Originally posted by TylerL
Does anybody else find anything wrong (or at least funny) with Apple bundling and deeply embedding their browser into the operating system?
Moving the frameworks to their global location is not "deeply embedd[ed]". It is proper use of shared libraries.
Do I find anything "wrong" with Apple providing a web browser service? No. Why? Because Apple must do so to compete with the illegal activities of Microsoft in this regard.
Do I feel funny about Apple most likely using the Safari (WebCore) libraries throughout their system and applications in the near future? Yes, I do. That "locks in" the WebCore interpretation of HTML just like MS's activities locked in IE's. The ideal, still, would be for companies to be able to compete to be the user's web framework provider. However, this ideal is difficult to engineer, whether you are the MS behemoth or the more slender but resource-limited Apple. And, I give you two side notes:
1) Apple is not doing so maliciously to "choke off the blood supply" of for instance Camino and Mozilla. One may say actions matter more than motives, but present motives tend to predict future actions. And there, we are less likely to see Apple restricting user choice when their stated and legitimate goal is to enhance choice for their users.
2) Apple is not a monopoly and therefore does not have to exist in the "careful" environment determined monopolists do. It is far easier for a ticked-off Apple user to switch to Windows than vice-versa, and Apple knows this. This keeps Apple from entertaining the more devious thoughts all corporations harbor
🙂
So, to sum up:
Apple needs Safari to compete, as whatever the overall problems with MS entrenching IE, there are benefits there as well that we are missing out on.
AND, Apple is much less likely to abuse this single-provider situation than MS.
