Inside iOS 7: Apple's partnership with Yahoo deepens

Posted:
in iPhone edited January 2014
The relationship between Apple and Yahoo has seemingly expanded in the development of iOS 7, strengthening the bond that has existed between the two companies since the launch of the first iPhone in 2007.

Weather
Left: Yahoo Weather, redesigned in April. Right: Apple's new Yahoo-powered Weather app in iOS 7.


When the first iPhone debuted, Apple had partnered with two key companies to deliver content to users: Google and Yahoo. Now, in 2013, Google is a chief competitor to Apple and has all but disappeared from the built-in iPhone software, while Yahoo's iOS integration continues to grow.

Reports first surfaced this April indicating that Apple and Yahoo were in talks to deepen integration of Yahoo's services into Apple's iOS platform. And with the reveal of iOS 7 earlier this month, those rumors were seemingly confirmed with two key changes to the mobile operating system: a new Weather application, and built-in support for Yahoo's Flickr photography service.The new Weather application and Flickr integration verify rumors that Apple and Yahoo plan to collaborate on iOS software and services to an even greater degree than before.

The new native Weather app, in particular, demonstrates an apparent behind-the-scenes collaboration between the two companies leading up to the unveiling of iOS 7.

Yahoo's own weather application for iOS, available as a free download on the App Store, was updated in April with a new look. Many of those same design elements ? including font choice, icons and layout ? can be found in a similar appearance in Apple's new native Weather app in iOS 7.

The commonalities between the two applications indicate that Yahoo had a hand in developing and designing the native Weather application in iOS 7, and is not just supplying weather data to Apple. Yahoo Weather was also recognized by Apple this month in the company's annual design awards, handed out at the 2013 Worldwide Developers Conference.

Though it has a very similar appearance to Apple's software, the Yahoo Weather application is more full-featured, as it offers users the ability to scroll down and view a weather map, precipitation, wind, and even the position of the sun and moon. And while Apple's built-in Weather app features background animations that mimic the current weather conditions, Yahoo's offering instead pulls photos of the appropriate city from its Flickr service.

While Flickr users' photos don't appear in Apple's native Weather application in iOS 7, the first beta build of the new mobile operating system does include built-in support for Yahoo's photo sharing service. When viewing a picture in the native Photos app in iOS 7, users can select the share button and choose Flickr to upload their shots.

Weather


Flickr integration in iOS 7 can be enabled in the iOS 7 Settings application, where users can enter their username and password. The photo service now appears alongside Twitter, Facebook and Vimeo

While Yahoo's integration in iOS grows stronger, one major photo sharing option is unsurprisingly absent from iOS 7: Google+. Starting with the removal of Google Maps and YouTube as native options in last year's iOS 6, Apple has been looking to remove traces of Google from its mobile platform, not add them.

iOS 7 even takes the ouster of its rival one step further by replacing Google search in Siri with integrated results provided by Microsoft's Bing. Users can still have Siri search Google ? or even Yahoo ? through Safari by specifying the service of choice when searching, but general queries will return integrated Bing results by default.Closer cooperation with Yahoo comes as Apple has worked to eliminate Google's presence in its built-in iOS applications.

One aspect where Google remains the default choice, however, is as search provider in Apple's mobile Safari browser. Users can manually change their preferred search service to Yahoo or Bing in the Settings application if they so choose, but Google is still the standard for Safari.

Reports in 2010 claimed that Microsoft and Apple held discussions about potentially making Bing the default search provider in iOS. But Apple has not yet made any moves to cut that tie with Google.

The rift between Google and Apple began to form when Google started pushing its own Android mobile operating system to compete with Apple's iPhone. Late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs felt betrayed by Google, and that the search giant had betrayed an alliance with his own company

Google has responded by aggressively releasing its own third-party applications for iOS, including Google Maps, Google+, Gmail, Google Drive and others. Those applications can even be configured to automatically load websites in the company's own Chrome browser for iOS, bypassing Apple's default Safari browser.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 48
    jungmarkjungmark Posts: 6,926member
    I wonder what would happen if Bing was the default. How much market share will google lose?
  • Reply 2 of 48
    robin huberrobin huber Posts: 3,949member
    Google, the Snowden of the tech world. Stealing Apple's secrets and offering them free to the world for the "good of all."
  • Reply 3 of 48
    matrix07matrix07 Posts: 1,993member


    And I'm really glad they did. Anyone who wants Google services can install the apps. For us who won't bother it feel clean.

