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Comment by Hrun0 | Hacker News Reader

The current dispute between the EU and Apple has nothing to do with Safari though and is about the Apple store, not sure how that's relevant?

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no, they're also forcing Apple to allow other browser engines on iOS, which was previously banned. other, third party iOS browsers still used the safari webkit engine.

> In addition, apps that use alternative browser engines — other than Apple’s WebKit — may negatively affect the user experience, including impacts to system performance and battery life.

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/01/apple-announces-chang...

Every app may negatively impact system performance and battery life. A better webview could positively impact system performance and battery life. This statement from Apple was made in bad faith, and it didn't fool the regulators. It definitely shouldn't fool technologists.

It could improve performance, but let’s not kid ourselves that there are many companies that care about the minutiae of battery life as much as Apple. I mean, have you used a windows laptop recently. It’s -so- much worse than a MacBook that I refuse to believe it’s all about the m* magic chips. Sleep, power cycling, prioritisation just all seem to be better implemented.

I haven't, but I have used a Linux system recently, and the experience is far better than a Mac. Even the regulators can see that Apple doesn't care about battery life and performance so much as it cares about the billions it extracts from Google for the search engine deal. Allowing better browsers means that fewer people will be stuck on Apple's inferior browser, and Google will pay correspondingly less to access them.

Is that really true? I’ve tried a number of laptops with Linux and the sleep and power management always still seemed terrible. What do you have? I borrowed a Lenovo x something, and a Dell. Does it matter which brand because of drivers and firmware etc?

I use Chromebook laptops. Good touch screen for productivity, good power management, and good application support. I remote into beefier machines for computationally intensive tasks if I'm not at my desk. On desktop workstations, I use Debian.

It is my understanding that Apple losing here would prevent them from enforcing WebKit as the sole iOS browser engine. I may be mistaken.

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