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Comment by eecc | Hacker News Reader

> How is Apple allowed to disallow any other web browsers on their mobile devices? We already went through this with Microsoft in the past but suddenly it's different?

Nope, total Apple and Oranges.

Forbidding other HTML rendering engines on iOS, prevented other massive players (Google) from forcing their browser platform onto Apple’s user base and Electron-ized Apple’s ecosystem making iOS a marginal runtime.

Or worse, Adobe could have spun their own Adobe Flash app “now with web access too!”.

It’s not competitive advantage, it’s strategy

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How does preventing competition in a specific application category lead to Apple preventing Google from "forcing" iOS users to use Chrome? Not sure I follow your argument here or how allowing browsers would somehow make it possible for Google to automatically install Chrome for iOS users.

Imagine if Google suddenly made their Chrome browser behave differently on Google websites compared to others, like 0.5 the performance for no reason. This could be seen as a strategy to increase engagement on Google properties, but I'm fairly sure most of us would see it as an attempt on monopolizing the web in Google's favor. Why is it different for Apple and browsers? They are intentionally making it impossible to create competitors to their own browser, for no technological reason besides "we don't want that".

They are intentionally protecting their ecosystem from the thread of an incumbent strangling their growth and marginalizing their strategy.

From a market dominant position it would be Antitrust material. Not in this case: https://www.statista.com/statistics/272698/global-market-sha...

Now find the same chart for the US only

Why? I'm European, what's so special about US market?

(rhetorical question, I know)

iOS has more than 60% of the US market.

I guess you weren’t there when Flash was the thing.

> Imagine if Google suddenly made their Chrome browser behave differently on Google websites compared to others, like 0.5 the performance for no reason.

I don't have to imagine. https://tech.co/news/google-slowed-youtube-firefox-edge-2019...

Not to mention the 2010’s where Google only allowed products (such as hangouts) to run on Chrome.

You're pitching the prevention of certain competitive products as a good thing, which it may have been for Apple, but it is absolutely not for the consumer.

You think so? So please elaborate on how having your platform marginalized to a mere window decoration around the ubiquitous, 100% dominant UI toolkit (Crome) is better for the consumer.

Besides, there’s plenty of choice on the market, unless you want to complain about a car manufacturer selling only their own models...

Platforms should disappear into the background. The great benefit of the web is that it presents roughly the same UI everywhere across all manner of devices and browsers. (The big downside of course is that it's not exactly the same).

> car manufacturer selling only their own models...

My car doesn't tell me who or what it's willing to transport. Yet.

Agreed, but many people are arguing that browsers should be able to alter the system outside the browser (e.g desktop shortcuts and notifications).

I think that these things should remain under the control of the operating system.

> browsers should be able to alter the system outside the browser (e.g desktop shortcuts and notifications).

I've not seen the argument about desktop shortcuts?

Notifications are one of those features which has already been added and is a nuisance in 99% of cases, but I can see there being one or two use cases where a website sending notifications without requiring a full native app (and approval process!) is worthwhile.

The "should this hardware be available to the browser" fight happens for every feature.

Yup, same shoddy, lowest common denominator, inconsistent UI across all devices and manufacturers.

And to complete the scenario: 1 dominant supplier whose interest is not ideal UX but just invasive and pervasive tracking, and all other actors - being marginalized to mere window decoration - don’t invest a penny in challenging the dominant‘s position, and content themselves with scooping some adware crumbs left over from the market dominator.

Does that sound familiar?

> unless you want to complain about a car manufacturer selling only their own models

It does seem like you get it wrong on purpose.

How different is that from Microsoft and IE?

iOS isn't 90%+ of the phone market.

The percentage of usage is actually unimportant (at least in the EU, I know it's not an EU news piece)

In some markets it’s pretty close (US teenagers for example).

As a teenager I felt pushed out of conversations because I was an Android user, and got written off as a green bubble.

That's the most ridiculous division known to man.

You don't use the right back end, therefore you aren't cool.

It's absolutely absurd. I mean, about on par for teenagers, but gah... I can picture the conversation about "Your "friends" are complete morons, and you shouldn't feel ashamed or ostracized at what is probably one of the most silliest social signaling practices on the planet."

It hurts being an engineer sometimes. These networks are marvels of human ingenuity, and people take them and use superficial differences in UI and completely miss the point.

God bless. I keep thinking UX/UI can't get any worse, but what humanity takes out of it never ceases to amaze.

It wasn't about UX. When Android users join iOS conversations, they lose the ability to use stickers, high quality pictures, etc... But instead of bringing iMessage to Android, Apple has intentionally created a way to get teenagers to look down on non-Apple users (yes, it's seen as a major status symbol, too) to promote their products.

> That's the most ridiculous division known to man.

Ha! They're teenagers. They will invent new divisions as needed.

Is there a relevant law or court case that takes sectors of consumers into account? That one could be more relevant because they are vulnerable, or less relevant because the devices are bought in their parents name.

IOS is 100% of the iPhone market though, given that unlike Windows in the PC market, Apple disallows installing an alternative OS, and an alternative app store in addition to disallowing alternate browsers.

So? Go buy an Android device. You’re blaming a manufacturer for being 100% of its own product market?!

Microsoft was taking a vibrant and competitive market for browsers and crushing it. Apple is taking a monoculture for browsers and providing a powerful bulwark against Chromium.

it is worse... at least you could always install a competing browser engine on Windows if you wanted

> It’s not competitive advantage, it’s strategy

It's 100% competitive advantage. The main driver of Apple's lack of support for Flash was to damage the web's ability to distribute DRMed video and force it into apps on iOS, where Apple could rent seek a 30% commission from subscription fees.

Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the App Store was not even around for the first iPhone.

Perhaps the decision to not include flash could have been due to performance/battery?

Precisely. Jobs didn’t want to be at the mercy of anyone else’s priority, strategies or convenience.

Remember: Adobe was dragging its feet on MacOS because why bother, Windows PC is the market, iPhone was mostly welcomed as a “won’t fly” and Flash for iOS would have been another drama of unfixed vuls, shoddy performance and battery drain. (I guess everyone forgot or wasn't still around, reminder: https://www.extremetech.com/computing/134551-why-flash-faile...)

Not unreasonable to imagine Google making Chrome engine prio 1 on Android and “perhaps later” on iOS.

You can imagine how well Jobs took that.

Nonsense. There is extensive writing on the subject including internal memos from Steve Jobs on Flash — and you are 100% incorrect.

Can you elaborate and link to sources plz?

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