| ▲ | iOS allows alternative browser engines in Japan(developer.apple.com) |
| 335 points by eklavya 10 hours ago | 258 comments |
| |
|
| ▲ | MBCook 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| I’m not going to say I think Apple should be able to lock out competing browsers, I know this is going to happen. But God I don’t want this. The iPhone is basically the only thing stopping a total Chrome/Chromium hegemony from ruling the web the way IE did. I don’t think Google will practically abandon things the way Microsoft did. But they will absolutely have the kind of power Microsoft did to force any feature. I don’t want to be forced to use Chrome because it’s the only browser that works on most sites. It’s already bad enough with some sites. But Apple‘s stubbornness and completely different reasons are the only things accidentally holding back the tide. |
| |
| ▲ | concinds an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | I can't wait until regulators do their job and take away Apple's dictatorial control, in all areas, and all these doom-and-gloom predictions on all these tangential issues end up proving ludicrous. What kind of control would Chrome have over the web? Adding APIs doesn't force the billions of websites to adopt them. So what if a website adds WebBluetooth? You don't want the web to have that anyway, and if you keep using Safari, you still won't have it. Happy you! If scrappy Firefox on open platforms could save the web from 95% IE, then why are we all dependent on Apple, alone, to save us from ~60% Chrome? It's learned helplessness and Stockholm syndrome. I wonder how our species survived before the trillion-dollar company started taking such good care of us! | | |
| ▲ | bigfudge a few seconds ago | parent [-] | | That was almost 20 years ago though. Things are really different now and it's hard to imagine Firefox saving anything these days. Sadly, the only entities powerful enough to control FANGs are FANGs (although fingers crossed the EU holds it's nerve and EU nations belatedly act on the realisation that being beholden to US tech giants is a massive strategic blunder, akin to relying so heavily on US military satellite data for Ukraine). |
| |
| ▲ | kace91 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I don’t see that as a threat honestly. safari being the default app pretty much guarantees its place unless google comes up with a killer feature for iOS chrome. And they are unlikely to make that push considering apple demands the app to be distributed only in Japan. Besides, the mobile web is becoming more and more of a niche platform, since the web is becoming centralised as time passes and most main sites redirect to their own apps. And that’s without considering direct web search being replaced by AI search,which google seems convinced is the way forward. | | |
| ▲ | geraldwhen an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Google has no actual content left to find. It’s AI spam website after AI spam website. And if you find any content, it’s on a website riddled with ads. AI search has none of these issues. Google from 15 years ago was wildly superior to today. | | |
| ▲ | kace91 an hour ago | parent [-] | | >AI search has none of these issues Yet. AI feeds from the content it substitutes. I’m skeptical to the long term feasibility for this reason, how is it going to bring me news when publishing those news is no longer profitable, for example? |
| |
| ▲ | MBCook 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It was the default on the Mac and it’s nowhere near the most popular there. Google pushes Chrome HARD. | | |
| ▲ | cosmic_cheese 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Yep. I've even been seeing Chrome TV ads lately (on Amazon Prime Video). They're marketing it pretty hard despite being dominant. Also, it's wise to not underestimate the power of developers ceasing to test against non-Blink browsers and taking a page from their IE-era past selves with "Best Viewed in Chrome" and "Browser outdated! Download Chrome" badges. There are few user motivators stronger than things not working. | |
| ▲ | ribosometronome an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Similarly, Edge is the default on Windows. Chrome has 75% of the market share. | |
| ▲ | rplnt 20 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Always had. From blocking features by UA to ads worth billions of dollars (only little of which they had to actually pay). | |
| ▲ | ndiddy an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Yeah it's fun how Google displays a full-page ad for Chrome every few times I do a Google search on iOS Safari that I have to dismiss before seeing the results. | |
| ▲ | benoau an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yeah but the solution to that is to be good at breaking monopolies, not allowing one to stop another. | | |
| ▲ | kelthuzad 17 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Make no mistake, that is one of the top 5 arguments that "Leave the trillion dollar company alone" types love throwing in every discussion regarding this topic. It's not an accidental or innocent kind of argument, it will pop up under pretty much every article that discusses Apple and Anti-Trust. It's an underhanded way of defending Apple's anti-competitive business practices akin to "let Apple be anti-competitive or [insert doomsday scenario here]". Instead of advocating for application of proper anti-trust measures in order to restore a healthy and competitive market, they want to maintain the status quo where the Gatekeepers can do as they please. |
|
| |
| ▲ | tom1337 an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | > safari being the default app but this can change. At least in the EU Apple already prompts a user which browser they want [1]. While at the moment every browser is WebKit under the hood, this will probably change as the EU is also pushing Apple to allow other engines [2] - and with users knowing Chrome from Ads, their work or from a previous Android phone, I can imagine a lot of them selecting Chrome as a default. 1: https://www.heise.de/en/news/Apple-alters-selection-screen-f...
2: https://developer.apple.com/support/alternative-browser-engi... |
| |
| ▲ | lukeschlather 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | That ship has already sailed. And Apple is part of the problem. Recently I used Microsoft Edge because Facetime doesn't support Firefox. I couldn't get audio working so switched to Google Meet (which does work in Firefox.) | |
| ▲ | Jach 25 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | People didn't mind when IE was muscling in and adding useful new features. They abandoned Netscape because the features made the web better. It wasn't until they stopped adding features to the browser itself that it really started to become a problem. They would still add features, but too much relied on ActiveX -- which wasn't necessarily evil, there's a grand vision there of component re-use across the OS and varied applications, the same was done with Java Applets and even Shockwave/Flash, but it sucked more and they were all plagued with security problems. Then MS stopped innovating pretty much entirely, and wouldn't even play catch up for a long time, whether with their out-of-browser plugins (oh Silverlight...) or the browser itself. No support for tabs for a long time, or popup blocking (later ad blocking), they had terrible performance... And as various "web standards" advanced to make things nicer for the users and developers, and add capabilities that didn't require an external plugin, they drug their heels on that too. Eventually, the hell that was IE was a combination of hostile user experience, security problems, performance problems, and developer pain in finding workarounds or other support because it was so far behind on everything. It had nothing to do with their power to dictate or experiment with new features. The extent of the hostile user experience that leaked outside the browser itself was the "only works on IE" problem that forced people to use IE for that site, on the whole it was comparable to the "only works with Flash or Java applets" problems and not as bad as the experience of the browser itself. For the most part these days, the two parts of that hell that remain relevant are the hostile user experience and the developer pains parts, and Mobile Safari is the successor to both for over a decade now. No one supports IE11 anymore (let alone older IEs) but they still have to support Mobile Safari. I have fonder memories of dealing with IE11 (and earlier) support/workarounds over Mobile Safari's crap. My view is more power to actual Chromium-based browsers on mobile even if I personally use Firefox on PC and android despite their user experience shortcomings (at least they're not very hostile). The only part of hell I'd be worried about is that of a hostile user experience, which can be worked around by individual users if they are allowed choices. | |
| ▲ | baby 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Safari is so bad, I want a real chrome experience on iOS | | |
| ▲ | lokar 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Can you explain how? Poor standards implementation? Performance? UX? | | |
| ▲ | jonhohle an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | I hear this a lot, but have used Safari as my since it was launch in 2003.Performance has always been great. UI has always been minimalist, out of the way, and has never upsold me on anything. There are times where it lags and times where it leads standards. There may be a a site every now and then that doesn’t work, but iOS makes that less likely. The only thing I can ever think of is that it’s not <insert favorite browser> or doesn’t have <some favorite esoteric feature>. That said, the only plugins I use are ad blockers, so maybe I’m missing something. | | |
| ▲ | panstromek an hour ago | parent [-] | | It might look ok from user's point of view, but lot of the problems fall on web developers who have to work around a bunch of these issues to make their pages work in Safari |
| |
| ▲ | socalgal2 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | No full screen API so impossible to make lots of types of game experiences. No orientation API so impossible to make games and other experiences that require a certain orientation No WebXR (though Apple will allow it on Vision Pro) No support for ResizeObvserver devicePixelContentBoxSize so impossible to get correct rendering reguardless of user's zoom level. No simple PWA installation. Requires an obscure incantation that only expert users know. That's just a few off the top of my head. Yes, I know all the comments will be about how they don't want those features. That's really irrelevant. Allow them to be turned off. Require permissions. Those features have been shipping on other OSes, Desktop and Mobile for > 5 years and the world hasn't ended. | |
| ▲ | panstromek an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Late on a lot of standards, quirky in many ways and just a lot of bugs, especially around images and videos. Also positioning issues. They recently broke even position fixed, which broke a ton of web pages on iOS, including apple.com | |
| ▲ | vips7L 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I’d like the extension ecosystem from chrome or Firefox. I miss having real Firefox with real Ublock like on Android. | | |
