[eloisant]

You should read the article. To sum it up: the web beat desktop apps because traditional OS were not designed for a networked world.

The iPhone however was designed for a networked world so it didn't have all the limitations of desktop OS.

The web wasn't designed for a mobile world so it had a lot of limitations: hard to do a good UX, passwords to type on a tiny keyboard, no offline mode (or so complex to use that no dev do), URL vs app icons...

[radicalbyte]

Only that's not how the world works.

The world works with power: Apple used their power to make strangle the entire idea of the web on mobile by putting a break on change. Why? Mobile web tech helps their competitors more than it helps them.

If Apple's own platform / APIs had had the same rate of change as they effectively forced on the mobile web, then they would be a decade behind Android.

This is exactly the same thing as Microsoft did in the 90s with productivity software. They had secret undocumented APIs which made Office a fantastic experience and non-office "meh".

[radicalbyte]

If you look carefully you'll see this tactic all over: throw mud in your opponents eyes to slow their rate of change.

See: US banking (in the EU I can transfer cash, instantly, for free to a friend's bank account and have been able to do so for a decade), Fossil fuel vs Climate change, most commercial standard bodies. It's everywhere.

[lotsofpulp]

> US banking (in the EU I can transfer cash, instantly, for free to a friend's bank account and have been able to do so for a decade)

This one actually seems like a fault of the US government dragging its feet on making advancements on a nationwide protocol for transferring money and staying stuck on ACH. So much so that, that the biggest banks had to get together and create their own system 10 years ago:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zelle_(payment_service)

> Launched in April 2011, clearXchange was originally owned by Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo.

Supposedly, the US government is finally rolling out a proper system in 2023:

https://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/fednow_about.h...

[andrekandre]

  > Apple used their power to make strangle the entire idea of the web on mobile by putting a break on change. 

but this seems to neglect the fact that

  1. apple/jobs wanted web tech initially for apps
  2. native app devs were beating down the doors for access to native, not web apis

[radicalbyte]

That was very very early on. Once they were big and Android came along the strategy was turned around.