Comment by leptons
21 hours ago
Apple does plenty of harm every day when they force Safari as the only web browser engine allowed on iOS.
21 hours ago
Apple does plenty of harm every day when they force Safari as the only web browser engine allowed on iOS.
We certainly are in a predicament aren't we!?
Now I am what you would consider a "Full Stallman" free software guy, but you can imagine my mixed feelings when I ended up being interviewed by Business Insider on why Microsoft shouldn't be giving up with web engine for a Chromium based browser. Yes, things like Safari are proprietary junk but they still keep things like Chrome dominance at bay. Alas I feel we are better having a few proprietary systems than a singular monolithic one. Once Apple lets that one go, it is only a matter of time until Google almost single handled controls the framework of the internet.
Save us Ladybird, you are our only hope!
"Chrome dominance" isn't my concern, and it isn't the problem with Apple.
The problem is Apple is intentionally hobbling their web browser and forcing every other browser maker to use it, which prevents web applications that use any kind of hardware API from functioning on iOS - the only alternative being making a native app for iOS where Apple can charge a significant amount for any purchases made through the native app. Web applications threaten Apple's greed, so they forbid any other browser maker from using anything but Safari on their platform.
Microsoft got sued in an antitrust and lost just because they bundled IE with Windows - not for forbidding any other browser on the platform like Apple has been doing, which is way worse IMHO. And that's one of many reasons the DOJ is suing Apple for abusive business practices.
Eh, this is annoying because I agree with you in principle except there's a handful of things you're simply wrong about.
I'll start with the most eggregious one to save time so you can just click away but: Microsoft wasn't sued for bundling a browser, it was sued because it used one monopoly position to aid another. Apple mobile devices are 57% of the market in the US (which is the highest percentage globally from what I can tell at a glance) and a far cry from 1997 Windows which was a staggering 96%+ of all desktop operating systems in the US. That is a monopoly which is not explicitly forbidden in the US unless you use it to further domination in some other field: Web browsers were considered another field.
That said, while I agree with you in principle, in practice I really don't like the idea of a browser monoculture. We already see the effects of it with WebUSB (for real) and Manifestv3 which nobody really wants but is essentially foisted on us.
There are two types of people: those who think the web is an application delivery platform, and those who think it's a window into information.
The more leaky the sandbox the worse security will get over time (even if we put a lot of eggs into the basket) and the more bloated things will get. But the people in the first camp cannot see passed their next meal for want of a "better" application delivery system. Anything that keeps them at bay is welcome to me, even if it's something I also don't agree with.
The lesser devil.
That’s more complicated because the alleged harms are quite limited (it’s not like Android or desktop users are using PWAs much) and the biggest direct impact is the unalloyed good of “the web” not being synonymous with the Google Chrome roadmap. Everyone has benefited from proposed specs with significant negative privacy and security impacts not being adopted, so we have to ask how much the negatives outweigh the positives here.
Remember when Microsoft got sued in a class action because they simply bundled IE with Windows? Well Apple is doing far worse than that. The DOJ finally noticed and was suing Apple for it as well now, and rightfully so.
Right? They are really limiting Google’s development of their platform, the internet, by making some websites pander to a non-Chrome browser engine.
No, they are making it impossible to implement some kinds of web applications on the entire iOS platform so they can push developers to make a native app, where they can collect a significant percentage of any money made through the app.
The DOJ noticed and is suing Apple for doing this.
That comparison is somewhat more complicated because it was much more broadly tied into Microsoft's control of the by-far dominant PC operating system and was in the era where browsers were commercial products which cost money and significantly predated the rise of open source software.
That's likely why the DOJ is _not_ “suing Apple for doing this”. Browsers are conspicuously not on the list of charges and I think it's because in the subsequent 3 decades, we've had some key changes: all of the major browser engines are open source, very few people question the demand for standard libraries for rendering web content even in desktop apps, statistically nobody pays for web browsers. A large part of the Microsoft trial was discussing how they colluded to prevent PC vendors from bundling other companies' software but in this case Apple isn't trying to restrict another vendor's decision about what software they ship on their hardware and users don't show much sign of being bothered by the lack of PWAs, which have negligible usage on any platform. If someone was making a lot of money with a PWA on Android but having to pay Apple's in-app fees on iOS, that'd be a much stronger argument for market distortion.
The actual lawsuits are focused where Apple's behavior is more clearly like 90s Microsofts: restricting access to the NFC APIs, restricting game streaming platforms, and restricting the ability of WearOS watches to work with iOS phones or Apple Watches working with Android phones. Unlike PWAs, there are other mobile payment companies who'd love to ship tighter integration, customers who want more gaming options, or who want to have something like a Garmin device as tightly integrated as an Apple Watch. I don't know how likely the DOJ's case is to succeed but at least in those cases it's easy to show that there's a real market being affected whereas it's much harder to argue that a PWA market would suddenly spring into being or that Google is somehow being deprived of Chrome revenue by having to use WebKit on iOS. I'm aware of the technical arguments but it seems fairly challenging as a legal argument to make the case that the DOJ should respond to Apple abusing a monopoly position with a fifth of the market by allowing Google to push their share over 90%. The only way the web is better off out of this is if there's some coordinated simultaneous action.
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Yes, but with that sort of thing, the harm is at least limited to Apple customers.
No, it isn't. It's forcing developers to write native apps instead of web applications, which then lets Apple collect a significant percentage of any sales made through the app. This is why Apple is being sued for this by the DOJ, among many other abusive business practices.
I do not want to pay Apple for the privilege to develop a native app, as well as being forced to buy not just their mobile devices, but a full computer just to develop that native app on, when it could just be done as a web application. It's hurting me, a non-Apple user.
That’s why there are so many great PWAs for Android and most companies avoid writing Android apps and just tell Android users to use the web apps.
Oh wait, that’s totally not the case.
My web app works great on Android, but will never work on iOS because they refuse to implement APIs I need, and they won't let anyone else implement a browser with the APIs either.
I refuse to pay Apple and buy their hardware to be able to develop a native app for their walled-garden platform, where they can then further extort me for any money my users spend through the app I create.
And the DOJ agrees with me, which is why they are suing Apple for abusive business practices.
Your web app is statistically irrelevant. If PWAs were so much better on Android, then why do companies still make Android apps and web apps?
Well, one reason is that most Android phones being sold are so underpowered that you have to make a native app to get decent performance. Facebook for one found out early on that it couldn’t get away with just having an app that was a web wrapper because of low end Android devices.
So where are all of the great groundbreaking popular web apps?
And saying the current US government is in agreement with you about anything isn’t the positive thing you seem to be implying it is…
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