| ▲ | lokar 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I find the “use reader automatically “ setting helps a lot | |
| ▲ | basisword an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | The extension ecosystem that Google has been locking down? You can get the same UBlock extension on Safari and Chrome now (on Safari desktop and iOS). | | |
| ▲ | vips7L 21 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Good thing I mentioned Firefox. Ublock on safari and iOS is not the same. |
|
| |
| ▲ | concinds an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | I cannot go through a day without "this tab has been reloaded due to a problem" on Safari iOS and any other browser. It's been happening for years, across phones. It's dogshit. Safari Mac is fine. Even if that's an edge case, it's why having only one engine is pathological. Maybe Safari iOS works fine for you. Not for me. I don't want rationalization on why it's not Apple's fault, or somehow not Safari's fault, or "they'll fix it one day", or "I'm doing it wrong", or all the fanboy-talk that sounds like the enabling relative of an alcoholic. Don't care. I should be able to switch for even the most frivolous reason. Maybe I don't like that it doesn't render every website in pink. It's like having only one type of chocolate in existence. This was never normal. |
|
| |
| ▲ | hparadiz an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Firefox exists. | |
| ▲ | herpdyderp 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I don’t see any reason why Google wouldn’t abandon web features left and right, given how they do that with everything else. | | | |
| ▲ | kmeisthax 29 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | While this excuse works today, we should not forget that this policy also meant disinviting Mozilla from the mobile browser party about a decade ago. I'd argue a good chunk of Mozilla's downfall was them chasing the pipe dream of Boot2Gecko, and that was specifically because they couldn't ship Gecko on iOS. The reason why we have a Chrome/Safari hegemony is because Apple insisted on everything being Safari on their device platforms. This combined with Android shipping WebKit for years meant that the only mobile browser engine that mattered was WebKit. Chrome is a different engine now, but it was forked from WebKit, and it used to have a lot of the same quirks. Hell, Microsoft switched to Blink specifically because Electron - their own web app shell - couldn't run on EdgeHTML. The fact that this change practically means Chrome displacing Safari is... not really all that meaningful. They're both forks of the same code. The single-engine dystopia you worry about is already here. I daily-drive Firefox, and the amount of shit Google deliberately breaks on Gecko is obvious. Like, YouTube tabs freeze up every few hours because they get stuck in garbage collection, and I have to manually kill whatever processes are running YouTube before I can watch another video. That sort of thing. | |
| ▲ | gigel82 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I'm sure if Apple keeps innovating and adopting some of the Web standards they'll outcompete other engines. But let's be realistic, they 100% are blocking other engines and not adopting standards in their own because they want that sweet sweet 30% cut when developers can't publish PWAs and are forced into the "app" model. | | |
| ▲ | cosmic_cheese 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | WebKit's progress has been significant in recent years, it's just been more focused on things like improving CSS instead of things like an API that tells the developer how many beers the user has in their fridge. | | |
| ▲ | kelthuzad 24 minutes ago | parent [-] | | You are unwittingly confirming his point. Apple isn't randomly working on random stuff, they know exactly where their bread is buttered - features that have potential of diminishing that butter get skipped, neglected or implemented half-baked. |
|
|
|
|
| ▲ | GaryBluto 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I'm surprised Apple haven't thrown in the towel and opened things up worldwide yet. It's only a matter of time until it becomes too confusing and problematic to try and run the same system relatively openly in one country and walled in another. |
| |
| ▲ | overfeed 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > It's only a matter of time until it becomes too confusing and problematic to try and run the same system relatively openly in one country and walled in another They will continue to do so for as long as it remains profitable. Navigating the complexities of multiple jurisdictions is the bread and butter of MNCs - it's the price of admission into the multinational club. Apple is guaranteed to have lawyers, admins, and executives already on the payroll for this task. | | |
| ▲ | lxgr 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Or until they’ve successfully “demonstrated” that it always was impossible. > Apple is guaranteed to have lawyers, admins, and executives already on the payroll for this task. As both a shareholder and user, I really wish they’d invest their resources into feature development instead of manufacturing obstacles. | |
| ▲ | valleyer 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Lawyers, admins, and executives, sure. But what about the complexity on the engineers who now have to maintain an exploding matrix of modes? I can definitely see that becoming burdensome. | | |
| ▲ | davnicwil 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | much has been written about the deteriorating quality of iOS. There's bluntly not strong external evidence that software quality is a driving priority at Apple in recent years, so it most probably follows that concerns about maintainability aren't either. | |
| ▲ | xp84 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You’re not wrong, it is burdensome but the sheer volume of money they secure primarily because of their license to rent-seek mercilessly (in the US especially because it’s the market they dominate most and with the weakest regulators) makes even a hilarious amount of complexity supportable. Besides, it’s mainly the users who suffer from the codebase falling apart, not Apple decision makers. | |
| ▲ | SheinhardtWigCo 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | $500k+ TC makes many burdens worth shouldering | |
| ▲ | npunt 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | they make $1b in revenue and $300mm a day in profit | |
| ▲ | theplatman 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Engineers say they want to work on hard problems then complain that they can’t solve something because it’s too complex | | |
| ▲ | MrMetric 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | The difference is this isn't an inherently hard problem. It's just stupidity. The difficulty is not inherently interesting, because it's all made up. | | |
| ▲ | xp84 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Seconded, compliance-induced complexity is the most asinine and tedious possible application of programming skills. |
|
| |
| ▲ | abacadaba 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | sounds like a problem for claude to worry about |
|
| |
| ▲ | hypeatei 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I've always thought the same. Obviously there isn't much of a technical hurdle since they have the engineering talent. But, keeping track of all these cross-region rules and training your staff+customers on it has to be quite costly in multiple respects (time, energy, mental models, etc.) My personal opinion is that keeping the browser engine locked down isn't much of a profit generator, unlike maintaining full reign over the app store would be. | | |
| ▲ | bloppe 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Hobbling browser engines is a key pillar of app store control. Decent PWA support would be a massive blow to Apple's bottom line. | | |
| ▲ | gjsman-1000 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | This is the conspiratorial version. The more likely explanation is that when every app can bundle their own browser engine, we will not see a competition explosion. Instead, Electron apps will come to mobile, with every app shipping its own browser stack. You can’t tell me Gecko, which has already failed on desktop, will suddenly be popular on mobile. You can easily tell me every app shipping their own Chromium would be very popular with developers. | | |
| ▲ | xp84 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | This is true, however I think an App Store rule that to ship a browser engine, you have to be a browser, defined as having a browser that is maintained on MacOS, Linux, and/or Windows and which can be made the default browser on those platforms. Or even simpler, it has to present web browsing to the user as the primary function and not secondary to accessing content/shopping/gaming. Seems either approach would rule out your Slack, Amazon app, etc. from shipping their own outdated 900MB Chromiums but allow Chrome, Firefox, K-Meleon, whatever. | |
| ▲ | wolvoleo 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Firefox is really good now on android. It's my go to browser now for everything. It just needed full addon support but when that was finally there it was great. | |
| ▲ | bloppe 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | a browser is essentially an app store with no 30% cut for Apple. If you can ship a browser, you don't need to pay the Apple tax | | |
| ▲ | gjsman-1000 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Has PWA become popular on unencumbered platforms like Android or Windows? No. Even if unencumbered on iOS, it will still fail, because PWA is an intrinsically confusing technology. The pitch to non-technical users is terrible. Just like passkeys, which has also been terrible. | | |
| ▲ | xp84 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It’s not that confusing. To a user it could be the same as an app, just one you can be prompted to “install” instantly without a download and without wasting space on your device. If Apple weren’t incentivized to block PWA use, they’d allow them to be “installed” with the same type of little top banner that prompts you to get/open an App Store app. Instead they relegate it to some obscure buried option inside the Safari Share menu. | |
| ▲ | judah 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > "Has PWA become popular on unencumbered platforms like Android or Windows? No." Yes, PWAs have become popular on these platforms. I work for Microsoft on the Microsoft Store (app store on Windows) and I work with the Edge team, and I work on PWABuilder.com, which publishes PWAs to app stores. Some of the most popular apps in the Microsoft Store are PWAs: Netflix, TikTok, Adobe Creative Cloud, Disney+, and many others. To view the list of PWAs in the Store, on a Windows box you can run ms-windows-store://assoc/?Tags=AppExtension-microsoft.store.edgePWA I run PWABuilder.com as well, and I can tell you that many, many PWAs get published to the Google Play Store, including some very popular ones. I agree there is some confusion around PWA installation. There are some proposed web standards with Google and Microsoft's backing to help with that, e.g. Web Install: https://github.com/MicrosoftEdge/MSEdgeExplainers/blob/main/... | |
| ▲ | kelthuzad 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | >Has PWA become popular on unencumbered platforms like Android or Windows?