  • Reply 4 of 48
    pmzpmz Posts: 3,433member
    Honestly, as time has gone on, Bing has progressed to the point where it is almost interchangeable with Google search for 90% of searches. On the occasion when I sit down at Windows computer at work, if I happen to search Bing unwittingly, I've never [I]not[/I] found what I was looking for.

    I don't think anyone would really notice the difference if it went to Bing instead of Google. There is just that underlying feeling that [I]maybe[/I] Google would have returned something else...

    But, at this point I'm all for removing all traces of Google from iOS. They piggybacked on Apple's success, and have continued to do so, and are just awful and evil in every way imaginable. Their executives belong in jail for a handful of crimes committed over the last few years that were utterly swept under the rug.
  • Reply 5 of 48


    It's awesome that Apple has given the Weather App and facelift, but what i've been wanting even more than that is the ability to change/choose where your weather data comes from. I find that Yahoo's weather data, at least in the Seattle area is horrible. It's always off by quite a few ticks in either direction. 



    I'm hoping one day for a 'WeatherDav' standard, sort of the same way Caldav or CardDav work in that the app will interpret the data and present it to you beautifully on the front end. No weather service is better than your local news stations', imagine the ability to link to them natively without having to download their whole app. Or multiple weather apps at that.

  • Reply 6 of 48
    It may have been more a fact that apple had a hand in designing yahoo's app
  • Reply 7 of 48
    froodfrood Posts: 771member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by jungmark View Post



    I wonder what would happen if Bing was the default. How much market share will google lose?


     


    I'm fairly sure I read they are going to be doing this in iOS7

  • Reply 8 of 48
    frood wrote: »
    I'm fairly sure I read they are going to be doing this in iOS7
    From what I have heard only in Siri.

    I like yahoo weather in overall, I also like apple maps over google, but I do like google search over bing, and sometimes yahoo.
  • Reply 9 of 48
    robin huberrobin huber Posts: 3,949member
    It's awesome that Apple has given the Weather App and facelift,
    It'd be even more awesome if they made it available for the iPad. What's up with that anyway? Calculator, Weather, Stocks all on iPhone only.

    Yeah, I know, third party apps are better yadda yadda. But if I wanted to tinker with basic services to get what I want I'd go Android.
  • Reply 10 of 48
    cgjcgj Posts: 276member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by TechManMike View Post


    It's awesome that Apple has given the Weather App and facelift, but what i've been wanting even more than that is the ability to change/choose where your weather data comes from. I find that Yahoo's weather data, at least in the Seattle area is horrible. It's always off by quite a few ticks in either direction. 



    I'm hoping one day for a 'WeatherDav' standard, sort of the same way Caldav or CardDav work in that the app will interpret the data and present it to you beautifully on the front end. No weather service is better than your local news stations', imagine the ability to link to them natively without having to download their whole app. Or multiple weather apps at that.



    Definitely. Here in the UK, I'd like to see data come straight from the Met Office, I know how to deal with them! :D

  • Reply 11 of 48

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Robin Huber View Post



    Google, the Snowden of the tech world. Stealing Apple's secrets and offering them free to the world for the "good of all."


     


    Snowden will be extradited on espionage charges, charged with treason, convicted, and will be put to death as he deserves.


     


    But will Google see the same fate?  

  • Reply 12 of 48

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by jameskatt2 View Post


     


    Snowden will be extradited on espionage charges, charged with treason, convicted, and will be put to death as he deserves.



     


    There's a forum for your personal political opinions.


     


    Let's use it and keep the other forums free from this sort of bs.

  • Reply 13 of 48
    robbyxrobbyx Posts: 479member
    jameskatt2 wrote: »
    Snowden will be extradited on espionage charges, charged with treason, convicted, and will be put to death as he deserves.

    But will Google see the same fate?  

    And you'll continue to be a good little sheep while unaccountable government agencies sift through every trace of electronic communications in an effort to thwart the terrorist boogeyman they created. As long as you feel "safe", who cares if the government is acting like the USSR, not the USA.
  • Reply 14 of 48


    I'm astonished no trolls have posted "LOL Apple copied the look and feel of the Yahoo weather app" yet. Calling iOS 7 a rip off of Android and/or Windows Phone was soooo two weeks ago.

