I’m not going to say I think Apple should be able to lock out competing browsers, I know this is going to happen.
But God I don’t want this. The iPhone is basically the only thing stopping a total Chrome/Chromium hegemony from ruling the web the way IE did.
I don’t think Google will practically abandon things the way Microsoft did. But they will absolutely have the kind of power Microsoft did to force any feature.
I don’t want to be forced to use Chrome because it’s the only browser that works on most sites. It’s already bad enough with some sites.
But Apple‘s stubbornness and completely different reasons are the only things accidentally holding back the tide.
I can't wait until regulators do their job and take away Apple's dictatorial control, in all areas, and all these doom-and-gloom predictions on all these tangential issues end up proving ludicrous.
What kind of control would Chrome have over the web? Adding APIs doesn't force the billions of websites to adopt them. So what if a website adds WebBluetooth? You don't want the web to have that anyway, and if you keep using Safari, you still won't have it. Happy you!
If scrappy Firefox on open platforms could save the web from 95% IE, then why are we all dependent on Apple, alone, to save us from ~60% Chrome? It's learned helplessness and Stockholm syndrome. I wonder how our species survived before the trillion-dollar company started taking such good care of us!
> I want my browser to protect me from ALL those things. Ublock origin did precisely that, then Google went in to kill ublock origin. Ublock lite is nowhere near as good.
>> I consider this betrayal - naturally by Google, but also by random web designers such as on the python homepage who consider it morally just to pester visitors when they do not want to be pestered. I don't accept ads; I don't accept pop-ups or slide-in effects (in 99.999% of the cases; notifications for some things can be ok, but this does not extend in my book to donation Robin Hood waylanders)."
That was almost 20 years ago though. Things are really different now and it's hard to imagine Firefox saving anything these days. Sadly, the only entities powerful enough to control FANGs are FANGs (although fingers crossed the EU holds it's nerve and EU nations belatedly act on the realisation that being beholden to US tech giants is a massive strategic blunder, akin to relying so heavily on US military satellite data for Ukraine).
> What kind of control would Chrome have over the web?
Do you remember Manifest Version 3? They did away with ad block extensions.
If we all end up using Chromium, there’s no longer a web standard. It’s whatever conforms to Google’s standard because all sites will have to support Chromium. That means there will be an undocumented spec. It’s much too difficult for browser engine developers to compete with them, they don’t have nearly the resources.
Do you think the web should be an open standard? How can company catch up if Google is the one pushing the envelope?
So according to you, a company that has about 25% of the global smartphone market, should be _legally forbidden_ from creating a tightly integrated software/hardware bundle.
Whereas, a company that has 70% of the global browser market somehow would have no way to take advantage if they had an even larger share.
I wonder how our species would survive without the unique market analysis from one-of-a-kind minds like yours.
I don’t see that as a threat honestly. safari being the default app pretty much guarantees its place unless google comes up with a killer feature for iOS chrome. And they are unlikely to make that push considering apple demands the app to be distributed only in Japan.
Besides, the mobile web is becoming more and more of a niche platform, since the web is becoming centralised as time passes and most main sites redirect to their own apps.
And that’s without considering direct web search being replaced by AI search,which google seems convinced is the way forward.
but this can change. At least in the EU Apple already prompts a user which browser they want [1]. While at the moment every browser is WebKit under the hood, this will probably change as the EU is also pushing Apple to allow other engines [2] - and with users knowing Chrome from Ads, their work or from a previous Android phone, I can imagine a lot of them selecting Chrome as a default.
100% agreed, and I've been explaining this to people for the past year.
I have an iPhone now and miss Firefox for Android (with Ublock, sponsorblock, etc). But this painful restriction is the only thing stopping Chrome from becoming the new IE6.
At a few startups I've worked for, the devs all use chrome exclusively, and only test in chrome during development.
The only reason they consider other browsers, is because of Safari on iOS. Sometimes it's driven by support calls / complains from iOS users after a release. If Chrome's engine is allowed on iOS, that means support can just tell the users to install Chrome (like they do now if anyone has issues on Windows in other browsers). This means Firefox will usually work as well.
Many years ago, I was able to swap banks when my bank's website stopped working in Opera 12. If all the major banks / websites target Chrome-only, we'll have no choice but to use it. And then we'll have no control as Google push new restrictions into Chrome.
That ship has already sailed. And Apple is part of the problem. Recently I used Microsoft Edge because Facetime doesn't support Firefox. I couldn't get audio working so switched to Google Meet (which does work in Firefox.)
I'm sure if Apple keeps innovating and adopting some of the Web standards they'll outcompete other engines. But let's be realistic, they 100% are blocking other engines and not adopting standards in their own because they want that sweet sweet 30% cut when developers can't publish PWAs and are forced into the "app" model.
WebKit's progress has been significant in recent years, it's just been more focused on things like improving CSS instead of things like an API that tells the developer how many beers the user has in their fridge.
People didn't mind when IE was muscling in and adding useful new features. They abandoned Netscape because the features made the web better. It wasn't until they stopped adding features to the browser itself that it really started to become a problem. They would still add features, but too much relied on ActiveX -- which wasn't necessarily evil, there's a grand vision there of component re-use across the OS and varied applications, the same was done with Java Applets and even Shockwave/Flash, but it sucked more and they were all plagued with security problems. Then MS stopped innovating pretty much entirely, and wouldn't even play catch up for a long time, whether with their out-of-browser plugins (oh Silverlight...) or the browser itself. No support for tabs for a long time, or popup blocking (later ad blocking), they had terrible performance... And as various "web standards" advanced to make things nicer for the users and developers, and add capabilities that didn't require an external plugin, they drug their heels on that too.
Eventually, the hell that was IE was a combination of hostile user experience, security problems, performance problems, and developer pain in finding workarounds or other support because it was so far behind on everything. It had nothing to do with their power to dictate or experiment with new features. The extent of the hostile user experience that leaked outside the browser itself was the "only works on IE" problem that forced people to use IE for that site, on the whole it was comparable to the "only works with Flash or Java applets" problems and not as bad as the experience of the browser itself. For the most part these days, the two parts of that hell that remain relevant are the hostile user experience and the developer pains parts, and Mobile Safari is the successor to both for over a decade now. No one supports IE11 anymore (let alone older IEs) but they still have to support Mobile Safari. I have fonder memories of dealing with IE11 (and earlier) support/workarounds over Mobile Safari's crap. My view is more power to actual Chromium-based browsers on mobile even if I personally use Firefox on PC and android despite their user experience shortcomings (at least they're not very hostile). The only part of hell I'd be worried about is that of a hostile user experience, which can be worked around by individual users if they are allowed choices.
It wasn't until they stopped adding features to the browser itself that it really started to become a problem.
Only for those misguided "push the web forward" idiots who just wanted the latest shiny shit, aided by Google's plans to control the Internet itself. Plain HTML worked well enough for everything else.
Google's weapon is change. They have the resources to outcompete everyone else by churning the "standards" as much as they want. The less people think that constant change is necessary, the better the web will be.
Although I partially agree with you, Firefox on Android is a wonderful mobile browser (with some weird stuff though). I would love to have the same Firefox on my iOS but it's currently just impossible.
While this excuse works today, we should not forget that this policy also meant disinviting Mozilla from the mobile browser party about a decade ago. I'd argue a good chunk of Mozilla's downfall was them chasing the pipe dream of Boot2Gecko, and that was specifically because they couldn't ship Gecko on iOS.
