In a declaration filed with the US District Court in Washington, Apple Senior Vice President Eddy Cue said creating a search engine would require diverting significant capital and employees, while recent AI developments make such an investment "economically risky."

The reality is that Apple has no need to make a search engine having received $20 billion from Google in 2022 under a deal that makes Google the default search engine on Safari browsers. This arrangement is now under scrutiny in the US government’s antitrust case against Google.

The deal was a win-win for Apple.  It collected a ton of cash for doing nothing and could say that it was not harvesting user data for advertising even if Google was doing that. Google meanwhile had access to all the advertising requirements of Apple fanboys and could hit them with personalised Coldplay advertising.

Cue said Apple lacks the specialised professionals and infrastructure needed for search advertising, which would be essential for a viable search engine. While Apple operates niche advertising like the App Store, search advertising is "outside of Apple's core expertise," he said.

Building a search advertising business would also need to be balanced against Apple's privacy commitments, according to his declaration.