Apple, Yahoo in talks over 'deeper iPhone partnership': Report

Apple and Yahoo are said to be in talks over extending the level of cooperation amongst the two companies over Apple's iPhone.

A report in The Wall Street Journal notes while a deal is not exactly imminent, both companies are keen to extend the scope of their relationship. It is noteworthy that Apple has used Yahoo Finance and Weather data to power the stocks and weather data on iPhone since launch. The integration went a step further when Apple started using Yahoo data to answer sports-related queries in Siri, its virtual assistant.

The report notes that Yahoo wants to be able to offer more of its content to Apple, including possibly search results, as an incentive for Cupertino to reduce its dependence on Google. However, any deal on search seems unlikely at this point.

But the companies are discussing new arrangements, including possible deals to get more content from Yahoo News and its other Web properties loaded onto Apple devices or available through an expanded Siri partnership, one of these people said.

Yahoo also has contemplated ways it could provide Web-search results to Apple, so that Apple could rely less on Google Inc. But the idea is still a long shot because of Yahoo's partnership with Microsoft Corp., which powers Yahoo's search service, and Apple's deal to use Google's Web-search service as the default in the iPhone and iPad web browser.

The report notes that though Apple has severed ties with Google over Maps and YouTube, the iPhone-maker acknowledges Google still has the best search results, and is unlikely to snap a long-standing partnership that sees Google ship as the default search engine on all iOS devices.

Another complication in a possible Web-search deal between Yahoo and Apple is former's ten-year search partnership with Bing, that sees Microsoft's search engine power Yahoo search results.

Yahoo, once an Internet giant, has faded into irrelevance in the recent years. Last year, the company hired Marissa Mayer as CEO in a bid to turn around its fortunes. One of Mayer's focus areas has been trying to forge new partnerships that leverage Yahoo's large arsenal of content and boost usage of its services.