The reason why we have a Chrome/Safari hegemony is because Apple insisted on everything being Safari on their device platforms. This combined with Android shipping WebKit for years meant that the only mobile browser engine that mattered was WebKit. Chrome is a different engine now, but it was forked from WebKit, and it used to have a lot of the same quirks. Hell, Microsoft switched to Blink specifically because Electron - their own web app shell - couldn't run on EdgeHTML.
The fact that this change practically means Chrome displacing Safari is... not really all that meaningful. They're both forks of the same code. The single-engine dystopia you worry about is already here. I daily-drive Firefox, and the amount of shit Google deliberately breaks on Gecko is obvious. Like, YouTube tabs freeze up every few hours because they get stuck in garbage collection, and I have to manually kill whatever processes are running YouTube before I can watch another video. That sort of thing.
problem is apple also handicaps safari so web apps cannot compete with its apps ecosystem like deleting storage if you dont use it for a week or so in the name of security. It makes sense if there is storage pressure but if app is used rarely than you cannot have first class local experience you are forced to rely on server.
Pretty damning evaluation of apple's capabilities to be sure that they won't be able to compete on merit! I don't believe that. So much apple software is absolutely loved.
I love Safari. I’ve used it since the day I bought a Mac not long after it was released. Back when they still bundled IE 5.5.
I don’t think they can compete. Apple doesn’t release Safari on Windows (any more, god it was bad) and that basically kills their chance at desktop relevance.
But even if they did my point is Google has way WAY WAY too much leverage and is already in an effective near monopoly position due to making Chromium. iOS is the only reasonably sized bastion left.
And that’s entirely due to Apple’s policy, whether one thinks it’s right or wrong.
The stakes are way too tilted. The market can’t function.
And we’re about to see it “freed”, which is basically handing it to Google for a total monopoly.
And I don’t like that future. Whatever I think of all the other issues with both Apple and Google right now and what has happened in the past.
I know this isn't new for Japan, but this requirement caught my eye:
> Use memory-safe programming languages, or features that improve memory safety within other languages, within the alternative web browser engine at a minimum for all code that processes web content
Would Apple themselves meet this requirement? Isn't WebKit C++? Of course, I'm not sure what would be considered "features that improve memory safety within other languages," that's kind of vague.
I'm surprised Apple haven't thrown in the towel and opened things up worldwide yet. It's only a matter of time until it becomes too confusing and problematic to try and run the same system relatively openly in one country and walled in another.
> It's only a matter of time until it becomes too confusing and problematic to try and run the same system relatively openly in one country and walled in another
They will continue to do so for as long as it remains profitable. Navigating the complexities of multiple jurisdictions is the bread and butter of MNCs - it's the price of admission into the multinational club. Apple is guaranteed to have lawyers, admins, and executives already on the payroll for this task.
Lawyers, admins, and executives, sure. But what about the complexity on the engineers who now have to maintain an exploding matrix of modes? I can definitely see that becoming burdensome.
I've always thought the same. Obviously there isn't much of a technical hurdle since they have the engineering talent. But, keeping track of all these cross-region rules and training your staff+customers on it has to be quite costly in multiple respects (time, energy, mental models, etc.)
My personal opinion is that keeping the browser engine locked down isn't much of a profit generator, unlike maintaining full reign over the app store would be.
Apple is intentionally trying to make it frustrating in hopes that people will complain to relevant voices that “there’s too much regulation and you should just let Apple do its thing” which is something they've been pushing a lot in Europe the past few years for example
I’m so sick of the ever increasing variances between the different “store” offerings in different regions of the world. Seems like every time I push an update (every month or so), I have to answer updated questions and declarations, often relative to different parts of the world.
I don’t think you understand Apple‘s stubbornness. They DO NOT like being told what to do.
They seem to have gotten a long way better with Japan in this process than the EU, but they’re still not happy about it. So they’re absolutely not gonna just roll over for everyone.
Apple appear to be using the same rules that they made up when "allowing" third party browser engines in the EU. It's worth pointing out that these restrictions are such, that to best of my knowledge, no one has shipped a browser with an alternate engine in the EU app stores yet despite being permitted to for over a year now.
The demand that the application with its alternate browser engine must be a completely new and separate binary from any app already using the built in browser makes it hard for existing big players like Chrome - they would have to manage two apps on the store during any transition to their own engine, which supposedly has been one of the biggest stumbling blocks for them already in the EU.
My hope for laws such as the ones Japan and the EU enacted was that companies would see the writing on the wall and change their practices worldwide, if only for cost reasons (it presumably being more expensive to maintain multiple sets of rules.) However, these companies are now so large that they can choose to absorb any inefficiencies on a country-by-country basis.
At a hardware level it seemed to work. Looking at USB-C on iPhones for example.
Software wise? Fail. EEA gets to disable start search in Windows 11. RoW does not. Interestingly EEA membership is decided at install time based on your selection, and is not changeable afterwards.
iPhones on the other hand have a daemon running that checks your location. It's not based on where you set up the phone. So traveling from Europe to somewhere else can actually prevent you from updating apps that you got via an alt-store:
Yea, unfortunately with software, using enough granular feature flags, they can make their software "maximally bad" for each given region. They lose a battle in the EU and are forced to make the software better? They will make it better only in the EU. Lose another one in Japan over a different issue? Just make a "japan" flag and only make it narrowly better for that use case in that region. Lose further battles in other regions, just add more flags.
They will never deploy the "better" feature worldwide if they have the opportunity to limit the better code to a particular region.
1: And of course, by "better" I am always referring to "better for the user" not "better for Apple."
And what's your opinion if the law would oblige the companies to remove features their products have like tracking transparency popups? Two countries' courts already fined Apple for enforcing a popup that warns users about tracking across third party apps (a feature Apple themselves do not use)?
My prior POV was that Apple would jettison the feature globally, but the discussion elsewhere in this thread suggests that salami slicing at the software-level is a cost larger companies are willing to bear.
There are many things Apple does that have anticompetitive motivations, but the browser engine doesn't seem like one of them. It's genuinely about security and battery life and standardization. So if cost was never the reason in the first place, cost is not going to be the reason to change.
It is literally done for strategic reasons to put a stranglehold on innovations on the web, so that there is no risk of web app technology developing to a point to threaten the dominance of native apps and the app store.
Anybody that thinks otherwise is hopeless naive, Steve Jobs himself envisioned a web app future as the future of technology; before Apple found out the gold mine that the app store became.
If browser F is worse at battery life than browser S, people will figure that out and adapt for themselves. If it's a big difference, it's self-evident; and small differences should show up in the battery life tool and computer press.
Security-wise, the sandbox should limit damage to within the browser, and if it doesn't that's not the browser's fault. Maybe restrict access to password filling and such though / figure out how to offer an API to reduce the impact.
Standardization, eh? Forcing Safari on iOS and not making it available on the mass market platforms (Android and Windows) makes it a pretty wonky standard. I guess there's a claim to be made for the embedded browsing engine, but IMHO, that should be an app developer choice.
The web browser is the singular hole in Apple's grip over the user's device. While there are definitely arguments that can be made about security, I think it's naive to think that Apple is unaware of this and is operating on something other than protecting their app store fortune.
Apple is going to (mostly) obey the letter of the law but they will continue to resist strongly in every way they can. Onerous requirements, arbitrary restrictions, overzealous enforcement, and most of all bad APIs with limited capabilities and no workarounds for bugs.
