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Comment by ta1243

1 year ago

It's not a moral victory, it is a pragmatic one.

If it was 98% chrome and 2% firefox that's basically 100% chrome.

Instead safari on ios (and to a lesser extent desktop) means the web isn't 100% chrome (or chrome skins like brave)

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ta1243

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Apocryphon  1 year ago

I’m arguing that Apple should strengthen Safari (and not just on iOS and macOS but to other operating systems owned by them) to make it more compelling to use for customers, and not rely on App Store guideline lock-in on iOS. But they clearly don’t care to, even when they could afford to. And they don’t care about promoting WebKit at all, because any alt-browsers running it would just provide competition for Safari anyway. As it stands it all seems very half-hearted and kind of lazy.

“The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason.”

- T.S Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral

  • olyjohn  1 year ago

    Having a good web browser doesn't sell apps. That's why they don't care about it. They would rather you not have one at all and only have access to things via apps.

    • Apocryphon  1 year ago

      Precisely, and it's quite ironic given Steve Jobs' original envisioning iOS as chiefly relying on web apps. The App Store mandate of banning non-WebKit browsers is entirely technical in nature and self-serving; to prevent apps from including third-party JIT compilers[0], and maybe (like Flash was) other browser engines are viewed as unoptimized and insecure for the platform. It's doubtful that Apple actually cares about preventing Chrome's takeover of the web. This is not the guardian you are looking for.

      [0] iOS Application Security: The Definitive Guide for Hackers and Developers by David Thiel, pg. 8-9

      "Jailed Just-in-Time Compilation on iOS" by Saagar Jha https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22401146