> Apple is such a closed company nowadays, worse than Microsoft from the past in fact
I think that's debatable, the 90's were awful and nothing Apple does right now has the kind of platform dominance MS did. At the height of IE6's reign, there were whole areas of commerce and interaction that could only be done on a Windows machine.
But they're clearly moving in that direction. As we saw two days ago w/r/t the DMA evasion nonsense in Europe, Apple is now willing to pull the same kind of tricks MS was: like killing off browser-based apps (!) to force people onto its proprietary stack.
There's a thread down below about how Safari is better than Chrome. And it might be, but it's clear that from Cook's perspectives standard browsers are ejectable the second you can get people hooked on MacOS/iOS apps.
> The problem with Apple is not that they take a 30% cut of app sales in their store, or that they don't allow alternative browser engines or wallets apps or superapps or whatever in their store.
Nope, the problem very much is that they won't allow alternative browser engines, specifically so that they can force a crippled Safari browser with limited APIs to force people to write apps instead of web apps, forcing more traffic to their store. It's explicitly anti-competitive behavior.
>It's their store and they ought to be able to curate it however they like.
It's kind of forced fraud to call Chrome in iOS as "Chrome". It's like trying to sell someone a Ferrari that's just a facade bolted onto 2010 Honda. It's not Chrome, it's actually Safari - and its seems like people are finally starting to wake up to this abusive behavior that Apple has been getting away with for far too long.
Microsoft had a famous anti-trust case against them for simply bundling IE with Windows - not from forcing their engine on every other "browser" that gets installed. Apple is doing far worse than that and getting away with it for far too long.
>The problem is that users cannot reasonably install software through any means other than that single store.
That's one of the many other problems outlined by the DOJ today.
>The problem is that Apple reserves special permissions and system integrations for their own apps and denies them to anyone else.
Also another problem.
>However, these sorts of lawsuits or regulations that seek to force Apple to change App Store policies feel so wrong-headed and out of touch.
I was clapped out loud when I watched the DOJ announcement today. I cheered. They actually mentioned "Developers", which is a group I am part of, and I feel the pain that dealing with Apple and Safari is. Apple absolutely deserves this, and it's about time.
> Apple isn’t serious about supporting web browser or engine choice on iOS
I don't think this is some big gotcha - this has always been clear.
Seems like there's just one rule they don't like, that it's EU only. Which is fair enough.
Personally, I don't see why this is the hill Apple's dying on. They seem to have put in a fair amount of effort into creating a problem and APIs to allow for other browser engines to exist as peers to Safari (allowing JIT, multi-process, hooks into Lockdown Mode etc), but then restricted that all to the EU. This one seems more ideological than financial (like the other DMA-forced additions Apple is doing).
But really - its not really clear to me what benefits users get from this. Safari (on iOS or Mac) hasn't stagnated and is a highly performing browser, better than Chrome and Firefox in some regards. It supports some APIs first that others lag on, while it lags on others. I am a web developer, and I really do not agree with any claims that Safari is somehow worse than other browsers.
Meanwhile, people are shipping 'new web browsers', that users seem to like, by using the webkit engine under the hood. UI, features, sync, etc are what actually matters to users.
At some point they had a new browser that they provided to windows as well and could have expanded way further. They could have made Safari a true alternative to IE, Chrome, Firefox. They didn't, it didn't make sense for them.
So yes, Apple isn't big on the web, but it's in part of their own doing. Safari not being a viable browser outside of the mac and iOS is nobody's fault except Apple.
On wether Apple can face Google...let's put it in perspective:
- can Apple face Facebook: sure, at one point they killed their stock value overnight through a single policy change on iOS
- can Apple face Microsoft: a long time ago no. Today they're showing Microsoft the middle finger when they're trying to let users stream games on Apple's platform.
- can Apple face the US government: welp, they sure do. We've seen nothing coming out from any trial or policy happening in the US.
