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Should Apple Continue to Ban Rival Browser Engines on iOS?

Trhodezy said:
Isn’t it just - I’ve lodged a formal complaint with Apple for her to be reprimanded.
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For what? Pointing out that the angry tweets about safari were by men? Were they not angry? Were they not written by men? How is that misandry?

And what’s a “formal complaint?” Does Apple make you wear a tuxedo? Do you have to fill out a TPS cover sheet in triplicate? Do you have to recite a Latin writ three times? What makes it “formal?”
 
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cmaier said:
And what’s a “formal complaint?” Does Apple make you wear a tuxedo?
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You can only complain through Knowledge Navigator.

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In principle I don't like it that Apple can block other browser engines. However, if Apple has or will allow other browser engines, I'm afraid that WebKit will soon not be supported by many site creators. Already, many site creators do not fully support both Safari and Firefox. Site creators tell me to use Chrome or Edge when I complain. This will only get worse when the Chromium engine is available on iOS and iPadOS.
 
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Mr. Dee said:
No, I don’t want everything to be Chromium based. If we go that direction we end up creating a monoculture. We saw it with IE 6 and Google Chrome has pretty much become that. I wish Apple had not given up on Safari for Windows. In fact they should have gone further and released it for Android and Linux.
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Safari is already a monoculture within the Apple ecosystem. It doesn't exist outside of iOS and macOS and certainly can't be tested for compatibility within other OS.
 
TheYayAreaLiving ? said:
Google Chrome has been known to run the device hotter because the browser itself consumes a lot of memory. Overheating is very normal when using Google Chrome.

I don't have overheating issues with a safari browser.
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I can't agree that it makes certain devices hotter but 10X hotter is hyperbolic.
 
Artemis70 said:
In principle I don't like it that Apple can block other browser engines. However, if Apple has or will allow other browser engines, I'm afraid that WebKit will soon not be supported by many site creators. Already, many site creators do not fully support both Safari and Firefox. Site creators tell me to use Chrome or Edge when I complain. This will only get worse when the Chromium engine is available on iOS and iPadOS.
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It's harder to test for compatibility with Safari simply because it can't be tested within other development OS. You have to own iOS, iPadOS, and macOS to test for compatibility. Maybe Apple should consider releasing Safari for Windows, Linux, and Android. It's Apple's own doing.
 
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mjtomlin71 said:
This has nothing to do with being anti-competitive and everything to do with not allowing 3rd party runtime engines on their platform, which in effect allow the creation of sub-platforms. These sub-platforms, if and when they become popular have the ability to hold back platforms and keep the user base and technologies from moving forward. This happened on the Mac many times when developers would refuse to update their engines in a timely manner keeping users from being to update the OS.

Apple did not want this to happen on personal devices where updates were critical for the sake of privacy and security. This is why they never allowed Flash and it is the same reason they won’t allow a 3rd party javascript/HTML runtime engine.

It would be one thing if Webkit was a proprietary engine, but it is not. It is in fact open source and anyone is free to contribute.
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And yet Safari with WebKit is not available outside of iPhone, iPad, and Mac while Chrome, Edge, and Firefox are available for all the major platforms, except for the fact that these browsers are just skins on iOS and iPad. Why would anyone bother if Apple can't be bothered?
 
Realityck said:
I really like this comment she made, The world doesn't need a total monopoly of google Chromium, in spite of people that fault Apple trying to modernize Safari and encounter problems. Give it time, getting a better browser is a long process of development. Just look at how many have been trying to improves web browsers in wiki's Timeline of Web Browsers.

Instead of making this a Safari vs Chromium, how about supporting everyone else working on web browsers.
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That would be helpful but Safari adopts the fewer standards and WPA than Chrome and other browsers. At the same time, it's also more difficult to test because you need an Apple device.
 
KevinN206 said:
Safari is already a monoculture within the Apple ecosystem. It doesn't exist outside of iOS and macOS and certainly can't be tested for compatibility within other OS.
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If only there was some sort of network that allowed people to test web content at a distance from the serve hosting the content.
 
