Apple Considering Dropping Requirement for iPhone Web Browsers to Use WebKit

[Danfango]

Oh joy now I can look forward to:

1. My kids and my staff circumventing the security controls due to some app's about box being an HTML page with a Google link in it.
2. Apps suddenly shipping another 500Mb for no reason other than being lazy asses or wanting to inject their own **** into the client or do predatory tracking.
3. Electron apps draining my battery.
4. Eleventy seven different browsers, none of which are updated ever, increasing the attack surface of the device.

 

[BaldiMac]

A lot of the (original) iOS decisions "locked down" the platform, forcing developers to use standardised development tools which meant native apps that worked consistently across the platform. Over the decade that has been substantially weakened, so for instance, I cannot tap on text in Instagram for iOS to read it out to me; and if browsers were able to implement their own browser engines I fear this would further deteriorate quite substantially.

iOS and iPadOS is a platform in the same way that the European Union's Single Market is a platform -- by making consistent rules that all developers, or how all companies must play by the same, single set of rules across the entire marketplace.

The EU is getting this wrong, because what's happening here is that they're failing to see that their move here is not a consumer-friendly move to reduce 'barriers', but a sop to developers (or businesses) asking for laxity in regulation as a way to cut corners and cut costs in how they interact with a market - in this case - Apple's single market.

I appreciate the comparison of Apple to the EU offering a single set of standards across a platform/market!

The EU is so short-sighted here. The see Apple's control as something that must be wrong because... reasons?!?

Prices are low. Innovation is high. Piracy is low. Tons of apps. Consumer technology adoption is practically universal in the EU. Switching is simple.

All that said, the EU's solution to the problem that doesn't exist, is to force Apple to be more like their competitors (who are illegally working together through agreements with Google).

Looking specifically at this web browser regulation, who will benefit the most? Google! The company that already has a monopoly on search and advertising, controls 70% of the mobile market, and has 65% of both desktop and mobile browser share. But somehow Apple is the one that needs to be forced to change.

 

[PauloSera]

Omg please no.

You're not a fan of the web working, eh?

 

[Detnator]

You don't deal with the problem you're articulating by restricting choice to only what a vendor allows.

Any diversity we do currently enjoy is mostly happenstance and comes at the cost of restricting users choices.

I understand what you're saying, but the solution is not to tell Apple customers they have "no choice other than what Apple gives them"

Then what IS the solution?

 

[Detnator]

You're not a fan of the web working, eh?

The web works just fine right now. When I am forced to use chrome because developers choose not to develop for safari when they don’t have to then my choice of browser will no longer work (it currently works fine).

 

[Mr. Heckles]

That’s not necessarily true. If the rendering engine opens up, then there’s nothing preventing devs from using Chromium and all the tracking that that can bring. Instagram/Facebook already bring up a non-standard webview and inject tracking code. This would just make it easier to do.

Can they still use Safari? Yes.

 

[Detnator]

Let the people decide. Forcing is never the answer.

But it won’t be the people deciding. It will be the large corporations who just decide they’d prefer to mine my data through chrome and not allow me the safety of safari. The people won’t have any choice.

 

[PauloSera]

The web works just fine right now. When I am forced to use chrome because developers choose not to develop for safari when they don’t have to then my choice of browser will no longer work (it currently works fine).

"choose not to adopt safari" boy that's an Apple user with no development experience whatsoever comment if there ever was one.

WebKit is a bug ridden POS. It's trash. It has nothing to do with developers.

 

[PauloSera]

But it won’t be the people deciding. It will be the large corporations who just decide they’d prefer to mine my data through chrome and not allow me the safety of safari. The people won’t have any choice.

Rendering engine plays no part in that.

 

[Detnator]

Can they still use Safari? Yes.

Not if the developers choose to block users from using safari.

 

[Detnator]

Rendering engine plays no part in that.

What are you talking about? Of course rendering engine plays a part.

