Microsoft on the other hands seems to have no boundaries, going as far as injecting ads on Chrome’s homepage[1] promoting their browser.
[1] https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-is-now-injecting-full-...
Not allowing alternative browsers on their most successful platform: iOS
also:
- EU forced Apple to use USB-C like everybody else
- EU is forcing Apple to allow side loading of apps
Apple is one of the worst offenders ever when it's about vendor lock in
Alternative browser engines are still disallowed.
They are a skin on Apple's Webkit
see: https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/07/mozilla_google_apple_...
GP was talking about how Apple does not force you to open links with Safari except in one case.
The situation with webkit is a different thing.
It's always Safari.
In a different skin, but it's Safari nonetheless.
Do Firefox or Chrome on iOS support web apis that Apple does not support?
No, they don't, because it's Safari.
Sorry if I skipped a few steps and went straight to the conclusion, that's why it probably looked off topic to you.
It is what makes all the difference here.
Many features that are a Web Standard are unsupported on iOS precisely because Apple refuses to allow alternative engines because they don't want those features on their platform (mostly to favor native apps under the pretext of security, like if Google is not capable of making a secure browser, at least as secure as Safari).
Chrome and Firefox on iOS are not the same Chrome and iOS that run on all the other platforms, they are basically Safari.
It does matters.
it matters in the same way a Honda disguised as a Mercedes it's not a Mercedes. It's a Honda.
> Whichever engine the browser happens to use is the least of their concerns.
Not disagreeing with you on this, that's the way it should be.
OTOH, using simple logic, if it doesn't matter Apple would allow other browser engines on their platform, because it doesn't matter. But apparently it does matter. It matters so much that EU is trying to force Apple to permit alternative implementations of the software called "a Web browser".
Anyway, we have a precedent:
"Microsoft distributed its browser software, Internet Explorer, among consumers for free. It led to a concentration of the market share and the eventual downfall of Netscape, the company’s top competitor at the time. The DoJ case alleged that Microsoft was intentionally making it extremely difficult for consumers to install software by other companies on personal computers that ran on Microsoft’s operating system."
The point of my analogy wasn't to prove that Chrome is better than Safari, but that if I want an Honda, I do not want a car that looks like an Honda, I want an Honda (or a Mercedes or a Renault).
Android has the same problem with WebView, it's Chrome by default, but at least on Android GeckoView exists.
There must be a reason why Apple resists so much to making alternative engines available and nobody is buying that it is about security.
Further, it could be argued that dynamic code execution, whether through an app downloading additional modules on the file system with the executable bit set, or in memory, with the mmap(PROT_EXEC) syscall opens up potential avenues for abuse, and alternative browsers are an unfortunate collateral damage in such a policy.
Regardless, no action can be justified because another entity is also doing it; it only serves to cheapen the discourse.
Microsoft has now clearly declared this policy. The basis of the article is the message sent to IT admins clearly declaring it.
The huge difference is that this is the blanket application of a rule which has reasonable justifications. You can certainly criticise Apple for being a control-freak company, but that's not exactly a new trait.
And it's not Apple leveraging one monopoly (they don't have) into trying to take over an other domain as a new entrant. iOS started from the position of being completely locked down.
Quite different from the events of, say, US v. Microsoft Corp, which Microsoft seem to assume is not relevant anymore.
> - EU forced Apple to use USB-C like everybody else
Which was almost certainly on Apple's timeline anyway, though we'll never know for sure.
> - EU is forcing Apple to allow side loading of apps
See (1).
They released USB-C macbooks in 2015, 8 years ago. Clearly they had no intention of moving to USB-C on iPhones, prior to the EU ruling. The extra few years selling cables so that you can plug your brand new Apple laptop in to your brand new Apple phone was probably a fun little profit exercise, if not comically anti-consumer/anti-environment.
Utter nonsense, which completely ignores the historical and third-party background: the replacement of the dock connector by Lightning was a huge shift as it was very common for devices to have built-in dock connectors which became useless pins overnight (there were literally cars with dock connectors). As necessary as the transition was in the long run, it basically made apple swear to keep lightning alive for at least as long as the DC was.
And there is a clear counter-example: they've been slowly inching support in from the devices least likely to use hard-set connectors: first the 3rd gen ipad pro in 2018, then the 10th gen ipad in 2020, 6th gen mini in 2021, 5th gen Air in 2022.
> The extra few years selling cables so that you can plug your brand new Apple laptop in to your brand new Apple phone was probably a fun little profit exercise
More nonsense, apple literally doesn't want you to plug one into the other, they've been stripping wired phone-related features from macos as fast as they could be bothered to, moving them to either wireless (airdrop) or cloud.
> if not comically anti-consumer/anti-environment.
Yes indeed, the anti-consumer and anti-environment move of letting users upgrading from one iphone to the next not have to replace all their cables.
Apple is absolutely trying to leverage their OS in order to drive usage in other markets. One big example of this is Apple Maps, which is being used as a default on iOS no matter if you like it or not. Both "Contacts" and "Find My" uses Apple Maps as the only option for starting navigating to another address, and if the application is not installed, but Google Maps or any other app, they still ask you to install Apple Maps instead of doing what everyone else in the ecosystem is doing, which is to ask which navigation app to use.
> Which was almost certainly on Apple's timeline anyway, though we'll never know for sure.
Yes, absolutely. The manufacturer who almost never use standard connectors were gonna start using standard connectors suddenly, no because regulation forced them to, but because that was in their timeline anyways...
Except for all the times they do?
> were gonna start using standard connectors suddenly, no because regulation forced them to, but because that was in their timeline anyways...
Yes? Or are you saying regulations forced them to use USB-C on macbooks, to the exception of every other port including the beloved but non-standard magsafe?
Or that regulations forced them to add type C to the ipad pro in 2018? The ipad in 2020? The ipad mini in 2021? The ipad air in 2022?
Hell, back in 1998 they released the iMac with essentially only USB support. Was that also regulations forcing them?