No. Obviously. When a major Gatekeeper systematically holds it back to prevent it from challenging its taxation funnel, then it has no chance of competing and will thus not be chosen on competing platforms either, which will prevent its adoption and any investment in it. >Even if unencumbered on iOS, it will still fail, because PWA is an intrinsically confusing technology. PWA is not an "intrinsically confusing technology" and making such an absurd statement without proper elaboration reeks of pure bias. |
|
| |
| ▲ | kelthuzad 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | >This is the conspiratorial version. Everything that's inconvenient for your preferred narrative can just be dismissed as conspiratorial thinking, makes the world so much easier - doesnt it? I've compiled some of the evidences that makes clear how one of the Gatekeepers (Apple) has a tremendous conflict of interest, which manifested itself in systematic sabotaging of PWAs over the years: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45534316 | |
| ▲ | wizzwizz4 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Every app shipping its own Chromium isn't currently forbidden, as I understand it. They're just not allowed to use their own engines for webviews. | | |
|
|
| |
| ▲ | WD-42 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Good. The sooner I can run Firefox with the legit uBlock origin the better. | | |
| ▲ | steelbrain 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | While its not Firefox, you can run uBlock origin with the Orion browser from the Kagi people. | | |
| ▲ | WD-42 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | That’s what I’m currently doing - it’s barely functional. I’m sure it’ll get there eventually but it misses a ton of stuff the desktop version blocks. | | |
| ▲ | browningstreet 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | I'm running 1Blocker on iOS Safari, what am I not getting? | | |
| ▲ | concinds 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Proper, full blocking of ads and trackers. Just because you can't see most of them doesn't mean the network requests aren't getting through. And you're not getting a free and open-source extension. And you're not getting 3 extra bucks a month in your wallet, because those grifters made you pay for some pixels despite not contributing to the adblock lists their "business" depends on. | |
| ▲ | nvr219 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I'm using wipr and it's great. using vinegar/baking soda for video adblocks. |
|
| |
| ▲ | Imustaskforhelp 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Okay now that we have come to the topic, How is Orion browser on App store whereas all others aren't? is there a way to make more innovation in this area and maybe an extension or two developed adding more perms etc or forking Orion or the know-how behind it and replicating it could finally allow PWA on apple iphones? | | |
| ▲ | dcdc123 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | There are many browsers on the App Store but they all have to use one of two browser engines bundled with iOS. | | |
| ▲ | Imustaskforhelp 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | No you don't get me but all browsers in Iphone even firefox and chrome are webkit forks and neither of them allow any sort of extensions on top Orion is the only one I think which still supports firefox or chrome extensions as well. I am sure that it can support PWA or already does, not sure, someone should probably test it out. Theoretically if you can modify the engine enough to run firefox/chrome extensions on it when firefox/chrome themselves on Iphone can't but somehow Orion can, I don't see a reason why nobody's else doing it but combined with some really really good pwa support as well? | | |
| ▲ | dcdc123 an hour ago | parent [-] | | I don't think you get how it works. When you download a browser on iOS it does not have an engine _at all_, not even a "WebKit fork". The browser is just a UI and wrapper for one of the engines bundles in iOS. No modifications can be done to the engine whatsoever, it is part of the OS. |
|
| |
| ▲ | Apocryphon an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Orion has always been designed to use WebKit. |
|
|
| |
| ▲ | apples_oranges 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | FeatureToggles.swift | |
| ▲ | MBCook 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I don’t think you understand Apple‘s stubbornness. They DO NOT like being told what to do. They seem to have gotten a long way better with Japan in this process than the EU, but they’re still not happy about it. So they’re absolutely not gonna just roll over for everyone. | |
| ▲ | travisgriggs 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | This. It’s computation. Computation doesn’t really “get” geopolitical borders. I’m so sick of the ever increasing variances between the different “store” offerings in different regions of the world. Seems like every time I push an update (every month or so), I have to answer updated questions and declarations, often relative to different parts of the world. | | |
| ▲ | gjsman-1000 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | This is a poorly thought through argument, as there is nothing that “gets” geopolitical borders. |
|
|
|
| ▲ | Wowfunhappy 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I know this isn't new for Japan, but this requirement caught my eye: > Use memory-safe programming languages, or features that improve memory safety within other languages, within the alternative web browser engine at a minimum for all code that processes web content Would Apple themselves meet this requirement? Isn't WebKit C++? Of course, I'm not sure what would be considered "features that improve memory safety within other languages," that's kind of vague. |
| |
| ▲ | rafram 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | https://github.com/WebKit/WebKit/wiki/Safer-CPP-Guidelines | | |
| ▲ | hu3 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | Documentation to guide devs on safe usage of C++ is enough? So any language should be allowed as long as they instruct developers to be careful. | | |
| ▲ | resonious 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Compliance often works exactly like this. | |
| ▲ | creato 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I don't know if they do this, but those conventions could be enforced by a tool. | | |
| ▲ | JimmyBiscuit 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Theres C++ in military airplanes, they just cut out 90% of the features: https://www.stroustrup.com/JSF-AV-rules.pdf And heres a nice video about it: https://youtu.be/Gv4sDL9Ljww?si=Z4riPMKAKcIKaU0s | |
| ▲ | jjmarr 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | My work bans raw new and delete, so we only use unique_ptr. It's not as memory safe as Rust's borrow checker but I've never seen a segfault. | |
| ▲ | dmazzoni 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Yes, in WebKit, SaferCPP guidelines are enforced by a static analysis tool. | |
| ▲ | concinds 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yes, they do this, and it's really not an unreasonable requirement. | | |
| ▲ | arcanemachiner 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Of course. It's just a coincidence that they're placing onerous restrictions on competi- I mean alternative browser engines. Restrictions which, of course, they're not obliged to follow themselves. I am sure that Apple will make no other efforts to impede others from unwalling the garden. That would be completely ridiculous, and frankly, un-Apple-esque. | | |
| ▲ | concinds 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Both Chrome and Firefox are already compliant, so I don't see it as onerous, but the full context of the list is indeed an extremely loud and clear "FUCK YOU, WE OWN YOU" to regulators and other browser vendors. | |
| ▲ | dagmx 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Which of the restrictions do you feel they don’t abide by? It looks like they meet all their own restrictions |
|
|
|
|
| |
| ▲ | giancarlostoro 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I do wonder how long before Apple either replaces WebKit with something built in Swift, or starts slowly converting their browser engine to Swift. |
|
|
| ▲ | giobox 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Apple appear to be using the same rules that they made up when "allowing" third party browser engines in the EU. It's worth pointing out that these restrictions are such, that to best of my knowledge, no one has shipped a browser with an alternate engine in the EU app stores yet despite being permitted to for over a year now. The demand that the application with its alternate browser engine must be a completely new and separate binary from any app already using the built in browser makes it hard for existing big players like Chrome - they would have to manage two apps on the store during any transition to their own engine, which supposedly has been one of the biggest stumbling blocks for them already in the EU. |
| |
| ▲ | benoau an hour ago | parent [-] | | Another hurdle in the EU is the browser app developers must be in the EU too. |
|
|
| ▲ | rorylawless 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| My hope for laws such as the ones Japan and the EU enacted was that companies would see the writing on the wall and change their practices worldwide, if only for cost reasons (it presumably being more expensive to maintain multiple sets of rules.) However, these companies are now so large that they can choose to absorb any inefficiencies on a country-by-country basis. |
| |
| ▲ | OptionOfT 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | At a hardware level it seemed to work. Looking at USB-C on iPhones for example. Software wise? Fail. EEA gets to disable start search in Windows 11. RoW does not. Interestingly EEA membership is decided at install time based on your selection, and is not changeable afterwards. iPhones on the other hand have a daemon running that checks your location. It's not based on where you set up the phone. So traveling from Europe to somewhere else can actually prevent you from updating apps that you got via an alt-store: https://www.macrumors.com/2024/03/06/alternative-ios-app-sto... | | |
