OWA's Review of Apple's DMA Compliance Proposal for the Web

We believe that third party browsers should be allowed to compete fairly on iOS using the same engines they safely deliver to every other platform. Further, that Web Apps enabled by the functionality, stability and security delivered via intense competition between browsers should allow developers to bypass and contest the gatekeepers App Store via the world's only truly interoperable platform, the Web.

With this in mind OWA has been looking over Apple’s proposals for compliance with the EU’s Digital Markets Act to determine whether Apple intends to genuinely comply with its legal obligations regarding browsers and web apps. As OWA has argued at length, true choice in browsers is the most important counterbalance to gatekeeper monopoly power, so the answer to this question matters enormously.

Unfortunately so far it appears that the answer is "no".

Our analysis digs into the following questions: - Will browser vendors be effectively able to bring their own engine to iOS? - Will browser vendors be able to implement proper web app support on iOS? - Will browser vendors be able to compete fairly with Safari?

Lets dig in

There’s been a fair bit of commentary regarding the changes around third party App Stores, CTF, etc. that is probably not worth repeating here. The situation with browsers is somewhat more interesting, because while not perfect I actually think it’s probably the only part of the guidelines where Apple is not intentionally complying maliciously. Like, sure, there are some parts that would be nice to have (web clips from third party browsers! In-app web browsing using your choice of engine!) but a lot of it does actually seem somewhat fair. Like they basically shipped Safari’s security and process isolation model directly as API, which is kind of weird I guess but it’s not terrible and shouldn’t be too hard for engines to adopt. The APIs are a bit wonky but I don’t fundamentally see them being any worse than any other platform API Apple offers. You can be upset that you can’t do your own custom scrolling, sure, but I mostly view it as not being able to do your own custom page table walk or your own custom gyroscope handling: the OS has to provide something. And I suspect with the DMA Apple will be a lot more careful moving forward when they use private APIs in Safari to work around bugs or give themselves features they deny other browsers.