I use DuckDuckGo for search, and do trust them with privacy. But if Apple did a half-decent job at nailing the search experience, I'd switch.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=San+Francisco&t=h_&ia=web&iaxm=map...
The ads that Apple sells on the app store contribute $2 billion in revenue -- I don't think they'd build a search engine that isn't built around ads.
People thinking Apple aren't going to copy Google's revenue model to some degree are delusional.
[0] https://9to5mac.com/2019/11/26/accusing-apple-of-selling-cus...
I can't see how Apple would even do the kind of search result pollution Google does now. In fact, I suspect the only reason Apple is launching advertising is because they see an opportunity to provide a better experience—namely one where you see organic results immediately.
In addition, google has become very aggressive with disregarding words. So a search like (a fake example, not tried the search, not a real place) Jim’s tasty pizza Albuquerque 90s where I’m searching for where a restaurant I remember as a child was located, and has maybe 5 real results from a local history Wordpress blog 15 years ago and Facebook posts, Google will just drop everything specific and give you results for Albuquerque pizza, and then mainly show ads for national chains up top. So I need quotes in the search pretty much always.
I use it for certain types of searches, and not others. I'm conscious of the fact that what I'm typing and searching, and subsequently clicking through will be piled on to the stack Google thinks is me. So it's usually tech searches, real estate/apartments, street view (property or exploring).
Health matters, personal matters, etc I tend to keep out of their search box.
Though more and more I tend to do a lot of cross-searching if privacy is not a concern.
Google's job as a search engine is to provide relevant and quality content. Ads are spam and noise, so if Google does want to provide quality content they should be penalizing ads just like they would penalize keyword spam and similar unpleasant SEO tactics. Given their business model however it is not in their best interests to do so, so it's very unlikely that Google will do it.
Another company that does not make their money on advertising has a better chance of doing this.
Meanwhile, ads are distinct from search. The #1 result refers to the first result past the ads.
My point is that as a user, ads, regardless of how "good" they are, are not what I am looking for when I click on a search result (I am talking about website ads and not ads on the results page itself) and thus a search engine that downranks pages with ads in favor of those without them would be beneficial for me.
It would be against Google's interest to implement that (as they'd also be fighting against their own ad network) but a different company not involved in the advertising business (and making high enough margins on other products) has a higher chance of delivering this successfully.