I'm skeptical that they launch an Apple-powered search engine given the EV would have be well above $20B a year given all of the technical infra and ad platform build out it would require.

Better to maximally extract pound of flesh from Google every few years.

Good strategic press to build some pressure and leverage

They learned it the hard way with “ping”… don’t try to copy something that already exists. Search is not core business for Apple. I agree they will pay google to get results.

I could see then launching a “search engine” as part of a multi-modal LLM embedded within AVP.

Agreed, Google search engine will eventually be replaced by a personalized Siri that gives answers on the first try based on the individual and context. Until then take Google’s money.