| ▲ | ryandrake 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Yea, unfortunately with software, using enough granular feature flags, they can make their software "maximally bad" for each given region. They lose a battle in the EU and are forced to make the software better? They will make it better only in the EU. Lose another one in Japan over a different issue? Just make a "japan" flag and only make it narrowly better for that use case in that region. Lose further battles in other regions, just add more flags. They will never deploy the "better" feature worldwide if they have the opportunity to limit the better code to a particular region. 1: And of course, by "better" I am always referring to "better for the user" not "better for Apple." | | |
| ▲ | gjsman-1000 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Even in a hardware level, this is easily obtainable, and Apple already does it. Chinese iPhones? They have 2 physical SIM card slots and no eSIM. EU iPhones? 1 SIM card slot, and 1 eSIM. US iPhones? 2 eSIM card slots and no physical SIM. US iPhones also have mmWave when other countries do not. If Apple wanted to, keeping a Lightning US iPhone was easily on the cards. The EU’s role in forcing the issue in the US is exaggerated. | | |
| ▲ | mod50ack 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | There are different levels to these things. The number of SIM card slots or bands varying from model to model isn't that unusual. The average user just needs it to work. In fact, the SIM and band configuration differences have nothing to do with regional legal mimina — they have more to do with the standard practice and available systems in each region (for example, mmWave isn't widely deployed outside the US). The configurations aren't really "worse" in the same way as locking down browser access is worse. Phones have had regional variants going back ~forever for pretty mundane and benign reasons. More importantly, if a user travels from one region to another, as long as they can use their phone in the place they arrive, having slightly non-optimal bands or a different SIM configuration doesn't matter. The fact that your phone is slightly different from the local model is not really a problem. But having your charger vary across regions? That's a recipe for disaster. Not only is that another level of variance in your external casing, it impacts day-to-day use. When an American user travels to, say, France, or vice versa, and wants to buy a charger, or share one with someone else, having the same model of iPhone be incompatible would be a major frustration. It would be stupid to engineer a lightning AND USB-C version of the same device for each market. | |
| ▲ | bsimpson 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | My dad got his phone stolen on day 1 of a monthlong trip. He went without a phone the whole trip, in part because he was nervous he wouldn't have the right radios if he brought a euro phone home. | | |
| ▲ | wolvoleo 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | That's true they are different. It'll still work, but the bands aren't exactly the same so it may lead to coverage issues depending on the network. |
| |
| ▲ | ryandrake 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | You make an excellent point. I would guess that it is orders of magnitude more expensive for Apple to create a new hardware configuration than it is for them to add software feature flags, though. But, assuming the cost of making the hardware change worldwide exceeds the cost of reconfiguring their factories for new hardware, you're right that they would not choose to make the hardware change worldwide. Almost certainly someone (or an entire team) carefully crunched the numbers and deliberately decided not to keep a Lightning US iPhone. |
|
| |
| ▲ | gyomu 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | 1) Apple loves USB-C, they helped invent it and were one of the first to ship a USB-C only laptop 2) Apple committed to 10 years of lightning support to weather the backlash from dropping 30-pin USB-C on iPhone was going to happen regardless of the EU. | |
| ▲ | 15155 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Sounds like a market for Faraday GPS spoofer boxes. | | |
| |
| ▲ | viktorcode 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | And what's your opinion if the law would oblige the companies to remove features their products have like tracking transparency popups? Two countries' courts already fined Apple for enforcing a popup that warns users about tracking across third party apps (a feature Apple themselves do not use)? | | |
| ▲ | rorylawless 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | My prior POV was that Apple would jettison the feature globally, but the discussion elsewhere in this thread suggests that salami slicing at the software-level is a cost larger companies are willing to bear. |
| |
| ▲ | crazygringo 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | There are many things Apple does that have anticompetitive motivations, but the browser engine doesn't seem like one of them. It's genuinely about security and battery life and standardization. So if cost was never the reason in the first place, cost is not going to be the reason to change. | | |
| ▲ | greiskul 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It is literally done for strategic reasons to put a stranglehold on innovations on the web, so that there is no risk of web app technology developing to a point to threaten the dominance of native apps and the app store. Anybody that thinks otherwise is hopeless naive, Steve Jobs himself envisioned a web app future as the future of technology; before Apple found out the gold mine that the app store became. | | |
| ▲ | crazygringo 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > to put a stranglehold on innovations on the web I think that's the hypothetical part, it's not reality. Safari continues to be a fully modern browser. It doesn't release new features quite as fast as Chrome, but it does generally adopt them. If Apple were attempting to put a "stranglehold on innovations on the web", Safari's feature set would look very different. But that's not what's happening. Like I said, Apple does lots of anticompetitive things. I'm not blind to what they do with the app store. I just don't think that the single browser engine policy is motivated by this, or has much effect on it, given how Apple does keep maintaining Safari as a modern browser. | | |
| ▲ | leptons 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It absolutely is reality. Safari is the worst browser by far, it's been compared to Microsoft's old Internet Explorer browser. But don't take my word for it, lots of people have written about it... https://www.google.com/search?q=safari+is+the+new+ie And Apple purposely will never implement lots of APIs that only their native apps allow (which other browsers implement), specifically to force many developers to create a native app to use these APIs, so that Apple can force the developer to give them a percentage of any purchases made through the app. They can't force a developer to give them a cut of purchases made through a web browser, which is why they purposely hobble the Safari browser engine and then force all other browsers to use this engine. If you can't see how bad this is, then you've been taken over by the reality distortion field. It's spelled out in the DOJ lawsuit against apple, among many other anti-competitive practices. Microsoft got sued and lost in an antitrust suit for bundling IE with Windows. Apple bundles Safari with iOS but forbids any other browser engine but their Safari engine. Can you imagine if Microsoft forbade any other browser from being installed on Windows? It's time Apple was brought to justice over their abusive anti-competitive practices. Here's the whole DOJ suit against Apple: https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/media/1344546/dl?inline | | |
| ▲ | ChadNauseam 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I suspect it might have been motivated by antitrust concerns, but safari is really not that bad. Check out Interop 2025: https://wpt.fyi/interop-2025 They generally are pretty caught up on features. They have webgpu, they support the web notifications API (once a PWA is installed), lots of stuff. My main gripe is that they make it too hard to install PWAs, but we're still waiting for an actual API for that. (Maybe in 2027? [0]) > And Apple purposely will never implement lots of APIs that only their native apps allow (which other browsers implement) Can you give an example? [0]: https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2025/11/24/the-web-insta... | | |
| ▲ | concinds an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | No, it's just not true. Interop 2025 is a subset of web features, but Apple gets a veto on which features get included in each Interop round, and vetoes heavily. It doesn't reflect interoperability in general. Safari also consistently starts out the worst each year, and improves the slowest. They don't support notifications correctly, they have a semi-broken implementation. Only a subset of sites will work, even though they'll work perfectly on Chrome or Firefox or even minor browsers. Even if you put the site on the homescreen. | |
| ▲ | leptons 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Safari is the worst browser by far, especially on iOS. Apple also does things their own way, ignoring standards, so that I have to have a real actual iPhone to debug their platform-specific problems, especially around touch interactions. >Can you give an example? Web Bluetooth API, and lots of others. My product could use bluetooth but we're forced to work around Apple's Safari limitations and use Wifi instead, which drains the battery faster. We do not want to write a specific app for iOS (which costs us money to build and maintain), which then allows Apple to extort us for a percentage of sales through the app. Bluetooth would be the better option, but Wifi works although is a bit more cumbersome to deal with. So sorry Apple fans, you have to use wifi with our product because Apple reasons. I am going to open a bottle of champagne when the DOJ finally forces Apple to allow other browsers on iOS. https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/media/1344546/dl?inline | |