Shipping a good and complete browser engine on iOS will require more than just developers. You'll also need a team of lawyers to threaten and sue Apple to get their policy restrictions relaxed and APIs fixed.
I doubt Mozilla or Google will be willing to spend the many developer-years and lawyer-years it will take to fully port every feature of a whole engine and properly maintain it in such a hostile environment, just for the Japan market. I expect to see some hobbyist-level ports but not something worth using for a long time. Unless other countries follow suit.
Probably not, at least not from Mozilla themselves. They cite onerous requirements and the difficulty of having to maintain different apps for different regions.
FYI. iOS Safari already supports uBlock Origin Lite. iOS Firefox can do the same anytime but it already has some tracking and content blocking built in too.
As someone who has recently switched from Android to iOS, I can tell you uBlock Origin Lite on Safari on iOS is a poor man’s imitation of the real uBlock Origin on Firefox on Android.
The separate-binary requirement makes it completely DOA, so they're still breaking the law. Deliberately. It bans actions that make it unlikely for browsers to adopt alternative engines. And they mandate no sharing of login-state with any other app from the same developer, despite violating that themselves (Safari sync is turned on by default, no encryption by default). Funny. And they mandate blocking third-party cookies, great but completely inappropriate for an OS to impose. The most hilarious:
> Prioritize resolving reported vulnerabilities with expedience [...] Most vulnerabilities should be resolved in 30 days, but some may be more complex and may take longer.
2026 should be the year when every tech-minded person dumps Apple (and Google) for good and either starting running either a free Android OS (Graphene, Lineage or a couple of other variants) or a Linux phone.
At this point, Apple and Google devices are nothing more than instruments of coercion and mass surveillance.
Making "tech-minded persons" dump apple etc does NOTHING to move the needle in terms of what most people use.
For example I'm running a pretty sweet calibre-web automated setup with Kobo readers. Ive changed the storefront on my kobo and have seemless sync OTA of selected shelves. And even I struggle to get my wife to choose that setup over Amazon kindle. The very minute there is a single snag, normies (sorry wife dear) lose interest.
I don't have Apple devices to compare, but I think KDE Connect can closely replicate this, entirely locally. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple's "deep integrations" rely on cloud components that are privacy-violating by design (even if Apple promises not to look at the data flowing through their servers).
I don't think they're terrible, but there are two main issues: (i) lack of flagship-level hardware, (ii) app compatibility. Issue (ii) is largely mitigated by Waydroid. For the time being, Graphene on a modern Pixel is still the best compromise of freedom and usability though (>99% Android app compatibility, fully degoogled).
Huge benefits: the ability to run any website as an app (dramatically cutting back on development costs and allowing us to finally replace Electron with PWAs), 30% cheaper apps (no Apple tax), ad-blocking, and better performance since WebKit will finally have some real competition.
I disagree. I had an iPhone in the past and find the minimalist Graphene UI refreshing. It's like comparing KDE on Arch to Windows 11 or MacOS. Nothing gets in your way or distracts you, the OS is what an OS is supposed to be, a platform for managing and launching apps.
2026 should be the last year when anyone technical-minded comes around to the realization that Google/Apple are in the Fed's pocket. If you're making the switch in 2027 or 2028, it's probably too late for you.
Especially with Apple, I often see people scared that if they open up their ecosystem, then users will lose one of the most consumer friendly tech companies out there. It’s not just “if apple allows alternative browsers then Chrome will win”, which is (probably) true. It’s:
* If Apple allows alternative app stores then the whole ios ecosystem will rot and be foooded with malware, brough up during the Apple vs. Epic cases
* If Apple can’t control the data on their user’s phones, then privacy rights will disappear, a common talking point during the Apple vs. Facebook case for opt-in data collection.
And like, these points are correct — Apple kind of acts like a “benevolent dictator” when it comes to their ecosystem. But shouldn’t there be alternatives between “Apple can control all software on the hardware they sell” and “the moment Apple doesn’t have control of their user’s experience then it’ll be far worse”? Like, we should have more tech companies, more options to pick from between these two extremes. The market needs to be more competitive, and if that isn’t possible shouldn’t there be regulation to protect users and devs better? This constantly feels like a “pick your poison“ kind of deal, where we can only pick between a company locking down their hardware or abuse of users via. software. If Microsoft banned alternative browser engines there’d be riots in these comments. Apple is just better to its users.
Giving companies the power to lock down hardware they sell isn’t a solution that will work when Apple inevitably turns against its users, and is a horrible precedent to set legally. Lord knows John Deere and a million other predatory hardware companies are salivating at the idea of users of their hardware not having control over what they bought, and Meta and Microsoft love the idea of users not having control of the software they run and the data it collects. We can’t just picking between the least worst of two companies.
It's weird that people never distill those arguments to their most basic logic.
Apple directly dictate the shape, speed, and existence of any innovation on iOS, and by extension, any innovation involving mobile phones or meant to run on mobile phones. They don't simply have "power" over it, in the sense that they get to say "Yes" or "No". iOS is locked down in such a fundamental way that any innovation will not come about unless Apple specifically envisions it and designs the OS to support it.
Browsers didn't exist when Windows 1.0 came out. But they happened. If it had been iOS, there would have been no networking, no JIT (I know that came later, bear with me), Firefox/Gecko could never have existed and been able to fix the web. Apple alone would have controlled the evolution of the most important tech of the past few decades. It couldn't have existed in the first place unless Apple, and no one else, invented it and put it in iOS themselves. Basic OS features: files and the filesystem, sharing, casting your screen, communicating with other devices. It doesn't exist until Apple makes it. It doesn't change until Apple changes it.
Even something as simple as file syncing. They forced Dropbox, GDrive, OneDrive to adopt their shitty, buggy backend. Those services all had to drop basic features to adapt. Those features can't ever come back unless Apple allows them. Any hypothetical new features won't exist unless Apple, and no one else, thinks of them and adds them.
> iOS is locked down in such a fundamental way that any innovation will not come about unless Apple specifically envisions it and designs the OS to support it.
No platform highlights the issue you hit on here like VisionOS.
It is barren. Not just because of the lack of customer base for paid apps, that hurts too, but because the APIs aren't there, and because you can't hack on the private APIs or the hardware directly...they won't be. The app store on Vision Pro is filled with half-assed "spatial computing" consumption apps (Wow, I can put the stock tickers on the wall! That I can only see with these huge goggles on! Neat!), "showroom" apps that are just pure consumption, mostly 3D models of products, and media consumption apps. The games that exist are all pretty lame, and you can't enjoy any of the backcatalog of games written for VR because A. They'd never pass app review, and B. you can only use the PSVR controllers with it, so my Index controllers that I already have are useless.
The Vision Pro demands being as open as the Mac. The problem space is too ill defined and the hardware too packed with interesting use cases to gate behind the restrictive App Store rules. The iPad model worked because it was 2010 and had all the upward momentum of the iPhone to ride. Here and now, on a stagnant, occupied app market where room for innovation is small, on a device with far less promise, the App Store restrictions take all the air out of the room. The entire device is suffocated by Apple's iron grip and belief that they are entitled to own any good ideas that happen on the device, and that they are entitled to 15-30% of any economic exchange happening on the device. Just an utterly kneecapped platform right out of the gate, pricing, specs, weight, and everything else aside. There are no good apps because you just can't write the sort of apps your imagination is likely to want to make. Hell, accessing the main camera wasn't allowed until visionOS 2.0, and you have to use the "enterprise apps" API/entitlement to access it.
