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Yahoo and Apple have begun talks to put more Yahoo in your iPhone and iPad. The two companies are reported to be in talks to cut out Google from iOS devices — let’s hope we’re not headed for another Apple Maps debacle.
The Wall Street Journal quotes sources that Yahoo and Apple are in the early stages of negotiations to bring more content and data from Sports and Yahoo News into iOS apps and services, including voice-controlled know-it-all Siri.
It’s early days, but we already know that Yahoo is keen to stake a bigger claim in the world of mobile devices — while Apple is keen as mustard to reduce its reliance on Google for apps and services.
Some iOS apps already spout data from Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Weather, while Siri offers sports updates from the exclamation mark-loving online giant.
And Yahoo is also one of the search options in Apple’s Safari web browser, alongside Microsoft’s Bing and the default search engine, Google. If Yahoo ever replaced Google as the default we’d shrug, switch back to Google, and go about our day. But if Yahoo ever replaced Google completely… it doesn’t bear thinking about.
Fortunately, that’s unlikely. In yet another twist of corporate interdependence, Yahoo’s search results are powered by none other than Microsoft’s Bing.
Apple is understandably keen to reduce its ties with Google, which thanks to iOS operating system rival Android has grown into a major competitor for Apple. That changed relationship led to disagreement over Google Maps data in the iOS Maps app, leading Apple to ditch Google maps — and look how that turned out.
The Apple Maps app has been widely panned, stuffed as it is with out-of-date data and incorrect information. We’d hope that if Yahoo did replace Google, the resulting apps would actually, y’know, work.
Other apps don’t really have an alternative: YouTube is synonymous with online video, so it’s basically essential for phones to have a YouTube app.
Do you use Yahoo? Would you trust Yahoo over Google to provide the information in your iPhone? Tell me your thoughts in the comments or Facebook page.
