[agust]

Worth noting that Apple doesn't just cripple iOS Safari, it cripples all iOS browsers because it also forces them to use WebKit, the crippled browser engine underneath Safari.

It would be fine if they just made Safari bad, that's their choice. But they don't stop there: they make the entire web bad on iOS purposely to promote the native apps they can tax.

[tugten]

Firefox was planning a native gecko based ios app. But Apple decided to limit it to EU forcing developers to choose to maintain seperate projects for a limited users.

[OptionOfT]

The Brussels Effect takes care of a lot of hardware changes for the better, for the world (think USB-C).

But for software, not so much.

Examples:

* Windows N (no media player stuff) and KN (no media player stuff, no messenger)

* Windows installed in the EEA (ability to disable / change start menu search with Bing, ability to remove Edge, ability to add widget providers)

* iOS with only allowing 3rd party app stores and 3rd party browser engines in the EEA.

* Google only allowing certain things when the phone is in the USA.

And it's gonna get worse with age verification. All of the sudden the manufacturers have even more data.

[slashdave]

This is clearly for reasons of security.

I don't think Apple is terribly interested in market share for Safari. What they are interested is preserving their competitive advantage in privacy.

[agust]

The security/privacy argument has been debunked many times.

How do you explain that all other OSes, including Apple's own macOS, manage to allow other browser engines?

Do you think the iOS team is that incompetent?

[astrange]

iOS is much more secure than macOS.

[slashdave]

Debunked where? Do you even understand what a web engine does?

[hasanhaja]

If it's about security and privacy, why push more people away from the Web to native apps that they know is less secure [1][2]?

> WebKit’s sandbox profile on iOS is orders of magnitude more stringent than the sandbox for native iOS apps.

[1] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/62277271d3bf7... [2] https://open-web-advocacy.org/apple-dma-review

[slashdave]

Native iOS apps are sandboxed and even more secure. The reason the web engine is tied down is because web engines are insecure by nature. And now you want Apple to allow anyone to write one?

[hasanhaja]

> even more secure

Based on what? Happy to be wrong, but the quote in my reply was Apple's stance on the WebKit vs native iOS apps

[rejhgadellaa]

> I don't think Apple is terribly interested in market share for Safari

Google pays Apple $20B a year because of the market share Safari has on iOS.

I'd call that "interest"

That's 10% of their turnover (and likely mostly pure profit, as they seem to spend a fraction of that on Safari)

[slashdave]

Try again. Anyone can write a browser that uses the existing web engine and connect it to any search engine they want. Make it popular enough, and they can made a deal with Google.

Having Safari is a default browser is another (valid) issue, but that is a separate concern from the web engine.

[rejhgadellaa]

But if the web engine you have to use is a) shitty and b) the same as everyone else (except slightly shittier [1]), how are you going to make it popular?

The browser engine is an important piece of the puzzle when it comes to getting people to switch browsers. If a site works faster or better on browser B, that's a reason to switch.

If Apple's WebKit engine doesn't allow you to do video calls, you could build that into your engine and actually compete.

Why would Google and Mozilla spend millions on developing and maintaining their own engines if they didn't think that it provides value, e.g. a competitive edge?

[1] In the past, Safari did get some features that other browsers on iOS didn't get, e.g. Being the default browser (you couldn't set Chrome or any other browser as the default until iOS 14(!), Nitro JIT (Safari was significantly faster than other browsers on iOS for 4 yrs), camera and microphone access (video calls only worked in Safari), Web Extensions, Apple Pay, Fullscreen API, Add to Home Screen (ironically)...