Apple's grip has killed it. It is a glorified TV you can wear on your face. It's a very good TV. It's even alright as an external monitor for a *real* computer.
The fact we still can't get this in the US is atrocious. They have already paid the cost to implement this for the EU and Japan, but simply don't allow it for US users because... spite, I guess? Horrible.
It reminds me of when I asked for my account to be deleted from some online learning site (Udacity maybe?) And they're response was: "Nope, we only do that for European users." Like they went through all the effort of implementing a proper way to delete your data, but they just... don't do it if you're not in the right geographic area.
> The fact we still can't get this in the US is atrocious.
To be honest, I suspect that Apple is purposefully doing this to make alternatives a logistical and legal nightmare vs their own App store.
By having different rules for different countries, different fee structures, etc, Apple is basically making alternatives as inconvenient and painful as legally possible
The US not getting these features is on purpose, it makes the entire idea of "alternatives on iOS" extremely inconvenient vs just using the App store.
Apple didn't donate to Trump's inauguration, give him a gold and glass paperweight, and donate to his demolishing of the East Wing so that they would have to open up the app store in the USA
I agree with the “enforce competition laws” sentiment, but in this context, enforced naively, all it’ll do is entrench the dominant browser engine, Blink, even more across the mobile ecosystem.
I’m sure some devs will love this. But equally, some may worry about the monoculture implications.
The "monoculture" has never been less of a threat. WPT.FYI is driving towards asymptotically perfect compatibility and behavior. And the real web, the long-tail of websites, is too chaotic to be controlled by any entity regardless of browser market share. Chrome can cook up whatever API they want, no website can be forced to adopt it. And if someone can't use some WebMIDI site on Safari, well, they can't complain, they didn't want that site to exist in the first place.
It's simply not a good excuse to defend the iOS browser ban.
If I'm reading the requirements around being a "browser engine steward" correctly, does this mean essentially only Google and Mozilla can ever qualify for the "Embedded Browser Engine Entitlement"? Even Microsoft seems to be ruled out, give that Edge's engine is based on Blink. Any other smaller browser engines would be ruled out by the baseline web functionality requirements.
The title is misleading. "Allows" need to be in quotes - they did everything they could to make sure this won't change anything in practice. Screw Apple.
Could you elaborate? Other than the "Japan" requirement it seems legit?
I guess the requirements are pretty onerous, but they all seem like table stakes for a browser these days (Firefox or Chrome should have no problem with them, for instance.)
The US DOJ was attempting to sue Apple in an antitrust suit for many things, including blocking every browser engine except their own Safari browser on iOS.
It's so disappointing to be fed crumbs like this instead of seeing real consumer protection laws put in place. Let users install software on their computers outside of what the manufacturer permits, why focus on browsers and "app stores"?
I'm all for privacy and alternative app stores, but opening browser engines to the competition isn't something I'm keen to have.
Now every phone will ship with 2 engines (inevitably chrome is going to be bundled in at least one of your apps). Both are tied to large tech companies. And both have approximately the same feature set.
At this stage, I can't think of any upside for the end user. New CSS crap or obscure web APIs, or proprietary DRM? And the cost is that we're going to get new website badges "only in Chrome", or "only in Safari", like it's 1999.
This is Apple, people know what they get into, and they kind of want that an iPhone is not a PC.
It looks like everyone thinks that this is a good thing. Can anyone explain beyond the "this is a monopoly" argument? It's not a monopoly if the engine is free, and if they need the engine to more or less match all the desktop engines.
I’m not going to say I think Apple should be able to lock out competing browsers, I know this is going to happen.
But God I don’t want this. The iPhone is basically the only thing stopping a total Chrome/Chromium hegemony from ruling the web the way IE did.
I don’t think Google will practically abandon things the way Microsoft did. But they will absolutely have the kind of power Microsoft did to force any feature.
I don’t want to be forced to use Chrome because it’s the only browser that works on most sites. It’s already bad enough with some sites.
But Apple‘s stubbornness and completely different reasons are the only things accidentally holding back the tide.
I can't wait until regulators do their job and take away Apple's dictatorial control, in all areas, and all these doom-and-gloom predictions on all these tangential issues end up proving ludicrous.
What kind of control would Chrome have over the web? Adding APIs doesn't force the billions of websites to adopt them. So what if a website adds WebBluetooth? You don't want the web to have that anyway, and if you keep using Safari, you still won't have it. Happy you!
If scrappy Firefox on open platforms could save the web from 95% IE, then why are we all dependent on Apple, alone, to save us from ~60% Chrome? It's learned helplessness and Stockholm syndrome. I wonder how our species survived before the trillion-dollar company started taking such good care of us!
Not even a day ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46454115:
> I want my browser to protect me from ALL those things. Ublock origin did precisely that, then Google went in to kill ublock origin. Ublock lite is nowhere near as good.
>> I consider this betrayal - naturally by Google, but also by random web designers such as on the python homepage who consider it morally just to pester visitors when they do not want to be pestered. I don't accept ads; I don't accept pop-ups or slide-in effects (in 99.999% of the cases; notifications for some things can be ok, but this does not extend in my book to donation Robin Hood waylanders)."
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> What kind of control would Chrome have over the web? Adding APIs doesn't force the billions of websites to adopt them.
You are assuming adding APIs is a net positive, and the debacle that was Chrome’s privacy sandbox initiative suggests that’s not the case
> why are we all dependent on Apple, alone, to save us from ~60% Chrome?
How’s Firefox doing now? They’re literally dependent upon Chrome to exist. Without Google they have no money to fund development.
The only viable non-Chromium browser engine today that is not funded by Google is WebKit.
That was almost 20 years ago though. Things are really different now and it's hard to imagine Firefox saving anything these days. Sadly, the only entities powerful enough to control FANGs are FANGs (although fingers crossed the EU holds it's nerve and EU nations belatedly act on the realisation that being beholden to US tech giants is a massive strategic blunder, akin to relying so heavily on US military satellite data for Ukraine).
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> What kind of control would Chrome have over the web?
Do you remember Manifest Version 3? They did away with ad block extensions.
If we all end up using Chromium, there’s no longer a web standard. It’s whatever conforms to Google’s standard because all sites will have to support Chromium. That means there will be an undocumented spec. It’s much too difficult for browser engine developers to compete with them, they don’t have nearly the resources.
Do you think the web should be an open standard? How can company catch up if Google is the one pushing the envelope?
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> If scrappy Firefox
Because ie at the time was dogshit. FF was such an indisputable improvement that people just had to switch.
Chrome great. There is nothing a newcomer can do to compete.
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So according to you, a company that has about 25% of the global smartphone market, should be _legally forbidden_ from creating a tightly integrated software/hardware bundle.
Whereas, a company that has 70% of the global browser market somehow would have no way to take advantage if they had an even larger share.
I wonder how our species would survive without the unique market analysis from one-of-a-kind minds like yours.
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I don’t see that as a threat honestly. safari being the default app pretty much guarantees its place unless google comes up with a killer feature for iOS chrome. And they are unlikely to make that push considering apple demands the app to be distributed only in Japan.
Besides, the mobile web is becoming more and more of a niche platform, since the web is becoming centralised as time passes and most main sites redirect to their own apps.
And that’s without considering direct web search being replaced by AI search,which google seems convinced is the way forward.
It was the default on the Mac and it’s nowhere near the most popular there.
Google pushes Chrome HARD.
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Google has no actual content left to find. It’s AI spam website after AI spam website.
And if you find any content, it’s on a website riddled with ads.