| ▲ | jauntywundrkind 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Personally my feel is Safari at least isn't dead in the water any more, does ship some stuff. It's much better than 2 years ago. 4 years ago it was a travesty. But there's still all sorts of wonkiness they just makes Safari non viable. If you don't PWA install, your storage gets cleared alarmingly quickly. If you do install it's still cleared wicked fast. Notifications seem to have incredibly unreliable delivery issues and require PWA installs to work at all. The features are closer to parity than before but the base functionality is still sabotaged deeply. 'The user is secure' with Apple is amazing doublespeak (the second meaning being securely in Apple's pocket with no where to go). It's worth noting that Interop participants meet and decide via unanimous consent what they are going to work on each year. The anti-trust case against Apple would be far stronger if they didn't show up & find some stuff to work on, to agree to. And with apologies as I break out the tin foil hat, showing up also gives them some leverage to shape what doesn't get worked on too. | |
| ▲ | kelthuzad 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | >> And Apple purposely will never implement lots of APIs that only their native apps allow (which other browsers implement) >Can you give an example? Web Bluetooth, Web USB, Web NFC, Web Serial... Of course Apple will uphold its usual charade to claim that it's about pRiVacy & sEcuRiTy to maintain plausible deniability. They could easily implement it and keep it disabled by default, such that users could make the conscious choice to enable it or keep it disabled. Any adequate analysis of Apple's behavior and motivations must mention Apple's conflict of interest, because Apple will be biased against technology that could diminish the value proposition of "native" apps which Apple has been taxing so unchallenged for all these years. | | |
| ▲ | troupo 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Web Bluetooth, Web USB, Web NFC, Web Serial Chrome-only non-standards. Note that Firefox is against these, too. > Any adequate analysis of Apple's behavior and motivations must mention Apple's conflict of interest I've yet to see an adequate analysis that doesn't pretend that anything Chrome shits, sorry, ships is immediately a standard that must absolutely be implemented by everyone immediately. | | |
| ▲ | kelthuzad 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | You're right that Firefox also opposes some of these specific implementations in its current form, and that Google often rushes features. However, that doesn't diminish Apple's conflict of interest at all, so sometimes their arguments happen to align with reality just as a broken clock is correct twice a day. Apple applies many double standards e.g. they allow native apps to access these hardware features (where they happen to collect a 30% tax) but block the Web from doing the same (where they collect 0%). If privacy was the only concern, they would work on a safe standard, but instead they block the capability entirely to ensure that any of the App Store's rivals remain constrained and thus inferior such that the App Store's revenue isn't threatened. | | |
| ▲ | troupo 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > You're right that Firefox also opposes some of these specific implementations in its current form, and that Google often rushes features. However, that doesn't diminish Apple's conflict of interest at all Funny how you agree that Firefox opposes these non-standards, and how Google rushes things. And immediately turn around and basically say "no-no-no, Apple is to blame and Safari (and, by extension Firefox) must absolutely implement these non-standard features from Chrome". The rest of demagoguery is irrelevant. BTW literally the moment Firefox relented and implemented WebMIDI they had originally opposed, they immediately ran into tracking/fingerprinting attempts using WebMIDI that Chrome just couldn't care less about. | | |
| ▲ | kelthuzad 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | >Funny how you agree that Firefox opposes these non-standards, and how Google rushes things. And immediately turn around and basically say "no-no-no, Apple is to blame and Safari (and, by extension Firefox) must absolutely implement these non-standard features from Chrome". There is nothing "funny" about me acknowledging facts, that's what a reasonable person should always do, try it. What's not funny though, is how you're butchering and misrepresenting my arguments to such a gross degree. I've never stated that everybody "must implement these non-standard features from Chrome", instead I've made a much more nuanced argument about how Apple's conflict of interest is motivating them to reject entire feature sets for competing technology instead of helping to implement a safe standard, which is indicative of their bad faith motivations. That anti-competitive strategy has been essential for Apple in collecting billions in app taxes by systematically hobbling any competition before it can emerge. >BTW literally the moment Firefox relented and implemented WebMIDI they had originally opposed, they immediately ran into tracking/fingerprinting attempts using WebMIDI that Chrome just couldn't care less about. So? Just as native apps give users certain freedoms that can have problematic aspects, web apps should have _equal rights_ and be able to play on a level playing field. The choice and freedom should be the users' and not that of Apple's finance division. None of this gives Apple the right to uphold its anti-competitive strategy with its corporate double speak. And the fact that you're so hyperfocused on specifics while failing to grasp the broader argument, so you can cheerlead for Apple's anti-competitive behavior, is revealing a clear bias. | | |
| ▲ | troupo 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Apple's conflict of interest is motivating them to reject entire feature sets for competing technology instead of helping to implement a safe standard It literally is "everyone must immediately implement anything Chrome shits out". You don't even accept the fact that both Safari and Firefox team reject the entire premise on the same grounds. Nope. "They must work on better standards for these features that Chrome ships". > The choice and freedom should be the users' and not that of Apple's finance division. Funny how in the paragraph you respond to I didn't mention Apple once. > And the fact that you're so hyperfocused on specifics while failing to grasp the broader argument There's no broader argument. You literally dismiss Firefox as irrelevant [1], assume that whatever Chrome ships is good, and assumes that Apple is both a bad actor driven entirely by money an must implement whatever Chrome comes up with (under the guise of "should work to implement a safe standard"). [1] Their position on these Chrome features is literally the same as Apple's https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/ | | |
| ▲ | kelthuzad an hour ago | parent [-] | | >It literally is "everyone must immediately implement anything Chrome shits out". You don't even accept the fact that both Safari and Firefox team reject the entire premise on the same grounds. It isn't factually and certainly not "literally" that. I've explicitly stated that the problem isn't the rejection of the specific implementation in its current form, but the wholesale refusal of features to deny rival technology equal rights, instead of helping to implement a safe standard. That is evidence of Apple's bad faith motivation to hobble competing technology in favor of their App Store tax funnel. You consistently refuse to understand this and resort to deflecting from and distorting that fact. >There's no broader argument. There is, it's the one you've been deflecting and distracting from, because it refutes your biased talking points completely. >You literally dismiss Firefox as irrelevant [1][1] Their position on these Chrome features is literally the same as Apple's https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/ No I don't. You're literally making stuff up and ignoring the fact that I have actually even started my response with an acknowledgement of that point: "You're right that Firefox also opposes some of these specific implementations in its current form, and that Google often rushes features. However, that doesn't diminish Apple's conflict of interest at all, so sometimes their arguments happen to align with reality just as a broken clock is correct twice a day." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46457938 >and assumes that Apple is both a bad actor driven entirely by money an must implement whatever Chrome comes up with There is no such assumption, only the fact that Apple has a conflict of interest, which manifests itself in anti-competitive behavior, for which I've provided documented evidence. I've also never stated that they "must implement whatever Chrome comes up with", that's a gross misrepresentation, which you are stubbornly repeating, despite me having refuted it several times now. Your bias in this matter couldn't be more obvious, due to your dedication to distorting any evidence that refutes Apple's propaganda narrative, so you keep blindly repeating the same tired and old talking points despite evidence to the contrary. |
|
|
|
| |
| ▲ | xp84 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Are the Chrome features useful? Are they open? If it’s bad for users (e.g. some new ad tracking) or if it’s proprietary and thus expensive to license or reverse engineer that’s one thing, but if it’s not that, then refusing to ever adopt those standards (or to provide their own alternatives) is either foolish NIH syndrome on Apple’s part or it’s greed. | | |
| ▲ | troupo 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > If it’s bad for users (e.g. some new ad tracking) Yes > but if it’s not that, then refusing to ever adopt those standards (or to provide their own alternatives) is either foolish NIH syndrome on Apple’s part or it’s greed. Note that Firefox's position is literally exactly the same as Apple's on these Chrome-only features: https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/ |
|
|
|
| |
| ▲ | givinguflac 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You seriously just link to a google search of people who agree with you?? Solid investigation. Hard disagree on safari being even in the same ballpark as IE; what’s your alternative, Google owns the entirety of the browser space? | | |