 

[BaldiMac]

"Dominant" as in one, two or few players in a market, in this case mobile OS. This potential plan could very easily also occur in the U.S. where iOS has the largest share of the mobile OS market at around 55%.

"Open market" as in one that can give consumers a greater choice of browser engines they want to use on a dominant OS.

I was aware that you had invented your own definitions of those words. That was my point.

 

[turbineseaplane]

The EU is getting this wrong, because what's happening here is that they're failing to see that their move here is not a consumer-friendly

Apple's single market.

Apple's single market ≠ Consumer Friendly

 

[Ethosik]

This is an absolute MUST. There are a lot of pages that don't work correctly with Safari on iOS/iPadOS. Some things that don't work on Safari can sometimes be solved using other browsers, although they use the same engine. Things that don't work on the mobile version of Safari are certain pop-up menus and in many cases actions buttons (Continue, OK, etc.) are nonfunctional. Web pages of banks are sometimes a nightmare.

This is the problem I have with allowing this. I already have some sites that only work well enough on Chrome.

 

[Detnator]

The restriction never made any sense to me other than to be heavy-handed for no reason.

If Apple hadn’t done this half the world’s websites would still be built in Flash.

And something like that will happen again if they remove the restriction.

 

[erikkfi]

Anyone else starting to get the feeling that robust government regulation works?

 

[Detnator]

Can they still use Safari? Yes.

Not if the devs stop supporting it.

 

[BaldiMac]

Anyone else starting to get the feeling that robust government regulation works?

It certainly works sometimes. Sometimes it doesn't. If you're idea of the goal here is simply to force Apple to do what you want, than it will undoubtedly do some version of what it is being forced to do.

If you're goal is to let companies like Epic and Microsoft and Google get a larger piece of the market, than it will probably succeed.

If you're goal is for consumers to have a huge variety of high quality apps at low prices, then we've already had that for years. So it's unlikely that these regulations will have a significant positive impact and will likely cause harm.

 

[mjs916]

Hopefully this is also a sign that Apple would separate Safari from iOS monolithic upgrades, so older devices can still run the latest patched Safari app. If not, then hopefully this decision can breath new life to older devices by having a fully patched 3rd party browser with its own engine instead of the outdated Safari.

THIS! This would allow for further longevity of devices as well. Not sure they would want that (they claim to) but it’s the right thing to do.

 

[Mr. Heckles]

Not if the devs stop supporting it.

Have devs stopped supporting Safari on the Mac?

 

[mannyvel]

"choose not to adopt safari" boy that's an Apple user with no development experience whatsoever comment if there ever was one.

WebKit is a bug ridden POS. It's trash. It has nothing to do with developers.

That's the opinion of someone who's used to targeting Chrome and now has to target another browser. Every rendering engine has different ways of doing things. And it does have to do with developers. Web developers are the laziest, whiniest developers on the planet.

 

[BaldiMac]

Have devs stopped supporting Safari on the Mac?

I've certainly come across my share of websites that don't work in Safari. Couldn't login to see my water bill for months. But to the point, the support that safari does get is partially based on it's deployment on iOS.

 

[krakenrelease]

Whatever it takes to get me uBlock Origin on my iPad -- I'm in!

Try Origin browser. Basically Safari that can use Chrome or Firefox extensions but with better than Brave security.

 

[theinsaneworld]

Apple's single market ≠ Consumer Friendly

Then you have the choice to go to Android. They built the market and the EU, in large part due to protectionism for EU based companies, is imposing rules. Like seriously - their fines are based on global turnover versus EU turnover.

This stuff very little to do with benefitting the consumer.

 

[PauloSera]

That's the opinion of someone who's used to targeting Chrome and now has to target another browser. Every rendering engine has different ways of doing things. And it does have to do with developers. Web developers are the laziest, whiniest developers on the planet.

users are the most clueless people on the planet