> but I don't see why that would be the case.

Already answered by my first comment:

> over a decade away from being able to catch up and provide a competitive service against arguably the smartest company in the world whose core competency is search

> In my opinion a search service that doesn't track you is superior to Google (see DuckDuckGo for an example)

DuckDuckGo leverages existing infrastructure and uses existing sources (Bing, Yahoo...) to power their search results [1]. It also doesn't matter what an anecdotal data point thinks is superior, only what their customers prefer in aggregate. DuckDuckGo has so little market share it doesn't even register as a line item [2]. Microsoft started trying to compete with Google with Live Search in 2006 and after bleeding billions and evenwith the help of their Windows Desktop Monopoly and IE, MS Edge market-share they've still only managed 7.5%.

> Google survives on it's ad-words revenue as far as I can tell. Android only generates money for google through ads

Google doesn't disclose their profits they get from Android, but Oracle did it for them where they've disclosed that Android's generated $31B revenue and $22B profit.

> they've never released revenue numbers for Youtube, so we can probably assume Youtube loses money.

Alphabet not disclosing their internal numbers for their revenue sources doesn't mean anything, most mega corps don't breakdown their segments for not wanting to give away competitive secrets.

> And even if Youtube makes money, it is still from ads. So if Apple can cut into Google's ad-words business model, they will deal a blow to their chief competitor, Android.

How can an ad-free Apple Search Engine possibly have any tangible effect into Google's ad-words business model? Are the companies currently buying Google's ads going to stop buying them because a company with <13% of Android's market share (and 5% Desktop Browser Share) dilutes their focus, resources and talent in providing an alternative inferior Search engine that no-one can buy ads for? Is everyone buying ads just going to give up and stop online advertising altogether?

Microsoft has poured billions, have invested over a decade and tried their hardest to hurt Google and steal market share away from them, a technological super power with deep roots into developing technology and infrastructure at all layers as part of their core competency. They're the #2 cloud hosting provider (who also counts Apple as a Customer) that even with leveraging their Desktop Monopoly and IE/Edge browsers can only command 7.5% market share. How is Apple, starting over a decade later with no skills or experience, no ad infrastructure or corporate customer base, first hope to be able to build a competitive search engine then use it to steal market-share from everyone else who's search engine habits have been hard-grained into users daily lives for years. Apple can't keep an AI lead with their Siri voice assistant even after acquiring the technology years before everyone else. I don't see how they'd be able to compete with Bing let alone Google.

> Apple definitely needs to expand its vision.

Apple is the most valuable company in the world, so it's executing better than everyone else.

> Apple shouldn't be spending all their time iterating on the iphone and making their laptops a tiny bit thinner.

Other than being a ludicrous assertion on what they spend their time on, Apple's focus on the iPhone has made it the most successful product in history.

> They should really have a serious AR product like the Hololens by now at the absolute minimum.

Hololens is a commercial failure that's selling units in the 1000's [4] and Apple's already leading the race in Augmented Reality [5] and is expected to release a stand-alone AR headset next year [6]. Unlike other companies Apple only releases products when they believe it provides the best experience and stands the best chance of becoming a consumer success. They also have a commanding lead in developing the fastest mobile chips which is going to help greatly in their AR future.

> Apple seems to think that their mission is to be a computer sculpture company at this point.

In addition to being the most valuable company, Apple's also the most valuable brand in the world [7].

> They are totally obsessed with design to the point that they can't create a usable desktop computer.

I've been using iMac's for over a decade and am currently writing this on their latest 27" iMac w/ Retina 5K, it's by far the best Desktop I've ever seen or used.

> They've lost the plot.

Being the most successful company in history suggests maybe not. Apple got to where they are by focusing on making the best consumer products possible, not by focusing on ways they can throw away billions of profits in trying to hurt a competitor.

[1] http://highscalability.com/blog/2013/1/28/duckduckgo-architecture-1-million-deep-searches-a-day-and-gr.html
[2] https://www.netmarketshare.com/search-engine-market-share.aspx?qprid=4&qpcustomd=0
[3] https://www.theverge.com/2016/1/21/10810834/android-generated-31-billion-revenue-google-oracle
[4] https://www.theverge.com/2017/1/27/14411744/microsoft-hololens-sales-numbers
[5] http://mashable.com/2017/08/29/apple-arkit-versus-google-arcore/#sC4Wn5co6Oqy
[6] https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/8/16622802/apple-ar-headset-augmented-reality-plans-rumors-2019
[7] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/brands-most-valuable-in-the-world-interbrand/