Out with Google and In with Yahoo, What Apple’s New Partnership Means for iOS 7?

After having declared thermonuclear war on Android, Apple has spurned its biggest content partner Google and had removed native, embedded services like YouTube and Google Maps from its platform. The sour relationship between Apple and Google may be a positive boon for Yahoo, which has been one of the first–along with Google–partners to provide content for the iOS platform, with Google having edged out Yahoo early on with more noticeable services like YouTube, default search, and maps. Ironically, perhaps, the new Yahoo is headed by an old Google alum.

And with ex-Googler Marissa Mayer at its helm, Yahoo has been making a bigger push into the more important and lucrative mobile market. The company is one of the leading apps publisher to iOS and a re-dedication to the mobile space may be just the right ingredient it needs to become even more cozy with Apple.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the two companies have been in talks to bring more of Yahoo’s content and services to Apple’s devices. Yahoo already provides weather (native app), stocks (native app), and sports score (via Siri) to Apple’s iOS devices, and that list could grow to include news, sports information, and other Yahoo properties. The Journal says that a deal has not yet been inked.

And though Yahoo doesn’t compete directly with Apple in the way that Google does with its mobile Android operating system, Apple may still need to evaluate any deal it inks cautiously. Yahoo, which had previously signed a ten-year deal with Microsoft, may be indirectly competing with Apple as the Bing search provider does make the Windows Phone mobile OS that competes against Apple’s iOS.

Nothing’s really certain yet, but if something does happen, we can probably expect to see Apple debuting new content from Yahoo at its WWDC conference for developers this summer. This would also be the venue that the next-generation iOS 7 is rumored to be introduced, and likely if a Yahoo partnership makes it here, we can see the results of that in the next iPhone 5S.