Comment by tpmoney
2 years ago
It is a hard problem because the line between an OS function and an application function is very blury. Take for example the FindMy functionality. It's open to third party devices and manufacturers like Tile, but to get all the functionality the OS has, you need to use FindMy, not your own app (like Tile used to/still does). But is FindMy an OS functionality as a built in, privacy preserving, low powered tracker service) or is it an application? Or WebKit. Webkit is the only web rendering engine in iOS. Every app has equal access to WebKit, but is it part of the platform or competing in the platform? Sure, on general purpose computers, browsers are applications, but is there any reason they can't / shouldn't be an OS service? The lower level networking stacks are OS services. The higher level screen drawing stacks are OS services. Why would gluing those two things together not be an OS service?
Indeed, WebView is an attempt to deploy a browser runtime separately to the browser application.