Sure but would they? Currently they get it totally for free. If they had to finance the development themselves then it would get real hard to justify real quick. $20bn is a lot of money even for Apple
It's not about whether or not Apple have the resources to make their own browser engine, it's about whether it makes sense from a business point of view to make their own browser engine. Currently it does, because Google pay them huge amounts of money to do so. But what business case would there be to pay that $20bn themselves if Google did not fund them? Would it be worth that just to avoid Chromium?
Tbf - they don't pay for WebKit, they pay to be the default search engine. If Apple wanted, they could switch to Chromium and still have the same captive audience and bargaining power (but a lot less control of the direction web standards go)
That’s not necessarily true, even Microsoft has its own tweaks of Chromium:
> We’ve seen Edge adding some privacy enhancements to Chromium pioneered by Safari. Edge shipped those, but Chrome did not. And as more browsers start using Chromium and large companies will work on improving Chromium, more of these disagreements will happen. It will be interesting to see what happens.
Just because a browser is based on Chromium, that does not mean it is identical to Chrome and that Google is in control. Even if the unthinkable happens and Apple is forced to adopt Chromium, that will only ensure that Google is not the only one having a say about Chromium and the future of the web.
Fwiw, I agree its problematic to lock down phones the way Apple does. I won't use them because I'm not buying a device where I don't get to decide what runs on it.
And for sure they would put their twist on Chromium, like Edge or Brave or Vivaldi.
I still think they have a lot more control the way it is now, for better or worse
This is insipid. Why would Apple adopt a fork of WebKit when they’ve been using WebKit just fine for so long? Why would Apple of all companies defer to something in Google’s realm besides search? Do you have a single technical justification for Apple to overturn decades of WebKit use that’s baked into its frameworks and its control over iOS to use Blink?
IE was too long in the tooth, Microsoft was behind by several trends at that point, mobile being one of them. Don’t think the situation with Safari and WebKit is comparable.