| ▲ | xp84 an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | I don’t really agree with allowing one monopolistic company to behave anticompetitively because we’re scared of their only competitor, another monopolist. They’re both menaces to consumer rights. | |
| ▲ | leptons 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I included that link not as "research" but as proof that I am not the only one calling Safari "the new IE". It's been written about ad nauseum, and just because you think a google search is pointless doesn't mean my argument lacks merit - and if you were to do your own "research", I'd bet you would start with a google search. Thousands of people have written about it, so go see what they have to say, I am not the only one claiming it. >Hard disagree on safari being even in the same ballpark as IE; It's a crap browser, and Apple implements things the way they want to, especially around touch interactions. So I have to have a real iPhone to debug problems with Apple's implementations. Safari fucking sucks, it just does, and your trolling comment doesn't disprove it. >what’s your alternative, Google owns the entirety of the browser space? I don't care if they do or if they don't. All I want is an alternative to Safari on iOS. Is that really so bad?? https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/media/1344546/dl?inline | | |
| ▲ | crazygringo 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > So I have to have a real iPhone to debug problems with Apple's implementations. Safari fucking sucks You'll still have to debug it. Even when other browsers are allowed, Safari isn't going away. "Safari fucking sucks" isn't an argument that Apple is being anticompetitive. There are a bunch of things that suck about Chrome too. And Firefox as well. No product is perfect. |
|
| |
| ▲ | otterley 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I’m truly curious: as either a user or a developer, how are you impacted by Apple’s behavior and decisions with respect to its web browser engine policy? What is it preventing you from accomplishing? | | |
| ▲ | leptons 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Specifically for me, my company has a product that could use Bluetooth, but Safari will never implement the Web Bluetooth API, where Chrome has for some time on Android. So the workaround is to use Wifi instead (my product supports both bluetooth and Wifi), which drains the phone battery faster. No, we do not want to write our own iOS app where Apple can then extort us for a percentage of any sales through the app, and we have to pay for the priviledge to develop that app, as well as buy Apple hardware to do so. So instead we use Wifi, where we can maintain one single codebase - the web application, which works on both Android and iOS, but has to use Wifi. If Apple allowed Chrome to use its own browser engine, we would simply tell users to install Chrome to interact with our device. Then we don't have to pay Apple for anything, nor should we have to. Apple purposely won't implement some APIs so they can force developers to create an app for their app store where they can collect money from any additional sales through the app. It's all spelled out in the DOJ suit, why won't you just read it?? https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/media/1344546/dl?inline | | |
| ▲ | crazygringo 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Apple purposely won't implement some APIs so they can force developers to create an app for their app store where they can collect money from any additional sales through the app. So then why doesn't Firefox support the Web Bluetooth API either? How can you jump to the conclusion that the lack of Safari support is about apps? The reality is that the Web Bluetooth API is a draft. Not ratified. Not on the formal standards track. And Firefox doesn't even intend to implement it, due to security and privacy concerns around it and the fact that is it not ratified. But go on assuming it's all about being anticompetitive... > It's all spelled out in the DOJ suit, why won't you just read it? I just did a Ctrl+F for Bluetooth and everything relates to smartwatches, not web APIs. There are only two references to Safari, none of which say anything about standards. The phrase "web standard" appears nowhere. The document is 88 pages long, and it's not immediately obvious to me where any of what you're talking about is spelled out. I hope you'll understand I'm not going to spend my afternoon reading the whole thing. | |
| ▲ | otterley 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It’s not alleged in the complaint that Apple cripples Safari in order to incentivize developers to build apps instead. Respectfully, did you read it? Also, why would your company cut off its nose to spite its face? If using Bluetooth is a customer requirement (as opposed to merely a “nice to have”), why wouldn’t you go to the lengths to provide an app for them? |
|
| |
| ▲ | troupo 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > https://www.google.com/search?q=safari+is+the+new+ie Which is of course bullshit --- start quote --- The allegation that Safari is holding back web development by its lack of support for key features is not new, but it’s not true, either. Back fifteen years ago IE held back the web because web developers had to cater to its outdated technology stack. “Best viewed with IE” and all that. But do you ever see a “Best viewed with Safari” notice? No, you don’t. Another browser takes that special place in web developers’ hearts and minds. ...even though Chrome is not the standard, it’s treated as such by many web developers. https://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2021/08/breaking_th... --- end quote --- |
| |
| ▲ | aryonoco 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Safari is the modern IE. the fact that PWAs didn’t take off in the last decade js purely due to Safari. The only reason Apple has banned alternative engines and continues to hold back on major web technologies is anticompetitive behaviour. | | |
| ▲ | ryandrake 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | No, I think Chrome is the modern IE. It has huge market share, to the point where developers often just ignore the other browsers or at best treat them as P2. Just like they did when IE was dominant. I'm torn on this honestly. Safari (particularly mobile Safari) is literally the only thing keeping the web from becoming Chrome-only. While I would love to see Safari-alternative engines on the iPhone, I fear that the "open web" in terms of browser compatibility is cooked the day that happens: Commercial web developers are supremely lazy and their product managers are, too. They will consider the web Chrome-only from that day forward and simply refuse to lift a finger for other browsers. I think when IE6 died, on one hand it was a relief for web developers, who (very quickly) deleted all the code needed to maintain compatibility, but on the other hand, it made the web worse by bringing us closer to browser monopoly. | | |
| ▲ | xp84 an hour ago | parent [-] | | Chrome is the IE in that it’s all the web devs target or test and the browser that every enterprise just uses as the assumed target. Safari is the late-stage IE that doesn’t add any features or modern standards that its (supposed) competitors add. Although Apple seems to have different and more strategic reasons than MS did. Apple just hates the Web because they can’t effectively tollbooth it, whereas I think MS just didn’t care about investing in IE after 2001 or so. |
| |
| ▲ | crazygringo 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Safari is the modern IE. That's not true. It's not even available on most computers. IE was about Microsoft not following web standards and abusing its monopoly position; Safari is a minor browser by overall market share and is broadly standards-compliant. > the fact that PWAs didn’t take off in the last decade js purely due to Safari. So then why aren't PWA's super-popular on Windows and on Android? Since Safari doesn't affect those? | | |
| ▲ | kelthuzad 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | >So then why aren't PWA's super-popular on Windows and on Android? Since Safari doesn't affect those? Says who? "Yes, PWAs have become popular on these platforms. I work for Microsoft on the Microsoft Store (app store on Windows) and I work with the Edge team, and I work on PWABuilder.com, which publishes PWAs to app stores. Some of the most popular apps in the Microsoft Store are PWAs: Netflix, TikTok, Adobe Creative Cloud, Disney+, and many others. To view the list of PWAs in the Store, on a Windows box you can run ms-windows-store://assoc/?Tags=AppExtension-microsoft.store.edgePWA" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46457849 | |
| ▲ | realusername 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Safari is a minor browser by overall market share and is broadly standards-compliant. It's officially compliant but in practice there's a lot of buggy implementations in Safari and you'll spend lots of time on workarounds and debugging. It's also the last non-evergreen browser being tied to the OS so it's the slowest to update, compounding that effect. > So then why aren't PWA's super-popular on Windows and on Android? Since Safari doesn't affect those? Personally I think that's because it's still not that convenient even on Android even if better. | | |
| ▲ | crazygringo 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | If those are the extent of complaints, then I think Safari's doing just fine. That's nothing like the next IE, and shows that PWA still have their own problems regardless of Apple. | | |
| ▲ | kelthuzad 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | It's interesting how the "Apple can do no wrong" shareholders and "I will hate on PWAs no matter what" types, curiously converge and keep regurgitating the same talking points that have been addressed ad nauseam, even in this thread. Every technology has its "own problems" regardless of Apple, but it certainly doesn't help when Apple, being one of the biggest companies in the world, persistently engages in its sabotage. |
|
|
|
|
| |
| ▲ | avar 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Steve Jobs himself envisioned a
> web app future as the future of[...]