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KevinN206 said:
That would be helpful but Safari adopts the fewer standards and WPA than Chrome and other browsers. At the same time, it's also more difficult to test because you need an Apple device.
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You can look at https://html5test.com/results/latest.html

Its funny this site cannot recognize macOS Monterey beta with Safari 15.4 so it comments a score of 507. However running the same test on iPadOS beta using Safari 15.4 gave a 468 when using mobile mode, if you request desktop mode, then its 514!

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Apple seems to be ramping up efforts implementing web standards. If they catch up with the status quo I’m less critical of the WebKit limitation.
 
cmaier said:
If only there was some sort of network that allowed people to test web content at a distance from the serve hosting the content.
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That adds additional cost to support Safari. It's more difficult but obviously not impossible per my post. If Apple wants users and developers to support Safari, then maybe they should make it more cross-platform.
 
blazerunner said:
Jobs said Apple believes in choice when it comes to putting a browser of YOUR choice in Mac OS; this was when Apple sold it's soul to Microsoft, go to 2:51 mark of this video.

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So the benchmark for what Apple believes is whatever Jobs said when Apple was dying in 1997? How does that make a case for anything? Jobs was willing to do anything to save Apple then, including making a deal with the devil (Microsoft ?). The fact is that in 2003, when Apple was in a much healthier place, they released their own browser, which is indicative of Apple's real beliefs- Apple wants to control the browsing experience (just like Google and Microsoft do).

Apple mandating WebKit is nothing like Microsoft bundling IE. Microsoft claimed, falsely, that IE was a core part of Windows, which was false- it was released afterwards and then tied together. WebKit, in contrast is a core part of the iPhone- the fact that the iPhone ran Safari was one of the three things Steve Jobs cited that made the iPhone revolutionary. WebKit has been a part of the iPhone since literally day one, unlike even the App Store.
 
sideshowuniqueuser said:
There is a vast vast difference between dominance by way of banning the opposition, and dominance by way of being so superior to the opposition that everyone uses your product.
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Funny that is Apple argument regarding the iPhone App Store. How's that working out?
 
VictorTango777 said:
Do we blame Microsoft for creating the idea of browser lock-in with Internet Explorer (claiming "IE is part of operating system", encouraging creation of websites that only work in IE), or do we blame Apple for doing today what they complained about Microsoft doing back then?
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Totally different situation. Microsoft was doing all kinds of shady stuff to cripple competitors like Netscape. Microsoft lied and said IE was part of the the main OS; while in Apple's case Webkit really was built into iOS from day one. As I pointed out before, Chromium browsers seem to have a problem with being write happy to SSDs on desktops and there is not reason to expect the same is not true in the mobile market.
 
KevinN206 said:
Safari is already a monoculture within the Apple ecosystem. It doesn't exist outside of iOS and macOS and certainly can't be tested for compatibility within other OS.
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Apple did have a version of Safari for Windows. It lasted from 2007 to 2012 and never really stirred much excitement. As I remember Safari didn't have much going for it during that time period compared to everybody else even on the Mac to the point that it was 6% of all desktop traffic. At 19.84% Safari is in far better shape than it was back than and given Chromium's habit of going write happy to SSD that is a good thing.
 
Apple should continue requiring WebKit engine only, web browser engines are a point of target of an attack, dangerous exploits are discovered in browsers regularly the less you have the less chances you are using a browser with an unpatched exploit so one on iOS is best and WebKit such a great engine as Google even forked it out to develop a version for their requirements as well as many others including Adobe.
 
Maximara said:
As opposed to the "our web app has a live service fee; thank you for your monthly subscription" ploy. :p
Microsoft has tried to do that with its Office 365 nonsense.
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While that may be at least on the MS side I can get browsers that have all the standard functionality instead of being deliberately crippled.

btw - Edge is actually pretty good.
 
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