Competition is Intensifying in the Core Areas of Tech Giants

Three things in particular make it hard to compete with Google in search, including brands, eyeballs and data. Apple has strengths in all three areas.

Apple already has Siri in this area, and the company's name itself extends to services. As for eyeballs, keeping the default location on their devices as their own search engine would immediately generate a large number of users and avoid what the U.S. Department of Justice says gives the Google an unfair advantage. Starting with the latest version of iOS, Apple will collect data from billions of queries to help it make the results more relevant.

Google has a fourth advantage in search, but that could prove to be an even bigger stumbling block, at least for Apple shareholders: monetization. Generating more advertising revenue per search than any other company, Google has been able to funnel huge amounts of cash, to $30 billion last year, to many companies that put their services in a prominent position.

Google also has a strong incentive to keep its payments to Apple high enough to deter the iPhone maker itself from trying to enter the search space. But as Apple's intense interest in search suggests, things may finally be starting to change.