Moesen noticed a new spider crawling through his HTML files on his web site and checked to see who this new spider was. The IP range seems to resolve to Apple's servers, named APPLE-WWNET.
But Apple is not a search company, why would they start crawling the web? Yes, they do Siri, yes they have Apple Maps - but normal web search?
Greg Sterling believes it is an official Apple Project, not because he has evidence but he thinks it is possible. He explains that Apple hired William Stasior from Amazon/A9 Search a couple years ago, and also explains how Siri and Maps all leads to Apple potentially wanting to control search as well. They use to work with Google, now Bing but why not do search completely?
It wouldn't surprise me if Apple tried it out and see if it is something they think they can do right. If so, they could potentially do it differently enough to become something serious in the space.
Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.