[JackC]

No HTML rendering engines because that's a security issue.

It's not a security issue; there are plenty of apps that download and render content, just not HTML content. You're not allowed to publish browsers on iOS because it's a business model issue. Browsers download and run code. Apple likes being the only one who can decide what code runs on an iPhone, so Safari is the only rendering engine.

Apple simply has some fairly clear up front rules about how to play on its minority platform.

Minority platform? They're outselling all smartphones combined on AT&T and Sprint, and running neck and neck with all Android phones combined on Verizon. They hold 85-90% of app store revenue. The fairly clear rules are "you cannot do anything with your phone that we do not approve of, and we do not approve of anything that potentially interferes with our business model." This should not make you a happy customer.

iOS was incredibly open compared with predecessors.

It was incredibly open compared with J2ME and BlackBerry. It was and is incredibly closed compared with other computers. The iPhone isn't a big deal because it's a better phone; it's a big deal because it's the first usable pocket computer. Why should it be a deliberately crippled one?

Now here's why this is important: Apple is making amazing pocket computers, and teaching people that it's cool for a computer vendor to lock down what software people get to run -- to pay engineers to actively try to prevent people from running unapproved software. It's dominating the cell phone market, and making monopoly plays to lock down its position. It's trotting out a line of bogus claims about why we can't opt out of the walled garden (it's a security issue!), when there are millions of computers with un-locked-down access to cell modems that somehow don't pose a security threat.

I've owned nothing but Macs my whole life; I doubt I'll stop any time soon. But I'm not going to high-five them for taking my money and using it to make my phone less useful, while promoting the idea that computers are too dangerous to let just anyone write software for. Screw that.

[Tloewald]

Downloading data and rendering a ui around it is very different from providing a general purpose HTML renderer. One is going to make you vulnerable to attacks on a single custom protocol, the other to any security issue in the rendering engine for all users of that browser. It may well be that Apple derives both business and security benefits from sticking to one HTML rendering engine, but it's simply untrue to argue there is no security benefit.

As for the iPhone being crippled — it's the only significant computer platform with no malware in the wild. And it's not for lack of interest - jail broken iPhones are not free of malware. It's a tradeoff that some customers choose to make. It's also a trade off apple thought made sense for a device we carry around, communicate with, which can track our movements, and so on.

Personally, I think the security model apple is pursuing on Mac OS X is better than that for iOS (an opt in walled garden which is what I think you want). Maybe they'll converge. But I don't think there's any evidence (so far) of insidious intent behind Apple's moves. They're figuring this stuff out as they go along, and they're being careful. One thing is pretty certain -- they can't put the genie back in the bottle, so as they ease up on security and other restrictios they need to figure out what works and what doesn't.