Google wanted every iPhone to come with its app preinstalled - Apple said no

Once upon a time, Google thought that it had a chance of getting Apple to preinstall its app on every iPhone that it sold. Perhaps unsurprisingly for anyone who knows Apple's stands on third-party cruft, that didn't happen.

The revelation comes after The Verge reported on the ongoing antitrust lawsuit between the United States and Google in which it was made public knowledge that Google CEO Sundar Pichai floated the idea of putting the Google Search app on every iPhone.

Apple did offer two Google apps in a similar way with the Google Maps and YouTube apps preinstalled on all iPhones that ran iOS 5 or newer. However, those apps were technically built by Apple and they were canned from iOS 6. And with Apple famously refusing to put any carrier apps on its iPhones despite Android phones often being full of them, it's a surprise that Pichai even thought that this request might have a chance.

Google instead famously pays Apple billions of dollars each and every year in order to ensure that its search engine is the default one on its devices, including the iPhone. Apple has previously been rumored to be working on a search engine of its own but that has so far come to naught. It isn't clear whether that's ever likely to happen, but Apple would instantly remove a huge revenue stream for itself if it did.

While Google is the default search option on Apple devices users can still choose to swap that out for competing services instead, should they choose to. Google's billions only ensure that it is the default option, not the only one.