[Spivak]

This argument doesn't hold up to any scrutiny if you try to apply it to any other kind of portable software.

Spotify is a music player that uses the Electron framework and it doesn't run on iOS.

Outlook is a email client that uses the WinUI engine and it doesn't run on iOS.

Netflix is an applet that runs on the Microsoft Silverlight engine, and that doesn't run on iOS.

There is something that feels wrong about Apple's restrictions for browsers but different platform necessitating different, often fundamentally different, implementations isn't quite it.

[gkbrk]

Spotify's distinguishing feature is not "using Electron". Same for all of the other apps you mentioned.

Chrome's distinguishing feature is "not being Safari or Firefox". It has this distinguishing feature on all other platforms like Linux, Mac, Android and Windows. Only on one platform is this feature missing, and that is why it is emphasized so much.

[Spivak]

Well even on iOS Chrome is a different app from Safari and Firefox. Mozilla has two different browsers — even on iOS where all browsers are "the same" Mozilla sees enough differences to have two separate ones.

You're just restating the premise. I think Outlook could make a case for just being a wrapper for Apple Mail. Valve could make the case that Steam's distinguishing feature is lacking on iOS. Again, there is some signal here but I've never heard anyone be able to really explain it.

[st3fan]

Outlook could make a great case that Apple’s own email client has access to all kinds of great iOS APIs that are only available to Apple and not to third party email clients. Apple mail has deep OS integration that is impossible for third party email clients. Apple Mail can fetch in the background at will while Outlook has to build that on top of mediocre APIs.