One big change for Apple with the unveiling of OS X Yosemite today is Bing web searches in the completely revamped Spotlight feature. Spotlight, which allows users to look up anything locally on their Mac as well as perform web searches, received a redesigned user experience in Yosemite, but it might have also received a switch to Bing from Google search.
To be fair, the “web search” feature of spotlight prior to Yosemite actually just defaults to the default search engine in your browser of choice. If that happens to be Safari or Chrome like it is for most users, that meant Spotlight would typically send users to a Google search results page if they hadn’t changed their default preference. Now, Apple is listing Bing searches– but not Google– as a feature of Spotlight regardless of the default option (pictured above). We’ve yet to confirm that Bing is the only web search option for Spotlight in OS X Yosemite, as we’ve not yet been able to get the new Spotlight web search feature to work properly in the first beta.
While Spotlight is going to use Bing, Apple’s revamped search bar in Safari still uses Google as does iOS 8. Its easy to imagine Apple is only continuing to use Google search in Safari due to contractual agreements, but it’s harder to imagine it just decided to use Bing for Spotlight with no plans to possibly use it in its other products down the road.
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The less Google the better.
Except when the other option is Microsoft…
Agreed. I’m not sure how I feel about Bing, but I sure do my best to stay away from Google whenever possible.
http://instagram.com/p/o0Cz9otIk5/
Really? What would you prefer as a search over google? That’s like saying “I don’t want that Ferrari i’ll take the Hyundai.” Don’t know what you use to search but I’m sure you’re always one step behind.
Any idea if a terminal hack can fix that? I guess we won’t know until Yosemite is released. I can’t stand Bing search.
It’s transparent.. you don’t goto Bing.. they just list the results.. You click on it and goto the site, etc you were searching for.
Does it honor your default browser setting? Or does Apple force all opens to occur in Safari only?
I really don’t care anymore, The search results with bing are perfectly acceptable.
That’s not true. They list Bing as a translation feature, not as an exclusive search feature
Not a big fan of Bing at all. I’ll be chaining that back to Google if this is true.
Any truth to the rumor that for Yosemite Apple was going to have a little paperclip varmint named Sam?
Understandable. Since Android is destroying iOS.
Yeah, they are destroying iOS in how much malware they can get.
Much like drugs are destroying your brain.
Hey, psychopath.
https://plus.google.com/+KennyStrawn/posts/UW2xLFemJwx
I hope they keep Google as default search. Google is a great company, I wish Apple and Google would start working together again.
Please no, just make it an option.
Not likely, Federighi’s demo clearly included Google hits during the keynote. Not to say that it could be a future decision, but not based on today’s demo.
Safari will also support DuckDuckGo. Look left in the iOS 8 new features slide and you will DuckDuckGo support in Safari.
I kind of want to see Apple and Microsoft, who were once bitter enemies, collaborate. Otherwise Google gonna come in and dominate
Now the new features are announced, I’m very eager to see what Google’s gonna bring on the table in 2 weeks. :)