Submitted by Bob Bhatnagar on
All eyes are on the relationship between Apple and Google as the companies continue to encroach on each other's territory. Now Business Week reports that negotiations between Microsoft and Apple have been taking place for weeks. The subject of the conversation: replacing Google with Bing as the default search engine on the iPhone.
This development comes as Google pioneers its own phones and the Android mobile OS to compete with Apple's iPhone. For its part, Apple is working behind the scenes to develop its own mapping and mobile advertising business.
Apple looks set to buy the Quattro Wireless mobile ad network, not long after Google acquired AdMob late last year. Google announced free turn-by-turn GPS on Android, only to find out that Apple bought mapping company Placebase. Now Google is planning to rent movies via YouTube. Sound familiar to the iTunes fans out there?
Of course, multiple search engines can coexist. Although Google is the default search engine in Mobile Safari, this can be changed to Yahoo! under Settings -> Safari -> Search Engine. After all, Yahoo! provides information for the default iPhone apps Stocks and Weather.
Google accounts for a whopping 66% of the US search market. Yahoo! takes 17% and Bing comes in third place with an 11% market share.