Eddy Cue explains why Apple won’t make a search engine

If a court barred Google from sharing search distribution revenue, Apple would have two unacceptable options. It would still let U.S. users choose Google as Safari’s search engine, but Apple wouldn’t get any share of the resulting revenue, so Google would gain valuable access to Apple users for free. Or Apple could remove the Google search option on Safari. But since customers prefer Google, removing it as an option would hurt Apple and its customers.