevweb (@kweb75) - 10 years ago

    I wonder if Jony Ive and Marrisa Mayer got it on?

  29. standardpull - 10 years ago

    As an experiment I changed my search engine to Bing on my iphone. I am not what anyone would call a Microsoft supporter.

    I haven’t set it back yet, and it has been over a year. I have zero complaints with it.

    Given this article, I just switched to Yahoo. And why not? These things are good, but yes, they are different too and take some getting used to.

    I understand why people love Google. For me, I went to Google because Altavista screwed up so badly. Google was a huge relief compared to AV. And I knew it, because AV was once top notch.

  30. Overlord - 10 years ago

    One word: NO!

  31. sardonick - 10 years ago

    ….and yet I’ll still use Google or DuckDuckGo. So what. Push.

  32. Come on, Google’s Infinity percent better than Yahoo search. Google search is interactive (and I love Google Now and search Reminders), super accurate, the most popular, and connects with other awesome Google services. If I were to rank search engines, I’d give you this:

    1. Google (duh)
    2. Bing
    3. Yahoo
    3. DuckDuckGo
    5. AOL Search (AOL Search is a cheater, they get their results directly from Google, and tweak in their own ads for profit)

    Yahoo and DuckduckGo are tied.

  33. mrbozak - 10 years ago

    Apple and Yahoo have been in bed for years. Open Yahoo homepage and you see at least 5 stories about the iPhone on any given day.

  34. Jonathan Roorda - 10 years ago

    I don’t use Apple anymore but if I did, I’d be pretty unhappy to see Yahoo there. I’m not too pleased with them since they closed My Yahoo in my country. I use http://www.start.me as an alternative now, by the way.