I agree with the other comment about search quality: Google does better for me in almost every case. I am trying Bing right now, doing parallel searches to many of the ones I do in Google. That contributes to their "market share" uptick, and I suspect many others are doing the same. But unless something *really* improves on Bing, it will be short-lived.
Google is starting to compete with Apple on multiple fronts, just like it does with Microsoft. Apple is responding by keeping Google at a little more distance, which is all well and good.
Getting into search is a massive undertaking in two areas: building the infrastructure needed, and selling the advertising that makes search profitable. Apple isn't ignorant about either subject due to iTunes experience, but they certainly don't have the chops that Google has. It will be a long hard road for them to go down, with no guarantee of success.
To me, if Apple wants to branch out, they should continue to address the content and communications space. Apple Store has lots of growth potential in digital content, they should branch out into a whole series of handheld devices to compete in gaming platforms and lower-end kids devices, and they should invest in social apps to drive up device and service usage even more.
Finally, the agreement with AT&T was expedient at the time considering the risk they were taking getting into the cellphone market, but it's a big monkey-on-the-back problem now. They need to get out of it.
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