iPhone to use Bing as Default Search Engine

A few places around the net today are reporting that Apple [AAPL] will be dropping Google as their default search engine on the iPhone and replacing it with Bing.com. We could see this change happen very soon too due to a rumoured release of the iPhone 4.0 OS next week. Talks of this move by Apple have been going on for weeks according to BusinessWeek.

"Apple and Google know the other is their primary enemy," says one of the people, who's familiar with Apple's thinking. "Microsoft is now a pawn in that battle."
If the negotiations are successful, it could also mean that Bing could eventually replace Google as the default search engine for Apple's desktop version of Safari as well.

Other possibilities include the fact that Google are quite aggressively entering the mobile phone market with a bunch of Android phones being launched last year with even more tricks up their sleeves for this coming year. Perhaps Apple are trying to drop any mention of Google from their iPhone.

Finally, it seems Apple are working on their own search technology, so this could be a step a way from Google but then another step away from Bing in the near future. I'm sure we'll find out some extra information on this next week.

Via: Businessweek and Macrumors