Comment by leptons
18 hours ago
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.
>Browsers are conspicuously not on the list of charges
Wrong.
"60. For years, Apple denied its users access to super apps because it viewed them as “fundamentally disruptive” to “existing app distribution and development paradigms” and ultimately Apple’s monopoly power. Apple feared super apps because it recognized that as they become popular, “demand for iPhone is reduced.” So, Apple used its control over app distribution and app creation to effectively prohibit developers from offering super apps instead of competing on the merits.
61. A super app is an app that can serve as a platform for smaller “mini” programs developed using programming languages such as HTML5 and JavaScript. By using programming languages standard in most web pages, mini programs are cross platform, meaning they work the same on any web browser and on any device. Developers can therefore write a single mini program that works whether users have an iPhone or another smartphone."
https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/media/1344546/dl
A browser engine made by a company other than Apple is considered a "super app". It's the same thing Apple got sued for in Europe and lost, and now iOS in Europe has to allow other browser engines.
>A large part of the Microsoft trial was discussing how they colluded to prevent PC vendors from bundling other companies' software
That is pretty much what Apple is doing.
You can try to deny it all you want but Apple is being sued by the DOJ for many things, and one of this things is them forcing Safari on every web browser running on iOS.
I really don't care what Apple does to hobble Safari, so long as they let other more modern and capable browser engines on the platform.
> Wrong.
You say that, but consider that they might not have used the word “browser” because super apps are not the same (your attempted redefinition is not how that term is normally used). That's going back to the App Store control of code distribution, there's certainly no technical reason why someone can't use HTML5 or JavaScript in an iOS app given how many do that every day.
Again, I'm not saying that what Apple is doing is blameless but it's important to read the actual DOJ cases so you can understand why these aren't the same. For example, you baldly assert “That is pretty much what Apple is doing” completely missing that Apple is only controlling what you can do with their hardware and is making no effort to prevent, say, Google or Samsung from doing something different on their own hardware. That's significantly different from Microsoft preventing Dell, IBM, Gateway, etc. from shipping alternate operating systems and those kind of legal distinctions matter a lot in court.