  • Reply 15 of 48
    crossladcrosslad Posts: 527member
    As I have said previously, I think Apple should have bought yahoo and developed its search engine for safari. With the amount of time spent on the web by Apple users this could really hurt Google.
  • Reply 16 of 48
    dasanman69dasanman69 Posts: 13,002member
    jameskatt2 wrote: »
    Snowden will be extradited on espionage charges, charged with treason, convicted, and will be put to death as he deserves.

    But will Google see the same fate?  

    Only if they interfered with national security.
  • Reply 17 of 48
    robin huberrobin huber Posts: 3,949member
    robbyx wrote: »
    And you'll continue to be a good little sheep while unaccountable government agencies sift through every trace of electronic communications in an effort to thwart the terrorist boogeyman they created. As long as you feel "safe", who cares if the government is acting like the USSR, not the USA.
    Oh, I see, if governments do it it's evil. But if corporations do it for profit that's just good clean capitalism. Think about it.

    And the last time I checked, democracy by definition is accountable. Corporations, not so much.
  • Reply 18 of 48
    gazoobeegazoobee Posts: 3,754member


    Yahoo needs to really up it's game on the big conversion to a new "relevant" social company as it's currently doing pretty shittily on all fronts.  


     


    Flickr integration is great, but Flickr itself needs lots of work just to get up to the level of an acceptable service.  It's really showing it's age.  They just redesigned the interface after ten years but it's only half done and has created huge new problems and is looking like a bit of a rush job.  


     


    They have an iOS app, but it's severely limited and buggy and it's only for iPhone, not iPad.  I don't think it's even Retina yet.  


     


    Their plug-in for Apple TV is just the worst piece of crap imaginable, crashy, buggy, etc.


     


    Unless they seriously step up the pace on designing new software and a better site, all the new attention from being integrated into iOS 7 could be a very bad thing. 

  • Reply 19 of 48
    pmz wrote: »
    Honestly, as time has gone on, Bing has progressed to the point where it is almost interchangeable with Google search for 90% of searches. On the occasion when I sit down at Windows computer at work, if I happen to search Bing unwittingly, I've never not found what I was looking for.

    I don't think anyone would really notice the difference if it went to Bing instead of Google. There is just that underlying feeling that maybe Google would have returned something else...

    Well if you're alright, that must mean everyone's alright :/

    Bing is woeful in most of the world, it's nothing more than the old, crappy 'Windows Live Search' with the logo changed.

    Even where Bing is operational outside of the US it's often severely lacking, in the UK for example (probably the 2nd market after the US) it's barely fit for purpose and not noticeably better than any of the other alsorans like 'Ask' etc.
    But, at this point I'm all for removing all traces of Google from iOS. They piggybacked on Apple's success, and have continued to do so, and are just awful and evil in every way imaginable. Their executives belong in jail for a handful of crimes committed over the last few years that were utterly swept under the rug.

    Absolutely ridiculous statement.
  • Reply 20 of 48
    timmydaxtimmydax Posts: 284member
    It's interesting to see what's different in Apple's app. The obvious ones are the positioning of the temperature and the inclusion of the status bar. The former is a matter of taste, and the latter is in the HIG. They've replaced the "Forcast" text with the much better [day] Today, and included the highs and lows of the day there, rather than crowd the main (currentish) temperature. Mostly to do with clarity, one presumes.

    Also of interest to me are Apple's use of an "i" to denote a settings/attributes menu and THE INCLUSION OF A LINK TO YAHOO WEATHER. How did the Yahoo guys miss that one? Surely that's the point of their app? Drive people from their slick iOS interface to their ad-laden web page for "further details" and uh... maybe make some money of 'em eyeballs.

    On the "i", Apple clearly hate the menu = buttons. How tf do you get exactly equal to on iOS. Anyway, not sure about replacing the disclosure arrow buttons on iOS menu items with "i"s in iOS7, but get info/inspect has come a long way, and they love it dearly. Maybe we'll get a standard usage at some point.

    Including a blurry picture of the location? That's silly. Better to search for pictures of "rain" on Flickr :lol:

    Oh well, looks like Apple are taking some good cues from others and sticking with what they know benefits their users. In other words, what they do better than anyone else.
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