It is known that Apple receives between $10b and $12b a year from Google to stay as its default search engine on all Apple products. However that contract may soon be ended as an antitrust suit against Google by the US Department of Justice might prohibit the deal.
Applebot, Apple's very own web crawler, has been around since 2014, and is reported to be in active status even more than ever in recent times, as Apple relies lesser on Google search services. Also, Apple has commenced direct linking to websites, without using Google as a route to these websites on its iOS 14's home screen search.
About three years ago, Apple hired John Giannandrea (then Google's Search and Artificial Intelligence chief), as its current senior vice president of Machine Learning and AI Strategy.
Amazingly, about 20% of Apple's services revenue comes from its deal with Google search, which powers internet search in Apple devices, in the excess of millions of units which the brand has produced all over the world.
Despite that, you may wonder how apple might go around all these privacy talks to build its own robust search engine, given its core dedication to users privacy, but Tim Cook, Apple CEO released a press statement earlier on, concerning this issue "Our business model is very straightforward: We sell great products. We don’t build a profile based on your email content or web browsing habits to sell to advertisers." he continued, " We don’t “monetize” the information you store on your iPhone or in iCloud. And we don’t read your email or your messages to get information to market to you." Apple fans will have to keep their heads up for more updates as more events unfold in real time.