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April 10th, 2013 
Peter Nolan 
Would a deeper partnership with Yahoo mean Apple could lessen its reliance on Google services?
Yahoo, which has recently come under the control of CEO Marissa Mayer, is apparently in talks with Apple over making the company’s services more prominent on the iPad and iPhone. According to The Wall Street Journal, the two Silicon Valley firms have been discussing how Yahoo services fit in to Apple’s future.
Citing anonymous sources, the publication says that while preloaded applications on iPhones are powered by data from Yahoo Finance and other Yahoo data stores contribute to Apple’s voice assistant Siri, possible deals could result in extended utilization of Yahoo information and services.
Deals may be reached which include an expanded Siri partnership or the possibility of using data from other Yahoo properties, including Yahoo News. However, no agreements are expected within the near future.
Expanding Siri, in particular, means that search functions are bypassed, but if Apple wants to rely less on Google’s popular search facility, then one issue is Yahoo’s partnership with Microsoft which powers Yahoo’s search results. In 2012, Microsoft and Yahoo signed a ten-year agreement which was aimed at making Bing a rival for Google’s search engine, but the results have not been as successful as Mayer expected. As a result, the 37 year-old CEO is looking at other avenues, and has admitted that the partnership is not as profitable as she hoped.
Past problems between Google and Apple — for example, the debacle over the latter’s map offering — notwithstanding, even if there is bad blood between the tech giants, it is unlikely Apple will once again offer a sub-par product before it is ready just to antagonize its rival and once again annoy its customers. However, according to the WSJ, the firm has recently met up with firms that have expertise in search, and so a search facility may be in the pipeline.
Marissa Mayer has stated that mobile development is now a top priority for Yahoo, and she wishes to focus on the daily habits and expectations of consumers on-the-go. If an extended partnership with the iPhone and iPad maker is on the table, then this could help reverse Yahoo’s recent fortunes and propel it further in the mobile software market.
Source Article from http://www.zdnet.com/apple-yahoo-working-towards-extended-iphone-partnership-report-7000013788/
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