AI search has none of these issues. Google from 15 years ago was wildly superior to today.
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> safari being the default app
but this can change. At least in the EU Apple already prompts a user which browser they want [1]. While at the moment every browser is WebKit under the hood, this will probably change as the EU is also pushing Apple to allow other engines [2] - and with users knowing Chrome from Ads, their work or from a previous Android phone, I can imagine a lot of them selecting Chrome as a default.
1: https://www.heise.de/en/news/Apple-alters-selection-screen-f... 2: https://developer.apple.com/support/alternative-browser-engi...
Until websites block you from logging in, completing transactions, ordering items until you open it with Chrome
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100% agreed, and I've been explaining this to people for the past year.
I have an iPhone now and miss Firefox for Android (with Ublock, sponsorblock, etc). But this painful restriction is the only thing stopping Chrome from becoming the new IE6.
At a few startups I've worked for, the devs all use chrome exclusively, and only test in chrome during development.
The only reason they consider other browsers, is because of Safari on iOS. Sometimes it's driven by support calls / complains from iOS users after a release. If Chrome's engine is allowed on iOS, that means support can just tell the users to install Chrome (like they do now if anyone has issues on Windows in other browsers). This means Firefox will usually work as well.
Many years ago, I was able to swap banks when my bank's website stopped working in Opera 12. If all the major banks / websites target Chrome-only, we'll have no choice but to use it. And then we'll have no control as Google push new restrictions into Chrome.
That ship has already sailed. And Apple is part of the problem. Recently I used Microsoft Edge because Facetime doesn't support Firefox. I couldn't get audio working so switched to Google Meet (which does work in Firefox.)
I'm sure if Apple keeps innovating and adopting some of the Web standards they'll outcompete other engines. But let's be realistic, they 100% are blocking other engines and not adopting standards in their own because they want that sweet sweet 30% cut when developers can't publish PWAs and are forced into the "app" model.
WebKit's progress has been significant in recent years, it's just been more focused on things like improving CSS instead of things like an API that tells the developer how many beers the user has in their fridge.
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People didn't mind when IE was muscling in and adding useful new features. They abandoned Netscape because the features made the web better. It wasn't until they stopped adding features to the browser itself that it really started to become a problem. They would still add features, but too much relied on ActiveX -- which wasn't necessarily evil, there's a grand vision there of component re-use across the OS and varied applications, the same was done with Java Applets and even Shockwave/Flash, but it sucked more and they were all plagued with security problems. Then MS stopped innovating pretty much entirely, and wouldn't even play catch up for a long time, whether with their out-of-browser plugins (oh Silverlight...) or the browser itself. No support for tabs for a long time, or popup blocking (later ad blocking), they had terrible performance... And as various "web standards" advanced to make things nicer for the users and developers, and add capabilities that didn't require an external plugin, they drug their heels on that too.
Eventually, the hell that was IE was a combination of hostile user experience, security problems, performance problems, and developer pain in finding workarounds or other support because it was so far behind on everything. It had nothing to do with their power to dictate or experiment with new features. The extent of the hostile user experience that leaked outside the browser itself was the "only works on IE" problem that forced people to use IE for that site, on the whole it was comparable to the "only works with Flash or Java applets" problems and not as bad as the experience of the browser itself. For the most part these days, the two parts of that hell that remain relevant are the hostile user experience and the developer pains parts, and Mobile Safari is the successor to both for over a decade now. No one supports IE11 anymore (let alone older IEs) but they still have to support Mobile Safari. I have fonder memories of dealing with IE11 (and earlier) support/workarounds over Mobile Safari's crap. My view is more power to actual Chromium-based browsers on mobile even if I personally use Firefox on PC and android despite their user experience shortcomings (at least they're not very hostile). The only part of hell I'd be worried about is that of a hostile user experience, which can be worked around by individual users if they are allowed choices.
It wasn't until they stopped adding features to the browser itself that it really started to become a problem.
Only for those misguided "push the web forward" idiots who just wanted the latest shiny shit, aided by Google's plans to control the Internet itself. Plain HTML worked well enough for everything else.
Google's weapon is change. They have the resources to outcompete everyone else by churning the "standards" as much as they want. The less people think that constant change is necessary, the better the web will be.
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Although I partially agree with you, Firefox on Android is a wonderful mobile browser (with some weird stuff though). I would love to have the same Firefox on my iOS but it's currently just impossible.
Safari is so bad, I want a real chrome experience on iOS
Can you explain how? Poor standards implementation? Performance? UX?
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While this excuse works today, we should not forget that this policy also meant disinviting Mozilla from the mobile browser party about a decade ago. I'd argue a good chunk of Mozilla's downfall was them chasing the pipe dream of Boot2Gecko, and that was specifically because they couldn't ship Gecko on iOS.
The reason why we have a Chrome/Safari hegemony is because Apple insisted on everything being Safari on their device platforms. This combined with Android shipping WebKit for years meant that the only mobile browser engine that mattered was WebKit. Chrome is a different engine now, but it was forked from WebKit, and it used to have a lot of the same quirks. Hell, Microsoft switched to Blink specifically because Electron - their own web app shell - couldn't run on EdgeHTML.
The fact that this change practically means Chrome displacing Safari is... not really all that meaningful. They're both forks of the same code. The single-engine dystopia you worry about is already here. I daily-drive Firefox, and the amount of shit Google deliberately breaks on Gecko is obvious. Like, YouTube tabs freeze up every few hours because they get stuck in garbage collection, and I have to manually kill whatever processes are running YouTube before I can watch another video. That sort of thing.
I would argue that the root of the problem is that Google was not broken up.
I don’t think one company should own all the stuff that Google does. It gives them way too many perverse incentives over the web.
I’m not saying it’s smart we got here. I’m not saying it’s good we got here. I’m not saying we should be here.
All I’m saying is we ARE here. And given that (effective screw up) I fear this will make things drastically worse.
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problem is apple also handicaps safari so web apps cannot compete with its apps ecosystem like deleting storage if you dont use it for a week or so in the name of security. It makes sense if there is storage pressure but if app is used rarely than you cannot have first class local experience you are forced to rely on server.
Pretty damning evaluation of apple's capabilities to be sure that they won't be able to compete on merit! I don't believe that. So much apple software is absolutely loved.
I love Safari. I’ve used it since the day I bought a Mac not long after it was released. Back when they still bundled IE 5.5.
I don’t think they can compete. Apple doesn’t release Safari on Windows (any more, god it was bad) and that basically kills their chance at desktop relevance.
But even if they did my point is Google has way WAY WAY too much leverage and is already in an effective near monopoly position due to making Chromium. iOS is the only reasonably sized bastion left.
And that’s entirely due to Apple’s policy, whether one thinks it’s right or wrong.
The stakes are way too tilted. The market can’t function.
And we’re about to see it “freed”, which is basically handing it to Google for a total monopoly.
And I don’t like that future. Whatever I think of all the other issues with both Apple and Google right now and what has happened in the past.
Can't the same entities compelling Apple to do this also compel Google to do or not do things?
Do you see them doing that on a short term?
The best I saw was the case against Google in the US and they decided not to call for breakup.
I don’t see the EU trying to unbundle everything they do.
I don’t see any reason why Google wouldn’t abandon web features left and right, given how they do that with everything else.
Because they themselves use them?
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Firefox exists.
And its userbase is essentially just HN users unfortunately
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so you support a hegemony because you are opposed to hegemonies?
