Munster: Apple developing a search engine

It would be great if apple joins hands with google!

Here's my prediction/guess. After pouring over many of the Apple patents and thinking through the types of innovations Apple likes to make I believe they will release a search application that is contained within their mobile ecosphere. My guess is they will call this iGuide. They have already trademarked iGuide and there are several different patents with the name iGuide attached that all have to do with either searching through or manipulating different kinds of content, images, games, music, etc and pulling data to mobile devices.

Here's what I think iGuide will be. Up until now, most search whether Google, Bing, Cuil, Yahoo, etc has been text based. They have relied on keywords and text strings to search and match and present results.

I'm guessing that Apple is playing around with different kinds of algorithms that move beyond just keyword or text based searching. What if you were able to describe an object or compare a picture for instance and do an image search that compared photographs, or music, or video using data other than text. Perhaps colors, or shapes or if they did use text you could compare and search for certain styles, descriptive phrases, genres, etc. What if you typed 'boy holding ball'...and it produced pictures of boys holding balls.

Also what if you take a search engine and tailor it for media, music and gaming. Sort of like taking the Genius feature and using that technology to categorize the entire web. What if instead of typing in 'games like pacman'..you simply clicked on pacman and asked it to find similar games. Same with a song. Same with a picture. See what I mean?

That's my guess.

Has Gene Munster been right in ANY of his predictions?

Only issue with Apple having a search engine that it would filter all references to 'Google', 'Android' or sites with partial nudity...

Christian makes some valid points. About a month ago me and some of my friends were speculating what the data center in North Carolina's purpose is. I mean, it's far to extensive for the iTunes Store or MobileMe support. The place is massive!

One of the things we tossed out there is that they could be setting up a search engine, and that would be the headquarters of the operation. That seemed to make much more sense, especially after seeing the place.

Do we need another search engine? I don't know. Maybe. But it is going to have to distinguish itself from Google, and I am not sure what Apple could do to make a search engine unique.

Ignoring that it’s April 1st, here’s why this idea is plausible:

a) They already have a brand name for it: Genius.

b) Apple already does extensive data mining and analysis on its customers’ data — for example, the Genius feature in iTunes or the App Store. They’ve shown that they can aggregate and work upon data as well as Google.

c) Apple recently starting putting together that $1B data center in North Carolina. $1B buys you a lot of data center.

d) Apple has access to a lot of interesting data that Google doesn’t, particularly what’s in the iTunes Store with music and apps, and to a lesser extent, what’s contained in its cloud services with MobileMe.

e) Apple bought Placebase last year, giving it an in-house mapping suite.

f) Should the ‘Apple v. Google’ warmongering rumors be true, this is one more opportunity for Apple to stop being forced to lean on another company for its services (cf. one of the marks against Flash).

I’m absolutely convinced Apple has been looking into this as a possibility. Whether or not it’s feasible enough to launch is TBD.

Hmmm... dunno.
A search engine just seem's so not like Apple.
They like their walled gardens and controlling the complete user experience. Hard to imagine how they would apply those "guidelines" to the search engine business.
Additionally they would need a really good feature to set them apart from Google if they want to have even the slightest chance of success.

Ah Gene. Every day is April fools for him.

Could this have something to do with iAds? If Apple had a decent search engine that served up its own adverts, then it would be competing directly with Google in their main revenue strand.

If true, it would be a big escalation in their war

April Fool's!