Cutting Out the Middle Man

There’s been a lot of discussion on how Apple is getting aggressive at getting Google off of iOS, ever since the Steve Jobs “thermonuclear” comment.
Many have been focusing on this snubbing of Google in an almost soap opera kind of way. John Gruber got a keen “fuck you, Google” feeling about the whole keynote and I agree there’s absolutely some strong, healthy rivalry going on. No doubt.
But after watching Scott Forstall walk through the new features of Siri, I realized it really doesn’t require a lot of justification on why they’re not using Google, it just makes good business sense.
Have a look at these screen grabs from the keynote:
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You catch some of the logos in those images?
Yelp. OpenTable. Rotten Tomatoes (we also know they’re getting a good chunk of horsepower from Wolfram Alpha).
Apple hasn’t snubbed Google like a teenage girl, they’re merely cut out the middle man.
In much the same way as Apple rethought what a smartphone is with the iPhone, they’re now rethinking search.
A smartphone no longer means having a dedicated (hardware) keyboard on your device and search no longer means having a dedicated search box on your screen.
I can envision a time in the not-too-distant future where many people start replacing the term, “Just Google it.” with “Just ask Siri.” You watch.

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