[flagged]
I know this isn't new for Japan, but this requirement caught my eye:
> Use memory-safe programming languages, or features that improve memory safety within other languages, within the alternative web browser engine at a minimum for all code that processes web content
Would Apple themselves meet this requirement? Isn't WebKit C++? Of course, I'm not sure what would be considered "features that improve memory safety within other languages," that's kind of vague.
https://github.com/WebKit/WebKit/wiki/Safer-CPP-Guidelines
Documentation to guide devs on safe usage of C++ is enough?
So any language should be allowed as long as they instruct developers to be careful.
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Apple's resistance to rust is truly mind-boggling
I do wonder how long before Apple either replaces WebKit with something built in Swift, or starts slowly converting their browser engine to Swift.
I'm surprised Apple haven't thrown in the towel and opened things up worldwide yet. It's only a matter of time until it becomes too confusing and problematic to try and run the same system relatively openly in one country and walled in another.
> It's only a matter of time until it becomes too confusing and problematic to try and run the same system relatively openly in one country and walled in another
They will continue to do so for as long as it remains profitable. Navigating the complexities of multiple jurisdictions is the bread and butter of MNCs - it's the price of admission into the multinational club. Apple is guaranteed to have lawyers, admins, and executives already on the payroll for this task.
Or until they’ve successfully “demonstrated” that it always was impossible.
> Apple is guaranteed to have lawyers, admins, and executives already on the payroll for this task.
As both a shareholder and user, I really wish they’d invest their resources into feature development instead of manufacturing obstacles.
Lawyers, admins, and executives, sure. But what about the complexity on the engineers who now have to maintain an exploding matrix of modes? I can definitely see that becoming burdensome.
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And since billions of dollars are on the line it will remain profitable for a long time.
I've always thought the same. Obviously there isn't much of a technical hurdle since they have the engineering talent. But, keeping track of all these cross-region rules and training your staff+customers on it has to be quite costly in multiple respects (time, energy, mental models, etc.)
My personal opinion is that keeping the browser engine locked down isn't much of a profit generator, unlike maintaining full reign over the app store would be.
Hobbling browser engines is a key pillar of app store control. Decent PWA support would be a massive blow to Apple's bottom line.
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Good. The sooner I can run Firefox with the legit uBlock origin the better.
While its not Firefox, you can run uBlock origin with the Orion browser from the Kagi people.
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Apple is intentionally trying to make it frustrating in hopes that people will complain to relevant voices that “there’s too much regulation and you should just let Apple do its thing” which is something they've been pushing a lot in Europe the past few years for example
FeatureToggles.swift
eligibilityd
https://theapplewiki.com/wiki/Eligibility
This. It’s computation. Computation doesn’t really “get” geopolitical borders.
I’m so sick of the ever increasing variances between the different “store” offerings in different regions of the world. Seems like every time I push an update (every month or so), I have to answer updated questions and declarations, often relative to different parts of the world.
This is a poorly thought through argument, as there is nothing that “gets” geopolitical borders.
I don’t think you understand Apple‘s stubbornness. They DO NOT like being told what to do.
They seem to have gotten a long way better with Japan in this process than the EU, but they’re still not happy about it. So they’re absolutely not gonna just roll over for everyone.
Apple appear to be using the same rules that they made up when "allowing" third party browser engines in the EU. It's worth pointing out that these restrictions are such, that to best of my knowledge, no one has shipped a browser with an alternate engine in the EU app stores yet despite being permitted to for over a year now.
The demand that the application with its alternate browser engine must be a completely new and separate binary from any app already using the built in browser makes it hard for existing big players like Chrome - they would have to manage two apps on the store during any transition to their own engine, which supposedly has been one of the biggest stumbling blocks for them already in the EU.
Another hurdle in the EU is the browser app developers must be in the EU too.
My hope for laws such as the ones Japan and the EU enacted was that companies would see the writing on the wall and change their practices worldwide, if only for cost reasons (it presumably being more expensive to maintain multiple sets of rules.) However, these companies are now so large that they can choose to absorb any inefficiencies on a country-by-country basis.
At a hardware level it seemed to work. Looking at USB-C on iPhones for example.
Software wise? Fail. EEA gets to disable start search in Windows 11. RoW does not. Interestingly EEA membership is decided at install time based on your selection, and is not changeable afterwards.
iPhones on the other hand have a daemon running that checks your location. It's not based on where you set up the phone. So traveling from Europe to somewhere else can actually prevent you from updating apps that you got via an alt-store:
https://www.macrumors.com/2024/03/06/alternative-ios-app-sto...
Yea, unfortunately with software, using enough granular feature flags, they can make their software "maximally bad" for each given region. They lose a battle in the EU and are forced to make the software better? They will make it better only in the EU. Lose another one in Japan over a different issue? Just make a "japan" flag and only make it narrowly better for that use case in that region. Lose further battles in other regions, just add more flags.
They will never deploy the "better" feature worldwide if they have the opportunity to limit the better code to a particular region.
1: And of course, by "better" I am always referring to "better for the user" not "better for Apple."
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1) Apple loves USB-C, they helped invent it and were one of the first to ship a USB-C only laptop
2) Apple committed to 10 years of lightning support to weather the backlash from dropping 30-pin
USB-C on iPhone was going to happen regardless of the EU.
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iPhone getting USB-C was inevitable. I mean, their iPads were USB-C for years before any EU law.
The best the EU can say is that the law moved up the inevitable a year or two.
Sounds like a market for Faraday GPS spoofer boxes.
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And what's your opinion if the law would oblige the companies to remove features their products have like tracking transparency popups? Two countries' courts already fined Apple for enforcing a popup that warns users about tracking across third party apps (a feature Apple themselves do not use)?
My prior POV was that Apple would jettison the feature globally, but the discussion elsewhere in this thread suggests that salami slicing at the software-level is a cost larger companies are willing to bear.
There are many things Apple does that have anticompetitive motivations, but the browser engine doesn't seem like one of them. It's genuinely about security and battery life and standardization. So if cost was never the reason in the first place, cost is not going to be the reason to change.
It is literally done for strategic reasons to put a stranglehold on innovations on the web, so that there is no risk of web app technology developing to a point to threaten the dominance of native apps and the app store.
Anybody that thinks otherwise is hopeless naive, Steve Jobs himself envisioned a web app future as the future of technology; before Apple found out the gold mine that the app store became.
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If browser F is worse at battery life than browser S, people will figure that out and adapt for themselves. If it's a big difference, it's self-evident; and small differences should show up in the battery life tool and computer press.
Security-wise, the sandbox should limit damage to within the browser, and if it doesn't that's not the browser's fault. Maybe restrict access to password filling and such though / figure out how to offer an API to reduce the impact.
Standardization, eh? Forcing Safari on iOS and not making it available on the mass market platforms (Android and Windows) makes it a pretty wonky standard. I guess there's a claim to be made for the embedded browsing engine, but IMHO, that should be an app developer choice.
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The web browser is the singular hole in Apple's grip over the user's device. While there are definitely arguments that can be made about security, I think it's naive to think that Apple is unaware of this and is operating on something other than protecting their app store fortune.
why wouldnt they just drop safari and switch to firefox with ublock origin included in that case?
adtech is the big security and performance drain and allowing ads and making them hard to block is a big security and performance gap
Does this mean we'll finally have "real" firefox with support for ublock origin on iOS?
Apple is going to (mostly) obey the letter of the law but they will continue to resist strongly in every way they can. Onerous requirements, arbitrary restrictions, overzealous enforcement, and most of all bad APIs with limited capabilities and no workarounds for bugs.
