Yeah this sounds like Apple shaking down Google for additional revenue, rather than Google somehow sidestepping competition. Google is paying for the privilege of being able to compete in the browser space on iOS, because if they didn't, Apple would find some reason to ban Chrome from the platform.
I'm thinking Satya is pretty jealous of this arrangement. Recent comments of his suggest that he thinks Google should be paying Microsoft every time a Windows user searches on Google.
>I'm thinking Satya is pretty jealous of this arrangement. Recent comments of his suggest that he thinks Google should be paying Microsoft every time a Windows user searches on Google.
I don’t doubt Satya feels that way, but for the situation to really be analogous, Google would need to be the default search on Windows instead of Bing. Google has to deal with Apple because Google wants to be the default on the iPhone.
The assumption following this revaluation is that this is an incentive for Apple to keep this secondary market as small as possible. A google search in ios safari means a revenue for Apple. Another browser does not. With this, there is a double vendor lock-in.
If you're not entirely on Apple ecosystem, secondary browser is the way to go to share bookmarks, history, etc. For example I'm using iPads since the first version came out, but otherwise I'm on Windows/Android. Also plenty of people around here own combination of iPhone and Windows. That said, I don't know how many of them know or care about non-default browsers.
I'm thinking Satya is pretty jealous of this arrangement. Recent comments of his suggest that he thinks Google should be paying Microsoft every time a Windows user searches on Google.