So, can Apple face Google ? I kinda think they can, yes. They have the money, the lawyers, the lobbies and politicians in their pocket. If they really wanted to, they could probably force Google to change on any front they're competing on.
> Selfishly I hope Apple continues using its iron grip on iOS to prevent anything other than Safari's engine there.
It's so weird these days seeing people literally cheering for the success of a proprietary product on a completely closed platform over an open source engine. Firefox, sure. I can get behind that even if my professional life technically argues against it. I see the draw there and won't argue about benefits.
But Safari? Seriously? Even discounting the existence of Firefox, the "monoculture" argument falls down in the face of products like Edge and Opera (and countless others -- Linux distros ship Chromium, Teslas all have a build installed, etc...), which are *successful forks* of Chromium. If Google goes evil and turns into a bad steward, we know already that Microsoft et. al. won't be impacted and can continue to ship their unadulterated products. Because that's what they're doing today.
> They should force Apple to allow alternative engines to Webkit, thus enabling much stronger competition to Safari and to native Apps on Apple mobile devices.
The ironic part here is that back in 2007-2013 Microsoft was sued by the European Union [1], and was forced to implement a downloader GUI that offers a randomized overview of available Browsers [2]; and their website/download links.
Back then Microsoft's defense was that an enduser could just install another Operating System on the hardware if they didn't want to be forced to use Internet Explorer.
And now, 10 years later, here we are, where Apple absolutely controls the Hardware _and_ the Software. Yet the European Union does seemingly nothing against it.
> I don't really see that as Apple trying to kill web technology as much as them just not profiting off it. Apple doesn't make any money from the "web," they make it from their platforms which aren't HTML/JS/CSS.
While true, this was also the reasoning behind Microsoft's treatment of Internet Explorer which caused web tech to get stuck for a decade. I think we were all glad those times were over.
> Apple and Google own the entire mobile OS market. They could literally destroy Microsoft if they started to hugely degrade the experience of Microsoft products on iOS and Android with dark patterns a la Microsoft. But they don't.
Until very recently you couldn't even change the default browser on iOS, I think the idea Apple are playing "fairier" than Microsoft is a lot more nuanced than you make it seem with this statement.
Even after adding ability to change default browser to iOS, there's still the limitation that only the webkit rendering engine provided by Apple can be used - Firefox and Chrome on iOS are wrappers around the OS level Webkit implementation - the rendering engine is still Safari/webkit - they aren't using their own rendering engines as they do on all other OSes.
There's also the agreement between Apple and Google for default search on iOS too, which absolutely costs Bing marketshare.
> Something that's dawned on me for the last few years is that Microsoft basically settled on the idea that the idea of the modern operating system is effectively done, which I suppose is true, but then they stopped creating technologies to build on top of Windows all together.
What happened was open source software, linux dominating the server side, and android dominating mobile (iOS as well, to a lesser extent).
> Except everyone publishing software today that isn't a game developer is targeting the web.
Except for nearly all backend development... which mostly targets linux first.
> OK, but Microsoft is in the best position to create great, integrated, first-class technologies that build on how great Windows is. But they don't. I have mixed feelings about this, because when Apple does it, they basically put people out of business.
For example? Apple software is average, and Microsoft has a long history of 'putting people out of business' (not in a good way).
> But here's the thing, in 10 years time, you're going to have Windows, which is still just, and will continue to be, Windows. And macOS, and iOS, and tvOS, and every other Apple OS, is going to be so much more. And they already are so much more.
You forgot... android and linux. How does apple 'already have so much more'?
> For those who haven't experienced it yet, or can't afford Apple products, they're missing something that just hasn't happened in computing in any other period of time I can immediately think of.
That just sounds like an opinion of the average non-tech user who lives inside an apple bubble and likes icon shapes and default keybindings. You're not saying anything specific, just poetry about apple being 'first-class' and 'something that just hasn't happened in computing in any other period of time' (???)
> They can do better than this. Much, much better.
