Am I the only one that sees the number 7 and instantly assumes there‘s no financial modeling behind this at all?
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Apple Considering Dropping Requirement for iPhone Web Browsers to Use WebKit
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Am I the only one that sees the number 7 and instantly assumes there‘s no financial modeling behind this at all?
You know what's really anti-competitive? Ever wonder why Chrome has such a huge marketshare? Google forces OEMs to pre-install Chrome if they want their devices to be certified. That didn't work out well for Microsoft and IE on Windows, yet Google just gets a free pass.
The problem is chrome generally requires a server installed in your device and it is in constant communication whether the app is open or not. I will immediately delete any 3rd party browsers if this comes to pass.
Microsoft got a huge whoop in the behind for bundling IE on Windows. Yet Google got a free pass. Funny isn't it.
I once wished for this. But think it through: It will lead to complete dominance by Chrome, and a return to the pathetic days of "This site works best with..."
People don't learn.
People don't learn.
The European continent has created nothing impactful on the world. Maybe read a history book. I’ll give you one for free, the internet.
If safari doesn’t stay dominant on iOS, chromium will become the defacto standard that all websites will only test against, then safari will die. Doesn’t Firefox use chromium as its renderer?
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Safari isn’t “dominant”, which would imply some selective victory
It’s forced by the vendor and is the only option
(I see your intent however the double negative means what's actually written is that the European continent has indeed been impactful on the world)
Based on what this statement appears to be saying; Please, please, tell me you're trolling.
If you want a recent example, ASML or Advanced Semiconductor Materials Lithography from the Netherlands supplies the machines TSMC, Intel, Global Foundries, and Micron (I could go on) use to make the CPUs, GPUs, memory, and AI accelerators (I could go on) that runs basically all electronics manufactured in the world today.
Without this one company form Europe many, if not most, of the electronics advances in the last 10+ years would be an order of magnitude weaker today.
Oh man, opening up to other browsers might just mean that many thousands of apps grow another 350+MB as they start building their apps using Electron... think the monkey's paw just started curling...
Don't mean to be the bearer of bad news but it's likely too late. As others and myself in this thread have stated we're running into sites that don't work on Safari every day. We've probably already jumped over the "This site works best with" banners stage.
I use Firefox on my PC, but my cynic viewpoint tells me this will advantage Google Chrome mostly.
True. Even with the Safari engine lock, many iPhone users just use Chrome. It has become a habit, and since Chrome is the major player on Windows, most users will just use Chrome to have all their stuff syncs. It's definitely a dangerous ledge to walk on, unless Apple revives Safari for Windows.
My biggest fear is that this may enable many websites (read: Google) to drop compatibility with non-chromium browsers.
They were compelled to support Safari before.
I always wondered why that never happened with Safari/MacOS. And since all the loads of apps bundled with it. But then times were different and they were clearly killing off Netscape as in independant browser company with their OS might (but logically was still the same)
So let me get this straight: some site didn't display properly in Safari. Now I've used Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Samsung mobile browser, Edge and Opera at some point and switched freely between those just like I semi-daily switch between Chrome and Adobe (and some times OSX preview) to work with PDF files.
So your complaint is NOT that Chrome "owns" the internet ... but that it's popular, and in that specific example you gave you had to use Chrome - which btw uses webkit but renders HTML5 better than anyone else, as I've experienced - which is NOT representative of an average web browsing experience of anyone else.
So, you arguing that wide popularity of Chrome gives it an unfair advantage, and your proposal to compensate that advantage is to... keep Apple monopoly on webkit (and strict control on iOS apps as a whole).
Besides the "security" argument that at least held some few drops of water as far as lame apologetic arguments go... yours is just a downright failed one.
Two wrongs do not make a right!
And your comment is stereotypical whataboutism. If you don't know what the term "whataboutism" means go look it up.
Nobody should get a free pass. Not google, not fb, not apple or ms. Nobody.
So please get back to the topic at hand: iOS is a narcissistic kindergaten. There really never is ANY OS in the world (besides maybe some very obscure ones for military/defense/intelligence usd) that are as locked down. Literally everything from hardware, to OS to even third party apps and payment AND user freedoms are carefully curated. That is as far as I know a completely unique example in the private sector - I dare you name me ONE other company that has such a steel-handed grip to such an extremely wide extent.
And that is exactly why EU is going after Apple, just like they went after Apple & Ireland for facilitating tax evasion. What's really bothersome is one thing is a multinational multibillion company doing what it does for extra profit - but another is the almost hitler youth-like base of supporters that literally cheer it up and swallow any corporate excuse/lie/policy both line, hook and sinker while the company grossly violates free market principles and tramples on user freedoms every day.
A dictionary definition of "dominant" is “more important, powerful, or successful than most or all others." Again, Apple has a dominant position in mobile OS.
A dictionary definition of "open market" is "an unrestricted market with free access by and competition of buyers and sellers." Again, Apple (with its dominant position in mobile OS) restricts open market activity by not allowing freer access to alternative browser engines.
One reason Safar is not competitive is because updated versions are not available on major desktop and mobile platforms. You can’t expect Safari to be able to compete with Chrome, for example, if current versions aren't even available on Windows and Android.
This is silly. Context matters. You keep using words that have specific meanings in an antitrust contexts while speaking about antitrust matters and then using alternate meanings and shifting references. We've gone through all this before, so I'll drop it here.
In the end, like I said earlier, the solution is simple: switch out Webkit and replace it with the closely related Blink web layout engine from Google. After all, a lot of third-party browsers like Microsoft Edge, Brave and Opera use the Chromium browser base, which includes the Blink web layout engine.
Never seems to work that way. The free market is a bit of a myth. Take netscape. It was a superior browser to IE, yet it got killed because IE had all the market share. Right now chromium browsers are very dominant. This move could kill WebKit development making safari a worse experience, further shrinking any advantage it might have had. Anyway, I’ll never use any Google products. If a business wants me to use a chromium browser to access their services, they will probably not get my business. Right now I’ve only found a few who wrote their code in such a way as it isn’t functional on safari, but they wont get my business. If this happens, more will follow. 🤷♂️
Because people don’t fully understand the issue. It’s not just because I.E. came with Windows. Microsoft actively tried to force Netscape to stop development, worked with OEMs to not include Netscape, worked to limit the distribution channels of Netscape, etc. Also, Sun Java was part of the issue Microsoft was facing. There a lot of details on their treatment of Java.