I'm not putting cynical motivations past Apple, but you're reading too much (or too little?) into what Jobs said at the time.His remarks at the time of the initial iPhone release (with the benefit of hindsight) were clearly because they weren't ready to expose any sort of native API's. Pissing on you and telling you it's raining was typical Jobs reality distortion field marketing, and not an indication that he actually believed it was raining. | |
| ▲ | otterley 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Anybody that thinks otherwise is hopeless naive This is inappropriate. People can reasonably disagree without being insulting to each other. If you have concrete evidence that Apple is deliberately withholding some essential advancement in Safari or its support for Web standards so that it can sell more apps, by all means, cite it. | | |
| ▲ | greiskul 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | https://www.google.com/search?q=safari+is+the+new+ie Just read the summary that Gemini provides for a good quick understanding, and follow up the multiple articles about it. Then please don't come back and say that there is nothing concrete about this evidence, that is just people speculating about a behavior that Apple has been engaging repeatedly and continuously for over a decade. | | |
| ▲ | xp84 an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Look, I agree that Safari sucks, but with or without the AI overview (which I don’t believe is Gemini, rather that is a very cheap and dumb model that’s been told to summarize a few top results), linking to a search is not a strong debating technique. I could link to a search for “Safari has the best technology” and it would have the same zero value. | |
| ▲ | otterley 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It is you that needs to cite the evidence, not some LLM, and with hard facts coupled with evidence of intent, not just referring to mere opinions. You claim to know something with certainty, so one can reasonably expect you have the expertise and data to prove it. If you come to the kitchen claiming to be a chef, you’d better come with sharp knives, not photos of them. | |
| ▲ | givinguflac 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Seriously, you expect people to click a Google search link for people who agree with you- and then read what the LLM has to say?? When did HN become a garbage dump where people don’t do their own research and/or thinking? | | |
| ▲ | otterley 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | About 10 years ago, by my reckoning. The less people know about a subject, the more strongly opinionated and certain they are about it. It’s not just HN, though; it’s a very human condition. |
|
|
|
| |
| ▲ | toast0 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | If browser F is worse at battery life than browser S, people will figure that out and adapt for themselves. If it's a big difference, it's self-evident; and small differences should show up in the battery life tool and computer press. Security-wise, the sandbox should limit damage to within the browser, and if it doesn't that's not the browser's fault. Maybe restrict access to password filling and such though / figure out how to offer an API to reduce the impact. Standardization, eh? Forcing Safari on iOS and not making it available on the mass market platforms (Android and Windows) makes it a pretty wonky standard. I guess there's a claim to be made for the embedded browsing engine, but IMHO, that should be an app developer choice. | | |
| ▲ | michaelt 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > If browser F is worse at battery life than browser S, people will figure that out and adapt for themselves. Unfortunately, the makers of a certain browser also control several major web properties, and regularly make 'mistakes' that break compatibility with competing browsers, while releasing a set of apps that 'forget' users' browser selections on a monthly basis. Personally, I'd much prefer apple allowed a browser engine with proper ad blocking support. But I do worry that the moment they do so, the almost-monopoly browser market would become a total monopoly. | |
| ▲ | n8cpdx 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Safari exclusivity is the only reason we aren’t living in a 100% “this site built for chrome” world. I think folks must forget the IE days and how bad that was. There is zero percent chance developers are wasting a second making sure their sites actually work cross platform if not for iOS (and iOS more moneyed user base). | | |
| ▲ | xp84 an hour ago | parent [-] | | We were in a “built for Netscape” world right before IE had its brief window of innovation in versions 4-5. The fact that people were building to IE though was only painful for a few specific reasons:
1. the versions of IE targeted were exclusive to Windows (Mac IE was way different, so it wasn’t that useful for when the site had targeted Windows IE) 2. IE stopped all development of useful UI or web standards features, meaning if you needed the compatibility you were stuck with a stagnant browser 3. Due to #2, of course web devs hands were tied when it comes to adopting things like HTML5, <video> tags etc. Users would have needed to switch between the two constantly — Firefox for cool new sites and IE for their bank, school, government, whatever. I would posit that none of the above seems true about Chromium. They do continue developing it, they add new web standards the most aggressively of anyone, and it’s available on basically every platform except the one Apple bans it from.
Mind you I don’t really want Google to own it, because they are way too damn big even without Chrome… but honestly it’s no IE situation. |
| |
| ▲ | Tagbert 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Safari has long been better for battery than Chrome but people still install Chrome on their MacBooks. | | |
| ▲ | cosmic_cheese 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yep. Chrome's mindshare and momentum is incredibly difficult to overcome, and outside of technology-oriented circles users generally don't develop associations between specific programs and poor battery life unless it gets the fans blaring like you're running Cyberpunk 2077 with setting cranked to max or something. It's similar to how the overwhelming majority of people driving cars aren't going to make note of the difference in driving dynamics between CVT and automatic transmissions unless one severely underperforms compared to the other. It either runs or it doesn't and that's where the distinction ends for people who treat their car/computer/phone as an appliance. |
| |
| ▲ | crazygringo 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > people will figure that out and adapt for themselves No they won't. People on HN will. Not the average person. > Security-wise, the sandbox should limit damage to within the browser The problem is, arbitrary code execution vastly expands the risks. Your "should" is doing all the work there. > Standardization, eh? Forcing Safari on iOS and not making it available on the mass market platforms Huh? Apple follows web standards. Why the heck should it make Safari available on Android and Windows? Safari isn't a standard, web standards are. | | |
| ▲ | leptons 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | >> people will figure that out and adapt for themselves >No they won't. People on HN will. Not the average person. Yes they will, Apple has made it very easy to see. To check iOS app power usage, go to Settings > Battery, where you'll see a breakdown of battery consumption by app for the last 24 hours or 10 days, showing usage time and background activity, allowing you to identify power-hungry apps and manage settings like Background App Refresh to improve battery life. So yeah, it's easy to see which app is taking the most power, and users can do this easily, unless you think Apple's UX is so bad that users won't know how to read it? >The problem is, arbitrary code execution vastly expands the risks. Your "should" is doing all the work there. If that's a problem for web browsers, then it's a problem for every single app in the app store. There's nothing really unique about a web browser app that makes it more risky than any other app. Javascript is already very much sandboxed. And there have been plenty of exploits that already target Safari. So saying other browsers are the problem is like blaming the victim (of Apple's anti-competitive practices). >Huh? Apple follows web standards. Why the heck should it make Safari available on Android and Windows? Safari isn't a standard, web standards are. If web standards are standards, then let other web browsers on iOS. The real reason Apple disallows other browser engines on Safari is so they can force developers to create native apps where they can get a cut of any purchase made through the app. The problems with Apple's anti-competitive practices have been spelled out in the DOJ lawsuit against them: https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/media/1344546/dl?inline | | |
| ▲ | otterley 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Apple made it very clear that their security concerns related to third party browsing engines are about difficult-to-contain threats posed by JIT compilation. (JITs require non-text memory pages to be executable.) Apple doesn’t allow other apps to use such technology, so they’re consistent in that respect. Apple even disables JIT for Safari itself when you put an iPhone in lockdown mode, at no small cost to performance, in an effort to harden the device even more. Do you have a rebuttal to that? | | |
| ▲ | concinds an hour ago | parent [-] | | Yes. Safari is a less secure browser than Chrome, architecturally. Took far longer to ship sandboxing. Still hasn't fixed SLAP and FLOP. Still hasn't shipped proper site isolation. Takes far longer to fix reported vulnerabilities, and consistently "fixes" them superficially and incorrectly, requiring another fix. Enough with the Apple fanboy paternalism. They don't need absolute control "for users' sake". They're not entitled to it. | | |
