Maybe but IIRC Google announced supporting app indexing on iOS  prior to Apple announcing deep link searching in iOS9 and was already supporting it on Android 2 years[0] prior despite Facebook decision to support it today.<p>I see this more along the lines of Google continuing their objective of getting us the information we want when we want it.  Mitigating threats to competitors is just really a benefit of them continuing their innovation with search.<p>[0] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;searchengineland.com&#x2F;google-brings-app-indexing-support-to-ios-apps-221708" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;searchengineland.com&#x2F;google-brings-app-indexing-suppo...</a>