The ability to set up contracts between apps at the OS level is my biggest feature wish list item for iOS. The jump in usefulness of the device would be similar to when Apple opened the App store after initially launching with web-apps only.
Moreover, I don't think that average iOS users actually care. Most of them didn't even realize that Google Maps was replaced by an Apple equivalent. And when Apple Maps doesn't work correctly, they just accept that that's how things are - that's the sort of mentality that Apple cultivates in its users.
Joe User : "Huh, that's different" If it still works they go about their day.
Average Hacker News User: "Dammit, they moved the border padding 1 pixel to the left and the anti-aliasing on the font looks different when I look at it with a magnifying glass at 2 inches from my eyeball. I have to complain on my tech blogs right away about this travesty!"
Strawman. I never used the word "ignorance." It's more like acceptance of things as they are.
> Joe User : "Huh, that's different" If it still works they go about their day.
> Average Hacker News User: "Dammit, they moved the border padding 1 pixel to the left and the anti-aliasing on the font looks different when I look at it with a magnifying glass at 2 inches from my eyeball. I have to complain on my tech blogs right away about this travesty!"
Reductio ad absurdum, and you totally missed my point. I'm not talking about situations where something has just changed, I'm talking about when something has changed such that it no longer works. In such a situation, Apple users tend to consider that acceptable, such as with Apple Maps or with antennagate. As long as that fruity logo is present, they'll buy just about anything.
[1] http://oleb.net/blog/2012/10/remote-view-controllers-in-ios-... [2] https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/MacOSX...
http://x-callback-url.com/ has the info.
So as it currently works on iOS you cannot say to OS: hey, I want to use this app for http, instead you check if there is an app that handles "googlechrome(s)" scheme, and if yes you can replace your http(s) in URI to googlechrome(s) and then it will open in Chrome instead of Mobile Safari.