NSHotlyContestedSearchField

When Internet Explorer 7 begins to be loaded on new machines next year, computer makers like Dell and Hewlett-Packard will be free to determine what search engines and other sites they feature in the browser’s Web guide and search box.

(via The New York Times)

The article speculates on a bidding war going on between Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft for “default” positioning in IE7’s new search box. I envision the conversation going something like:

Dell: Okay, the bidding war is open.

Yahoo! One MILLION dollars.

Google: One BILLION dollars.

Microsoft: We’ll continue to allow you to bundle Windows with the computers you make. You’ll continue to pay us, I dunno, a hundred bucks a seat for the privilege, OK?

Dell: Google? Yahoo!? I’ll call you back.

(n.b.: It is worth nothing that Google is hardcoded as the default search engine in Safari. As in, it’s not in Localizable.strings or a nib, you have to hex edit the Safari binary to change it. Any Cocoa programmer can tell you: either someone is out of their mind to do this this way, or someone got paid some money to make it hard to opt out of Google. So, Google, don’t pretend like you’re new to this game…)

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Published:: 5.1.06 / 10pm

Category:: Programming

Glen Raphael 5.2.06 / 11am

Maybe google search was so obviously better than any available alternative that there didn’t seem to be much point in making it easy to change. Is that really so unbelievable?

Remember that integrated google search was one of Safari’s prime marketing features over IE. Apple is all about picking the one best choice rather than making everything customizable. It’s not a “search using your favorite browser” feature, it’s a “search with Google” feature.

David Young 5.2.06 / 11am

The point isn’t that they didn’t just not make the setting easy to change, they went out of their way to make it *hard* to change.

I do agree about the “one best choice” philosophy being a driving force behind Apple’s product decisions, though. However, they usually do this in a way that doesn’t preclude extension or modification by the user the way the Google search box does.

cjwl 5.2.06 / 1pm

I would cast a vote for Laziest Implementation on the hard coding of Google in the search box. The small number of people who would want to customize it doesn’t warrant purposely making it hard. Remember, they have C++ programmers working on Safari.

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NSHotlyContestedSearchField

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