No they can't. It's just your selective memory from the time they were a big-ass monopolist that sucked the life from any competing platform to the point where you had to use theirs.
Now, when you are used to high quality design injected by Apple and then refined by competition in the mobile space, your standards have went up so high that you simply can't go back to the half baked buggy interfaces that Microsoft has always produced. The older systems don't /seem that way/ because you are familiar with them.
> Personally, I don't see why this is the hill Apple's dying on. They seem to have put in a fair amount of effort into creating a problem and APIs to allow for other browser engines to exist as peers to Safari (allowing JIT, multi-process, hooks into Lockdown Mode etc), but then restricted that all to the EU. This one seems more ideological than financial (like the other DMA-forced additions Apple is doing).
The more I look at this, the more I am convinced that Apple is trying to use the EU as a testbed before agreeing to apply these rules in more places. Third parties can make a browser, but they'll do it on Apple's terms - in a safe way, that doesn't eventually become a nightmare to maintain. Crucially, access to hardware will be mediated through API's and certain things will probably never be supported because of security or privacy concerns - so don't bother asking.
> If Apple had their way, the web wouldn't even exist anymore.
Apple certainly doesn't run any web technology—they don't have skin in the web-app game like Google and Microsoft and Amazon do. (They have a web store, but on iOS it heavily suggests its native-app equivalent.)
But that doesn't mean they want their users to not use the web. Web-browsing is a feature; Apple invested a lot of energy into WebKit for a reason.
Apple just don't give a damn about the supply side of the web; they don't care if they kill every web business in the process of giving users the best web-browsing experience possible.
I have high confidence that if Apple could integrate something like e.g. Tor into Mobile Safari without a latency hit, they'd jump at the chance. Better privacy for their users! Breaks analytics and ad targeting? Who cares?
> The free and opened web presents a challenge to Apple's app business.
The free and opened [sic] web is BS. The "web" was always free and open, if you had worthy and user-respecting stuff to publish. Autoplaying video and other similar features are just plain evil. And if web apps are second class citizens on iOS, that's really a nice thing to hear, IMnsHO, because they are second class citizens on the WWW itself. They are either castrated versions of the native applications they are pretending to be, or overtly bloated thin clients (i.e. glorified <form>s) anyways. There has been one web app that I've used and liked: the old Gmail app.
The requirements of the platform are quite clear, and the service in return is quite desirable (apps being reviewed before publishing, user-centric permissions scheme, etc.) and even though I don't own an iOS device ATM, it sounds quite desirable to me, at least over Android where there is a hundred million billion versions of the OS out there and nobody bothers sending update my way so that I can has some granular control over what I allow the apps do. If you don't like it, don't take it. And it's nothing like IE because nobody has to use iPhones whereas Microsoft had put its OS and its browser on almost every computer out there, and I bet older IE browsers still have more market share than the sum of devices online with Safari installed. They are just a little island of the technosphere that want to get what they paid for, and enjoy the web like it was meant to be, possibly; and I'm just like them with my Qutebrowser where I have to disable JS and maintain a whitelist because the free and open web. Gosh.
> Does Apple not have the resources to build a competitive browser?…
They do. They did. It’s called Safari. That’s how we got here.
What they DON’T have is any care about Windows/Linux/Android users. Apple makes their browser to make their platform the way they like.
If you want Apple to provide the competitive alternate browser on other platforms you’re asking the wrong company.
> Given all the advantages Apple has, how could it possibly be true that they can only get users by literally banning all competition on their main platform?
Google pushes Chrome with the #1 OS in the world (Android). With the #1 site, google.com. And the #2, YouTube.com. And gmail. And Google Maps. Maybe Waze. Chrome OS. GSuite.
They have an INSANE amount of power to push people to Chrome and off other browsers.
I’m not arguing pro-Apple. I’m arguing anti-Google.
> Imagine if Microsoft banned all browsers except Edge! It would be an outrage! But we all accept that Apple does that and has for 10+ years.