Shipping a good and complete browser engine on iOS will require more than just developers. You'll also need a team of lawyers to threaten and sue Apple to get their policy restrictions relaxed and APIs fixed.
I doubt Mozilla or Google will be willing to spend the many developer-years and lawyer-years it will take to fully port every feature of a whole engine and properly maintain it in such a hostile environment, just for the Japan market. I expect to see some hobbyist-level ports but not something worth using for a long time. Unless other countries follow suit.
> just for the Japan market
Also the EU, no?
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Probably not, at least not from Mozilla themselves. They cite onerous requirements and the difficulty of having to maintain different apps for different regions.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/26/24052067/mozilla-apple-io...
Yeah malicious compliance :(
There is ublock origin lite for Safari in the meantime:
https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home?tab=readme-ov-file
(it's great)
Probably not, as the same rules were applied to Apple devices in EU earlier, and no third party browser engines appeared.
But right now you can use uBlock origin lite in Safari. Or any other of multitude of other adblockers.
You can actually use full uBlock origin in Kagi's Orion iOS browser.
FYI. iOS Safari already supports uBlock Origin Lite. iOS Firefox can do the same anytime but it already has some tracking and content blocking built in too.
As someone who has recently switched from Android to iOS, I can tell you uBlock Origin Lite on Safari on iOS is a poor man’s imitation of the real uBlock Origin on Firefox on Android.
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Could’ve happened some time ago already in the EU, so there must be reasons for Firefox an Google not to ship their own engines (yet?).
uBO lite works pretty well on ios/safari for me.
Nope. Apple has successfully made the rules so complicated that we still don't have any 3rd party browser engines in the EU, more than a year later.
The separate-binary requirement makes it completely DOA, so they're still breaking the law. Deliberately. It bans actions that make it unlikely for browsers to adopt alternative engines. And they mandate no sharing of login-state with any other app from the same developer, despite violating that themselves (Safari sync is turned on by default, no encryption by default). Funny. And they mandate blocking third-party cookies, great but completely inappropriate for an OS to impose. The most hilarious:
> Prioritize resolving reported vulnerabilities with expedience [...] Most vulnerabilities should be resolved in 30 days, but some may be more complex and may take longer.
Apple does not comply with this.
2026 should be the year when every tech-minded person dumps Apple (and Google) for good and either starting running either a free Android OS (Graphene, Lineage or a couple of other variants) or a Linux phone.
At this point, Apple and Google devices are nothing more than instruments of coercion and mass surveillance.
Lectures and admonitions won’t change anything. People will move to Graphene and Linux when it’s better for them.
Coercion and surveillance problems are pretty far down the list of complaints most people have with their personal devices.
Making "tech-minded persons" dump apple etc does NOTHING to move the needle in terms of what most people use.
For example I'm running a pretty sweet calibre-web automated setup with Kobo readers. Ive changed the storefront on my kobo and have seemless sync OTA of selected shelves. And even I struggle to get my wife to choose that setup over Amazon kindle. The very minute there is a single snag, normies (sorry wife dear) lose interest.
I’m doing the same thing with a Boox and Amazon couldn’t pay me to go back. Calibre is a godsend.
This is profoundly out of touch with how almost everyone who isn’t a particularly zealous member of certain movements lives their lives.
Unfortunately, I appreciate the deep integration between my phone and my laptop too much to drop either
I don't have Apple devices to compare, but I think KDE Connect can closely replicate this, entirely locally. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple's "deep integrations" rely on cloud components that are privacy-violating by design (even if Apple promises not to look at the data flowing through their servers).
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So far as I can tell, Linux phones are still ass.
Linux on mobile is probably even more behind than Linux on desktop was in the 90s.
I don't think they're terrible, but there are two main issues: (i) lack of flagship-level hardware, (ii) app compatibility. Issue (ii) is largely mitigated by Waydroid. For the time being, Graphene on a modern Pixel is still the best compromise of freedom and usability though (>99% Android app compatibility, fully degoogled).
> 2026 should be the year when every tech-minded person dumps Apple (and Google) for good
Why? I am a very tech-minded person but simply don't care about running alternative browser engines on my phone. Am I "wrong" in your opinion?
Huge benefits: the ability to run any website as an app (dramatically cutting back on development costs and allowing us to finally replace Electron with PWAs), 30% cheaper apps (no Apple tax), ad-blocking, and better performance since WebKit will finally have some real competition.
UX is much worse imo on graphene compared to iOS
I disagree. I had an iPhone in the past and find the minimalist Graphene UI refreshing. It's like comparing KDE on Arch to Windows 11 or MacOS. Nothing gets in your way or distracts you, the OS is what an OS is supposed to be, a platform for managing and launching apps.
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>UX is much worse imo on graphene compared to iOS
Freedom and privacy exist on graphene.
Unfortunately, I prefer smooth animations.
Can you please elaborate on how iPhones are instruments of mass surveillance?
Among others:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM
https://sneak.berlin/20201112/your-computer-isnt-yours/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/apple-siri-lawsuit-settlement-i...
2026 should be the last year when anyone technical-minded comes around to the realization that Google/Apple are in the Fed's pocket. If you're making the switch in 2027 or 2028, it's probably too late for you.
Especially with Apple, I often see people scared that if they open up their ecosystem, then users will lose one of the most consumer friendly tech companies out there. It’s not just “if apple allows alternative browsers then Chrome will win”, which is (probably) true. It’s:
* If Apple allows alternative app stores then the whole ios ecosystem will rot and be foooded with malware, brough up during the Apple vs. Epic cases
* If Apple can’t control the data on their user’s phones, then privacy rights will disappear, a common talking point during the Apple vs. Facebook case for opt-in data collection.
And like, these points are correct — Apple kind of acts like a “benevolent dictator” when it comes to their ecosystem. But shouldn’t there be alternatives between “Apple can control all software on the hardware they sell” and “the moment Apple doesn’t have control of their user’s experience then it’ll be far worse”? Like, we should have more tech companies, more options to pick from between these two extremes. The market needs to be more competitive, and if that isn’t possible shouldn’t there be regulation to protect users and devs better? This constantly feels like a “pick your poison“ kind of deal, where we can only pick between a company locking down their hardware or abuse of users via. software. If Microsoft banned alternative browser engines there’d be riots in these comments. Apple is just better to its users.
Giving companies the power to lock down hardware they sell isn’t a solution that will work when Apple inevitably turns against its users, and is a horrible precedent to set legally. Lord knows John Deere and a million other predatory hardware companies are salivating at the idea of users of their hardware not having control over what they bought, and Meta and Microsoft love the idea of users not having control of the software they run and the data it collects. We can’t just picking between the least worst of two companies.
It's weird that people never distill those arguments to their most basic logic.
Apple directly dictate the shape, speed, and existence of any innovation on iOS, and by extension, any innovation involving mobile phones or meant to run on mobile phones. They don't simply have "power" over it, in the sense that they get to say "Yes" or "No". iOS is locked down in such a fundamental way that any innovation will not come about unless Apple specifically envisions it and designs the OS to support it.
Browsers didn't exist when Windows 1.0 came out. But they happened. If it had been iOS, there would have been no networking, no JIT (I know that came later, bear with me), Firefox/Gecko could never have existed and been able to fix the web. Apple alone would have controlled the evolution of the most important tech of the past few decades. It couldn't have existed in the first place unless Apple, and no one else, invented it and put it in iOS themselves. Basic OS features: files and the filesystem, sharing, casting your screen, communicating with other devices. It doesn't exist until Apple makes it. It doesn't change until Apple changes it.
