It's funny to try to push privacy in the domain of search. Part of the reason Google does as well as it does is that it spies on you like crazy -- not just to provide better ads, but to contextualize search results.

I know that HN users complain about it a lot, but I nearly always find what I want from Google right up top -- if it exists at all. Much of the time, I don't even have to type it all, because its suggestions are often spot on, and apparently based on what else I've been googling.

Maybe they can provide good-enough results without that. I know a lot of HN readers have talked up Duck Duck Go for getting good results without the invasion of privacy. But while Apple has also been selling privacy lately, its users also want extreme convenience, a system that doesn't do everything but does only what they want (or learn to want). That's where Apple has always shined, and it'll be tricky to marry privacy to a really good search experience.