Google reportedly paid Apple $1B

How important is it to Google to be the first place iPhone users go to for search results? Important enough that the Web giant reportedly pays its biggest rival in mobile big bucks for the privilege. The search giant paid Apple $1 billion in 2014 to keep its search bar on iOS devices, according to a Bloomberg examination of a court transcript from Oracle's long-running copyright lawsuit against Google. The payout was part of a revenue-sharing agreement between the two companies that gives Apple a percentage of the revenue Google generates through Apple devices, an attorney for Oracle said during a hearing last week in federal court.

The alleged deal shows how important it is for Google -- creator of Android, the operating system that powers the majority of the world's smartphones -- to have its search bar in front of as many faces as possible, even to the point of paying its biggest rival to cover all its bases.

Apple's iOS and Google's Android made up nearly 96 percent of the smartphone OS market worldwide in the second quarter of 2015, according to market researcher IDC. While iOS had 13.9 percent of the market compared with Android's 82.8 percent, Apple's operating system gained more than 2 percentage points from the same period the previous year, as Google's lost 2 points.