All web browsers on iOS are just Safari with different design
community.brave.com
community.brave.com
Also worth observing that most web browsers in the history of the web (including Chrome and Safari) started out as a fork of some other browser.
While I may like the idea of browser engine choice on iOS, I think preventing Google from owning the web is more important.
Why do you think that forcing people to use safari/webkit is a good solution?
I’m also going to assume the percentage of users who know this situation exists, care, and have an actual impact to their user experience is exceptionally small.
999,999 times out of 1,000,000, when someone is downloading a different browser on their phone it isn’t for the engine, it’s to get something like tab and bookmark syncing.
You know what the "government enforced control" is? Choice. Literally, the so called "government enforced control" is giving you the choice of doing the exact same thing you did before or, if you'd like, something different.
Telling people to "just use android then" will be fine when apple destructs the walls of its walled garden.
With no market share left, will other companies/organizations give up on maintaining their own browser engine? Microsoft has already given up, so has Opera. Will we even have the possibility of choice?
Why does Apple need to take down their walls for people to move to Android? Most people use Apple products because of the walled garden, not in spite of it. I really don’t think the walls are that high, not much higher than any other platform switch someone might do.
I don't think this is true at all, and I suspect the users who feel this do it because a vague sense of security, not that they actually want less choice.
I'm sure many iphone users would want to stick with their default apps, but I also think a lot of them would understand their co-users different choices.
But that’s not really what I’m talking about, as I don’t think people are actively thinking about that.
What I’m talking about is more about the walled garden that creates a space where users know their devices are going to work really well together. An iPhone with AirPods, an Apple Watch, iPad, and a MacBook are going to allow users to do more things, more easily, than if all those similar products were bought from random other companies with choice in mind. Then there are features like AirDrop that are really nice when dealing with people with other Apple products. A lot of these things get rolled out and adopted successfully because Apple has a lot of vertical integration and isn’t too worried about anything outside their garden, they just want the experience for their customers to be good, which it is. Breaking this apart in the name of choice will make these things worse, in all likelihood. This is bad for current Apple customers who enjoy having this level of integration.
I view Apple products like video game consoles. No one is telling Sony they need to make Playstation VR work with the Switch, nor is anyone telling Nintendo that they need to release Tears of the Kingdom on Xbox. I don’t see how Apple is any different. These are all walled gardens. Apple is more open than the consoles.
Apple makes hardware to run its software, other companies make software to run on generic hardware. These are two distinct business models and governments shouldn’t be forcing one business to operate like a completely different business. Forcing Apple to operate like Microsoft or Google is removing user choice, by eliminating their model from the market, a model a subset of users clearly like the result of. Kind of funny that no one had a problem with it for 40 years, and it’s only now that they’ve become more successful that people are trying to kill it; people who likely aren’t even Apple customers.
I think a lot of these pushes for Apple to open up are being driven by people, companies, or organizations, that stand to profit from Apple failing. If customers had a problem they would stop buying the products, yet we’ve seen iOS market share go up, which likely means people are switching from Android to iOS. Why would that be if Apple is so terrible and controlling? It can’t all be about iMessage.
How would allowing users to install non-Apple-approved software prevent these features from working?
I don't use apple, but I do appreciate the suffering of limited choice their users endure for the effect of higher diversity. Thank you, iphone users.
Are you arguing that diversity of browser engines is important, but we need to stifle/suppress diversity to ensure diversity?
"Only works in Chrome" will prevent millions of users from choosing a browser; Google already fucks with Firefox in spots, because they can. Anyone who built websites in the late 90s / early 2000s remembers the IE monoculture.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers
Break it on iOS Safari and you’re losing actual revenue.
Either way you still have not proven that less user choice now somehow leads to more user choice in the future.
We know letting a dominant player abuse their position to corner the market has long-term downsides to user choice. Windows, IE, and now Chrome.
The solution to that is to stop the abuse, not remove user choice.
Until regulators stop being asleep at the wheel, “we can’t lock iOS users out of everything” likely keeps Safari alive.
Losing iOS users is the only reason we don’t have “only works in Chrome” everywhere.
With Google owning the market, there is really nothing to stop them from implementing “features” that are good for them, but bad for the intent as a whole.
Safari has a lot of quirks, but those are mostly felt more by developers rather than users.
If Webkit === Safari then is Blink === Chrome? Do people actually want alternative browser engines or do folks just want all iOS browsers to be backed by Chromium?
edit:
Also, Orion is WebKit based
This still ignores all the differentiation between the browsers on iOS, even if they're all on WebKit. And even as Orion proves, browsers on iOS can support Firefox/Chrome extensions! So WebKit isn't something that prevents that...