red tim cook

AP, Business Insider

In July, we wrote that we were blown away with Google Now, the voice-controlled search service on the newest version of Android. The app is Google's answer to Siri.

Except it's better. Unlike Siri, Google Now can tap into Google's search engine and return better results. Unlike Siri, Google Now is a finished product that just works. And unlike Siri, Google Now is actually useful and accurate.

Then there's the whole Apple Maps debacle, which spurred a humble apology from Tim Cook and a new section in Apple's App Store for alternative mapping apps. Without beating a dead horse, let's just say Apple Maps are pretty awful, sometimes hilariously so.

There's a pattern developing here.

Whenever Apple attempts a data-driven service like Siri or maps, it fails miserably. Both those services rely on a bunch of third parties like Wolfram Alpha or Yahoo (for Siri) and Waze, TomTom, or Yelp (for Maps). The results are two shaky products that can't get you what you need the way Google can. When Apple cuts out Google, things get worse.

The New York Times touched on the subject last week when it wrote about Cook's apology for Maps. One nugget in the story really stuck out:

The company’s weakness in this area could become a bigger problem over time as smartphones become more intimately tied to information and software on the Internet â€" a field where Google, which makes the competing Android phone software, has the home-turf advantage.

The article goes on to mention Ping and MobileMe as other Apple failures, but those are different. MobileMe was a way to sync contacts and email between your PC, the Web, and iPhone or iPad. Ping was a social network baked into iTunes. Neither were products that rely on massive amounts of data like Maps and Siri do now.

And that's where things look scary for Apple. Products like MobileMe can be tweaked and fixed. (MobileMe wasn't that bad to begin with, but iCloud is definitely an improvement.) But if you don't have a ton of data for services like Siri and maps, there's nothing you can do. The product is only as good as the data you have.

This is the biggest problem with Apple cutting out all things Google from the iPhone. Google has had years to collect massive amounts of data from its users. As a hardware company, Apple has to hope others have the data it needs. Until recently, it relied on Google for that. Now its trying it's luck with other companies. That's not working.

What's really worrisome is that Apple could take its battle with Google a step further and get into the search business, removing Google as the default engine on iPhones and iPads. It's not very likely to happen, but there have been talks of Apple trying search since before it bought Siri a few years ago. If Apple really is trying to destroy Google, then don't be surprised if search is its next target.

It's a disaster waiting to happen.