Apple Explored Partnership with Microsoft to Replace Google Search on iOS in 2018

Apple considered buying Bing or making a multibillion dollar investment with Microsoft in 2018 to potentially replace Google search in some Apple products.

Apple's head of AI John Giannandrea testified Apple deliberated using Bing for Siri and Spotlight instead of Google.

Microsoft proposed a joint venture where Apple would provide resources to improve Bing, like expanding it internationally.

Giannandrea was skeptical of Bing's capabilities compared to Google but said Apple hadn't ruled out building its own general search engine.

Apple continues investing in web crawling to power language models, showing ongoing interest in search technology.