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 You know what they say: If at first you don't succeed at mass government surveillance, try, try again. Only two days after India backpedaled on its plan to force smartphone makers to preinstall a state-run "cybersecurity" app, Reuters reports that the country is back at it. It's said to be considering a telecom industry proposal with another draconian requirement. This one would require smartphone makers to enable always-on satellite-based location tracking (Assisted GPS).
The measure would require location services to remain on at all times, with no option to switch them off. The telecom industry also wants phone makers to disable notifications that alert users when their carriers have accessed their location. According to Reuters, India's home ministry was set to meet with smartphone industry executives on Friday, but the meeting was postponed.
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AI services like Perplexity or OpenAI's SearchGPT could be search engine options in a future version of Safari, Bloomberg reports. The tentative plans were shared by Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of services, while on the stand for Google's ongoing search antitrust case. Cue was called to testify because of the deal Google and Apple have to keep Google Search as the default search engine on the iPhone.
Cue claims Apple has discussed a possible Safari-integration with Perplexity, but didn't share any definitive plans during his testimony. It's clear that he believes AI assistants will inevitably supplant traditional search engines, though. "Prior to AI, my feeling around this was, none of the others were valid choices," Cue said. "I think today there is much greater potential because there are new entrants attacking the problem in a different way."
Whatever AI search Apple ultimately adds likely won't be the default at first, according to Cue, but "there's enough money now, enough large players, that I don't see how it doesn't happen." There's some evidence to back up the idea that things are changing, too.
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