[danilocampos]

That's a pretty good chicken little, there.

I'll tell you a story about my first time with an Android device.

I went to the store to download an app. And it failed.

Over. And over. And over again. The device emitted a cryptic error message which, thankfully, was easily Googled. The troubleshooting steps required diving into the settings application and manipulating some controls to reset a data store in a low-level component in Android's OS.

Contrast that with an iPhone, which just works.

Apple's value, is, and shall remain, their airtight integration and reliable user experience. Putting Chrome on there touches none of that. None of my non-technical friends or family will ever touch it.

It's healthy for Apple to let third parties write whatever apps they want, so long as those apps don't impact system stability or security. Apple's industrial design makes hardware that's very difficult to successfully imitate, their content ecosystem is complete and richly integrated into their products. Their software and hardware are built in tandem.

No one is positioned to handle the whole enchilada as they are. When that changes, that will be the moment to worry. Meanwhile, they're in good shape.

[lomegor]

I'll tell you my experience with iOS. I bought an iPod Touch, and there was no way to put music on it. Because I run GNU/Linux the only way I could do that was with a Windows virtual machine.

I click on a link on an e-mail an it opens Safari, when I want to use Opera. I have to kill all the applications living on the down thingy (multi-tasking), although I do know that they may not be using any memory, but they do feel like slowing things down. And of course, I almost lost all my apps, had problems with my iTunes and lot's of other issues when I moved country.

That's not exactly 'just works'.

Of course, YMMV. And that's why we don't use personal examples to say that something is better than the other.

EDIT: OK, not exactly better, but to say something 'just works' or is 'airtight' and things like that. Android works pretty well too.

[danilocampos]

> I'll tell you my experience with iOS. I bought an iPod Touch, and there was no way to put music on it. Because I run GNU/Linux the only way I could do that was with a Windows virtual machine.

Apple does not care about your use case. Neither do I, for any example that describes a mass-market consumer electronics product.

The iPod touch wasn't designed to work with Linux. On the other hand, the Android device in question was emphatically designed to download apps, and failed at it with cryptic, non-user friendly results.

> And that's why we don't use personal examples to say that something is better than the other.

As delightful as I have found your condescension, the comparison wasn't made in a vacuum. The story was an object lesson in the challenges Google still faces in making an airtight UX for non-technical users, especially as compared to Apple. Defensibility of such advantage, among others, was the OP's chief concern.

As a careful reading would have revealed to you, I mentioned the error was easily Googled. This meant that it was, in no way, a unique experience. A third party blog had taken the time to walk through the fix, so common was this issue for a common use case of the product.

[its_so_on]

I'm telling you what happens if Apple allows Firefox to dominate the iOS ecosystem. It's easier to target, it's easier to get right as a single app on an android device, and it crushes Apple's ecosystem and differnetiation. They've fucked up letting chrome in and they need to remove it to set things right. It's that simple.

[mhurron]

That's a whole lot of stupid you're spitting out there, but honestly the part that is bugging me the worst is you keep confusing Chrome with Firefox.

[its_so_on]

Maybe I need to spell it out for you, but if Apple allows Chrome it has to allow Firefox. Any and every argument that would apply to one applies to the other.

[danilocampos]

You get that iOS Chrome is running the exact same WebKit as Mobile Safari, right? There's no fragmentation risk there.

[telcodud]

Why would you consider it fragmentation even if (and that's a big if...not going to happen) Apple allowed Chrome for iOS to use its own version of WebKit (and V8!) instead of UIWebView? That doesn't make any sense.

[danilocampos]

...Where once there was one rendering engine, now there would be two. That introduces fragmentation for any developers targeting web users on iOS devices, as there would surely be a handful of nuances differentiating the two. Even if those were just around performance.

I don't even think that matters very much, though – I'm just addressing the concern of the crazy fucker above.