In a recent court filing related to Google’s antitrust case against the Justice Department, it was revealed that Microsoft once attempted to sell its Bing search engine to Apple. However, Apple was unimpressed with Bing’s “search quality” and ultimately rejected the offer. The full story behind this decision has now come to light, highlighting an interesting incident involving a former rock star.

During a testing session in 2018, John Giannandrea, Apple’s vice president of machine learning and AI strategy, entered a query into Bing asking about “Annie Lennox first band.” The search engine failed to provide the correct answer, missing out on important information about Lennox’s earlier musical career with The Tourists before joining The Eurythmics.

Furthermore, Giannandrea discovered that Bing lacked support for local languages in key markets that were important to Apple. This was particularly concerning as Microsoft had promised improvements to Bing in previous years but failed to deliver any significant changes by 2018.

Following a meeting with Microsoft representatives, Giannandrea noted that the company did not view Bing as a strategic priority. It appeared that Microsoft was willing to sell Bing, indicating that it may not be considered a crucial asset within the company.

Overall, Apple’s decision to reject Bing was influenced by concerns about search quality, lack of language support, and perceived lack of commitment from Microsoft towards improving the search engine. This incident sheds light on the complex dynamics between tech giants in the competitive world of online search services.