Even something as simple as file syncing. They forced Dropbox, GDrive, OneDrive to adopt their shitty, buggy backend. Those services all had to drop basic features to adapt. Those features can't ever come back unless Apple allows them. Any hypothetical new features won't exist unless Apple, and no one else, thinks of them and adds them.
How is this sane?
> iOS is locked down in such a fundamental way that any innovation will not come about unless Apple specifically envisions it and designs the OS to support it.
No platform highlights the issue you hit on here like VisionOS.
It is barren. Not just because of the lack of customer base for paid apps, that hurts too, but because the APIs aren't there, and because you can't hack on the private APIs or the hardware directly...they won't be. The app store on Vision Pro is filled with half-assed "spatial computing" consumption apps (Wow, I can put the stock tickers on the wall! That I can only see with these huge goggles on! Neat!), "showroom" apps that are just pure consumption, mostly 3D models of products, and media consumption apps. The games that exist are all pretty lame, and you can't enjoy any of the backcatalog of games written for VR because A. They'd never pass app review, and B. you can only use the PSVR controllers with it, so my Index controllers that I already have are useless.
The Vision Pro demands being as open as the Mac. The problem space is too ill defined and the hardware too packed with interesting use cases to gate behind the restrictive App Store rules. The iPad model worked because it was 2010 and had all the upward momentum of the iPhone to ride. Here and now, on a stagnant, occupied app market where room for innovation is small, on a device with far less promise, the App Store restrictions take all the air out of the room. The entire device is suffocated by Apple's iron grip and belief that they are entitled to own any good ideas that happen on the device, and that they are entitled to 15-30% of any economic exchange happening on the device. Just an utterly kneecapped platform right out of the gate, pricing, specs, weight, and everything else aside. There are no good apps because you just can't write the sort of apps your imagination is likely to want to make. Hell, accessing the main camera wasn't allowed until visionOS 2.0, and you have to use the "enterprise apps" API/entitlement to access it.
Apple's grip has killed it. It is a glorified TV you can wear on your face. It's a very good TV. It's even alright as an external monitor for a *real* computer.
Isn’t the alternative Android?
The fact we still can't get this in the US is atrocious. They have already paid the cost to implement this for the EU and Japan, but simply don't allow it for US users because... spite, I guess? Horrible.
It reminds me of when I asked for my account to be deleted from some online learning site (Udacity maybe?) And they're response was: "Nope, we only do that for European users." Like they went through all the effort of implementing a proper way to delete your data, but they just... don't do it if you're not in the right geographic area.
> They have already paid the cost to implement this for the EU and Japan, but simply don't allow it for US users because...
If by "this", you mean "a set of rules so complicated that no 3rd party will ever ship a browser"...
In practice, they've shipped a whole lot of nothing, and we still don't have any 3rd party browser engines available in the EU
> The fact we still can't get this in the US is atrocious.
To be honest, I suspect that Apple is purposefully doing this to make alternatives a logistical and legal nightmare vs their own App store.
By having different rules for different countries, different fee structures, etc, Apple is basically making alternatives as inconvenient and painful as legally possible
The US not getting these features is on purpose, it makes the entire idea of "alternatives on iOS" extremely inconvenient vs just using the App store.
Apple didn't donate to Trump's inauguration, give him a gold and glass paperweight, and donate to his demolishing of the East Wing so that they would have to open up the app store in the USA
Did Japan decide to push proper competition laws?
Time to force Apple to do it everywhere. Very long overdue.
I agree with the “enforce competition laws” sentiment, but in this context, enforced naively, all it’ll do is entrench the dominant browser engine, Blink, even more across the mobile ecosystem.
I’m sure some devs will love this. But equally, some may worry about the monoculture implications.
It hasn’t on Macs. Safari is still popular among non-tech folk
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The "monoculture" has never been less of a threat. WPT.FYI is driving towards asymptotically perfect compatibility and behavior. And the real web, the long-tail of websites, is too chaotic to be controlled by any entity regardless of browser market share. Chrome can cook up whatever API they want, no website can be forced to adopt it. And if someone can't use some WebMIDI site on Safari, well, they can't complain, they didn't want that site to exist in the first place.
It's simply not a good excuse to defend the iOS browser ban.
Banning competition can't possibly help increasing competition.
It would be good to see Firefox with its own engine there for example.
If I'm reading the requirements around being a "browser engine steward" correctly, does this mean essentially only Google and Mozilla can ever qualify for the "Embedded Browser Engine Entitlement"? Even Microsoft seems to be ruled out, give that Edge's engine is based on Blink. Any other smaller browser engines would be ruled out by the baseline web functionality requirements.
This hardly seems to allow anything.
The title is misleading. "Allows" need to be in quotes - they did everything they could to make sure this won't change anything in practice. Screw Apple.
Could you elaborate? Other than the "Japan" requirement it seems legit?
I guess the requirements are pretty onerous, but they all seem like table stakes for a browser these days (Firefox or Chrome should have no problem with them, for instance.)
They weren't going to title "Apple forced to allow alternative..."
They are the ones allowing the alternatives because they are the gate keepers. They have "the keys"
Why only Japan? Seems like something forced them to in Japan.
The US DOJ was attempting to sue Apple in an antitrust suit for many things, including blocking every browser engine except their own Safari browser on iOS.
https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/media/1344546/dl?inline
Who knows if this will actually move forward now that "Tim Apple" gave the current leader a meaningless golden trophy.
It's in the EU and Japan, so basically all regions that have pushed back against Apple's anti-competitive ways.
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/bundleresources/en...
Yes, there is a new Japanese law that forces them.
For many Hacker News readers who check the website every day, this is not news:
• (4 years ago) Japan forces Apple to slightly loosen restrictions on ‘reader’ apps — https://hn.algolia.com/?q=japan+apple
It is amazing the lenghts Apple is willing to go to make exceptions only in individual places that force them to.
It's so disappointing to be fed crumbs like this instead of seeing real consumer protection laws put in place. Let users install software on their computers outside of what the manufacturer permits, why focus on browsers and "app stores"?
Because capitalism.
I wonder what technical detail makes this so hard to enable for other locales.
None. Apple doesn't pretend there are any.
I would love to have a browser that I can use my stylus to scribble with.
It will become a weird menagerie
So can people in Okinotorishima, Takeshima, Senkaku Islands use that alternative browser?
No, but Manchurians can
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iOS users love that Apple curates software for them.
>iOS users love that Apple curates software for them.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cuck_chair
Hopefully with AI we will have other browser engines than Chrome and Firefox.
I'm all for privacy and alternative app stores, but opening browser engines to the competition isn't something I'm keen to have.
Now every phone will ship with 2 engines (inevitably chrome is going to be bundled in at least one of your apps). Both are tied to large tech companies. And both have approximately the same feature set.
At this stage, I can't think of any upside for the end user. New CSS crap or obscure web APIs, or proprietary DRM? And the cost is that we're going to get new website badges "only in Chrome", or "only in Safari", like it's 1999.
This is Apple, people know what they get into, and they kind of want that an iPhone is not a PC.
It looks like everyone thinks that this is a good thing. Can anyone explain beyond the "this is a monopoly" argument? It's not a monopoly if the engine is free, and if they need the engine to more or less match all the desktop engines.
I don't feel cornered by Apple on that one.