Yahoo Wants to Make Its Search Engine Default on your iPhone

According to Kara Swisher’s insider sources, Yahoo has plans to make its search engine default on your iOS device, according to details over at Re/code.

The word on the street is Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and SVP of mobile and emerging products, Adam Cahan, have plans to present their case to Apple for making the switch:

And, according to sources, the lodestone of two internal projects aimed at building a viable mobile search engine and monetization platform is to convince Apple to make Yahoo the default search engine on its Safari browser on the iPhone and iPad.

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Mayer aims to change that. A number of Yahoo insiders I have talked to said her plan to pitch Apple on the idea as its marquee mobile search partner is far along. The company has prepared detailed decks, including images of what such a search product would look like, and hopes to present them to Apple execs.

Sources say Mayer has already gotten the attention of Apple’s design chief Jony Ive and the CEO “wants it very badly” when it comes to being the default search engine of choice on iOS.

You may recall a year ago the WSJ reported Yahoo wanted to play a bigger role in iOS devices, beyond providing sports stats to Siri and weather and stock data. This time around, the same barrier exists: Apple executives such as Eddy Cue won’t replace Google as the default search engine unless there’s a better alternative.

Despite the fact Google pays Apple upwards of $1 billion for being on iOS devices, sources say Yahoo doesn’t have the technology to compete even if it tried, since the former is already a leader in search and well-known to consumers.

For Yahoo to replace Google as a default search engine will be hard to achieve. I don’t even remember the last time I performed a Yahoo search. Best to luck to Mayer for presenting their reasons to Apple, but I don’t think it’s going to happen anytime soon.

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