Comments on: Apple Won't Build a (Web) Search Engine

By: dalven

dalven — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 23:24:41 +0000

By: Chris Needham

Chris Needham — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 11:06:57 +0000

I totally agree its a shame that google and apple can’t share information. The more information that these huge corporations can share the better it will be for the consumer.

By: Shara Karasic

Shara Karasic — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 15:21:59 +0000

Have you seen Appolicious ? It has app search and recommendations based on your social graph, as well as editorial and user reviews and curated app lists for iPhone and Android.

By: jimjerky

jimjerky — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 13:55:47 +0000

Not sure why you seem to love the word “crawl”. They don’t need to crawl anything to make a search engine. Sounds like you have a buzzword in your head, John, and you feel like it enhances your writing in some way. It’s not necessary.

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 10:17:14 +0000

There are a few companies in the ecosystem that already have such a search engine, that can crawl the App Store and other mobile touch web content.

Taptu is one of these. It has built a comprehensive index of all the iPhone apps, all the Android apps, and 200k mobile touch web sites. Anyone can download it free from the App Store, or by going to taptu.com on their touch screen phone.

This index is fronted by a pretty capable search engine, as shown by the Taptu user rating scores in the App Store, way ahead of Bing and only a shade behind Google's own search app.

By: app developer

app developer — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 08:18:47 +0000

Isn't it fairer to compare iTunes search with YouTube search... it's not that bad in comparison. Which begs the question why have Google never bothered to make YouTube search better!
Apple would be mad if they weren't working on better search in apps and an Amazon style 'people who liked this app also liked...' would go down a treat.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 23:58:52 +0000

I agree, at least that they should, but I'm wondering if they will or can. Apple is so terrible with data. Look how horrible Spotlight is. And how horrible the current App Search engine is.
I agree they have such a disdain for the open internet. For instance, I don't get the same results on the Youtube App, as I do on Youtube.com especially if I am looking up a song. On Youtube.com I usually get the actual recording, on the app, I get some home brewed cover.
It just feels creepy. That's why I don't understand all the euphoria about the iPad.

By: Mikko Jarvenpaa

Mikko Jarvenpaa — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 23:48:14 +0000

Ok, but why would it be "bad for everyone" that they don't share data? Sure, universal transparency would be nice, but whose transparency will it be? I.e., what system should we use in the first place? Letting them compete on their merits is a good way to find out, and data is a part of the merit.

Besides, data sharing is less relevant to Apple (per is current business models at least) than it is to Google.