They tried; with different means, but they expected the same result. That's what the antitrust case was about.
> Perhaps we are all so used to the daily monopolistic and anti-competitive behavior of Apple that we do not care any more.
While I have the same opinion as you wrt Apple behaviour, there is a difference: Apple doesn't have the market position like Microsoft did. You can function perfectly fine in society without any Apple product. That was not the case with Microsoft, they did everything they could so you had to use Microsoft system. Communicating with your bank or with government or public offices? Microsoft products were required. Apple has not such grip on the market and that makes the difference.
How so? Are other people creating closed software platforms where they charge 30% off the top for their developers? I agree that they've gone more corporate over the years, but it was only after the realization that they could exploit the market with their install-base. It's quite literally, step-for-step identical to Microsoft's old Internet Explorer parable that got them in so much trouble. They're taking advantage of a market without any other options, which is not something that an emerging company can do, much less at the scale Apple does it.
> Imagine if Apple decided they were tired of everyone moaning about Safari's missing features and decided to go the same way as Microsoft.
Not happening. It's likely that Apple spends an inordinate amount of engineering on Safari to lock-out W3C web features that pose a competitive threat to their lucrative Monopoly: the app store. Their strategy has always appeared to be to purposefully cripple Safari to drive developers and users to the app store, and monetize there, both on the $99 annual fee for the developer's ability to publish apps, and that 30% cut on revenues from publishers. Then there's the whole arbitrary bans on certain apps that somehow undermine their control over the device and ecosystem.
If they didn't have a plan to cripple Safari to drive people to the store, why else would they ban browser engines from competitors?
> I wouldn't say I have a "deep belief" in Apple, but I trust Apple more than the other available options
That, for me too. From my perspective they basically don't have competition. The only viable alternative to Apple is "do everything yourself with open software, and just accept everything being buggier, jankier, and less helpful, while eating way more of your time". Obviously I'm not in love with that option, but what else? MS? Google? Ha.
If Apple stops being Apple it'll be the elimination of a whole category of products and services, essentially. Just won't exist anymore.
This is all less a product of Apple being wonderful than of user-facing computing everywhere else being an embarrassing shit-show.
Apple played a massive part in the success of the mobile web and responsive design. The release of Mobile Safari and WebKit was a watershed moment. Before that point, the mobile web largely consisted of separate, pretty awful sites on WML. Afterwards, most mobile platforms had a default web browser based on WebKit, and the mobile web transformed as a result.
I'm not saying Apple are perfect, but saying that they've "always been awful for the open web" is grossly overstating things.
> Genuinely, who do you think is convinced by your comment?
People like me who aren't programmers, or even power users anymore.
> I know it, and I know that you know it.
A long time ago I used to modify the Windows ME registry, and it genuinely created some features doing so. Then they removed this windows-altering ability from the particular feature I was modding and my mods were useless. Maybe the MS programmers saw this as a bug being fixed, but I saw it as a feature being removed. I basically haven't been a Windows power user since ME because of stuff like this.
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Nothing Apple is doing is materially different from what Microsoft was sued for in the 90s by anti-trust enforcers. In fact, it's a bit more, because it just isn't a default browser, it's control of every app. Apple's share of the US market is just slightly less than Microsoft's was at the time.
I think that's debatable, the 90's were awful and nothing Apple does right now has the kind of platform dominance MS did. At the height of IE6's reign, there were whole areas of commerce and interaction that could only be done on a Windows machine.
But they're clearly moving in that direction. As we saw two days ago w/r/t the DMA evasion nonsense in Europe, Apple is now willing to pull the same kind of tricks MS was: like killing off browser-based apps (!) to force people onto its proprietary stack.
There's a thread down below about how Safari is better than Chrome. And it might be, but it's clear that from Cook's perspectives standard browsers are ejectable the second you can get people hooked on MacOS/iOS apps.
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