| ▲ | otterley an hour ago | parent [-] | | > Still hasn't fixed SLAP and FLOP. Still hasn't shipped proper site isolation. Those are interesting facts, but are ultimately a red herring. How will enabling JIT for other browser engines, absent the detailed vetting Apple is requiring to provide a Web Browser Engine entitlement, yield a more secure outcome? > Enough with the Apple fanboy paternalism. They don't need absolute control "for users' sake". They're not entitled to it. You are, of course, welcome to choose an alternative. If you prefer Android, by all means, use it! | | |
| ▲ | concinds 40 minutes ago | parent [-] | | The "vetting" is irrelevant because the other engines will continue to not exist. By design. I am currently forced to use a less secure browser due to Apple's restrictions, which invalidates your original claim. Your skillful dodging of that point is why it's so frustrating to have any conversation about Apple. There really are cult-like aspects. | | |
|
|
| |
| ▲ | swiftcoder 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > So yeah, it's easy to see which app is taking the most power, and users can do this easily, unless you think Apple's UX is so bad that users won't know how to read it? It's easy to see, but seeing doesn't mean the user will do anything about it. I guarantee that for the average user, their list goes something like Instagram/TikTok/FaceBook/Twitter, and they haven't uninstalled any of those yet due to battery drain... | |
| ▲ | crazygringo 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > go to Settings > Battery, where you'll see a breakdown of battery consumption by app And what percentage of users do you think ever check that, or even know it's there to check? > If that's a problem for web browsers, then it's a problem for every single app in the app store. No it's not, the app store disallows arbitrary code execution. > There's nothing really unique about a web browser app that makes it more risky than any other app. Yes there is -- JavaScript. > Javascript is already very much sandboxed. ...by Safari. It wouldn't be if you allowed any developer to write their own JavaScript interpreter as part of their own browser. > If web standards are standards, then let other web browsers on iOS. That's a non-sequitur. | | |
| ▲ | leptons 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | >And what percentage of users do you think ever check that, or even know it's there to check? It does not matter. The functionality is there. If a user can't figure it out then they have other problems that having a smartphone won't fix for them. >No it's not, the app store disallows arbitrary code execution. You mean Javascript interpreters inside a web browser? lol. You mean like Safari is allowed to do? So only Apple can allow Apple apps to do this? I'm not sure you're thinking this through. Apples rule is a made-up rule designed to keep competition out, and force developers to write native apps so Apple can extort the developers by taking a percentage of purchases made through the native app. >Yes there is -- JavaScript. That's the dumbest possible argument you could make. Javascript has been very much sandboxed and secure for a very long time. There have been flaws in Safari that allowed remote code execution had nothing to do with Javascript, so good luck moving that goalpost somewhere else. >...by Safari. It wouldn't be if you allowed any developer to write their own JavaScript interpreter as part of their own browser. I'm not recommending my users use H@ck0rbR0Ws3R, I'm recommending they use Google Chrome, specifically because it supports the APIs my company needs to use for our product (on Android at least). Okay Tim Apple, the DOJ is coming for you. You can explain this all to them when they come knocking, and they will. |
|
|
|
| |
| ▲ | gumby271 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The web browser is the singular hole in Apple's grip over the user's device. While there are definitely arguments that can be made about security, I think it's naive to think that Apple is unaware of this and is operating on something other than protecting their app store fortune. | |
| ▲ | 8note 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | why wouldnt they just drop safari and switch to firefox with ublock origin included in that case? adtech is the big security and performance drain and allowing ads and making them hard to block is a big security and performance gap |
|
|
|
| ▲ | arn3n 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Especially with Apple, I often see people scared that if they open up their ecosystem, then users will lose one of the most consumer friendly tech companies out there. It’s not just “if apple allows alternative browsers then Chrome will win”, which is (probably) true. It’s: * If Apple allows alternative app stores then the whole ios ecosystem will rot and be foooded with malware, brough up during the Apple vs. Epic cases * If Apple can’t control the data on their user’s phones, then privacy rights will disappear, a common talking point during the Apple vs. Facebook case for opt-in data collection. And like, these points are correct — Apple kind of acts like a “benevolent dictator” when it comes to their ecosystem. But shouldn’t there be alternatives between “Apple can control all software on the hardware they sell” and “the moment Apple doesn’t have control of their user’s experience then it’ll be far worse”? Like, we should have more tech companies, more options to pick from between these two extremes. The market needs to be more competitive, and if that isn’t possible shouldn’t there be regulation to protect users and devs better? This constantly feels like a “pick your poison“ kind of deal, where we can only pick between a company locking down their hardware or abuse of users via. software. If Microsoft banned alternative browser engines there’d be riots in these comments. Apple is just better to its users. Giving companies the power to lock down hardware they sell isn’t a solution that will work when Apple inevitably turns against its users, and is a horrible precedent to set legally. Lord knows John Deere and a million other predatory hardware companies are salivating at the idea of users of their hardware not having control over what they bought, and Meta and Microsoft love the idea of users not having control of the software they run and the data it collects. We can’t just picking between the least worst of two companies. |
| |
| ▲ | concinds 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It's weird that people never distill those arguments to their most basic logic. Apple directly dictate the shape, speed, and existence of any innovation on iOS, and by extension, any innovation involving mobile phones or meant to run on mobile phones. They don't simply have "power" over it, in the sense that they get to say "Yes" or "No". iOS is locked down in such a fundamental way that any innovation will not come about unless Apple specifically envisions it and designs the OS to support it. Browsers didn't exist when Windows 1.0 came out. But they happened. If it had been iOS, there would have been no networking, no JIT (I know that came later, bear with me), Firefox/Gecko could never have existed and been able to fix the web. Apple alone would have controlled the evolution of the most important tech of the past few decades. It couldn't have existed in the first place unless Apple, and no one else, invented it and put it in iOS themselves. Basic OS features: files and the filesystem, sharing, casting your screen, communicating with other devices. It doesn't exist until Apple makes it. It doesn't change until Apple changes it. Even something as simple as file syncing. They forced Dropbox, GDrive, OneDrive to adopt their shitty, buggy backend. Those services all had to drop basic features to adapt. Those features can't ever come back unless Apple allows them. Any hypothetical new features won't exist unless Apple, and no one else, thinks of them and adds them. How is this sane? | |
| ▲ | robertoandred 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Isn’t the alternative Android? |
|
|
| ▲ | koolba 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Does this mean we'll finally have "real" firefox with support for ublock origin on iOS? |
| |
| ▲ | modeless 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Apple is going to (mostly) obey the letter of the law but they will continue to resist strongly in every way they can. Onerous requirements, arbitrary restrictions, overzealous enforcement, and most of all bad APIs with limited capabilities and no workarounds for bugs. Shipping a good and complete browser engine on iOS will require more than just developers. You'll also need a team of lawyers to threaten and sue Apple to get their policy restrictions relaxed and APIs fixed. I doubt Mozilla or Google will be willing to spend the many developer-years and lawyer-years it will take to fully port every feature of a whole engine and properly maintain it in such a hostile environment, just for the Japan market. I expect to see some hobbyist-level ports but not something worth using for a long time. Unless other countries follow suit. | | |
| ▲ | arcanemachiner 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | > just for the Japan market Also the EU, no? | | |
| ▲ | modeless 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Does the EU also require third party engines to be able to replace the web view in apps systemwide? Or does it only require that single standalone browser apps can use alternative engines? | | |
| ▲ | concinds 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Does the EU also require third party engines to be able to replace the system web view in apps systemwide? Yes. | | |
| ▲ | modeless 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Hmm, actually now that I look closer at the Japan requirements, it doesn't seem to allow replacing the web view systemwide, as I thought, and as Android allows. And neither do the EU requirements. They only allow individual apps to embed an alternative engine on a per-app basis by including the whole engine within the app. And the Japan page includes the caveat "apps from browser engine stewards" which if interpreted zealously (and I expect Apple to) would forbid apps not from Google or Mozilla from embedding Chromium or Gecko. This is a pretty big limitation considering how much iOS web browsing happens in web views. Having both the EU and Japan as markets may be enough for Google to port Chromium just for Chrome itself, but we will have to wait and see. Actually Chromium development is open so it should be pretty easy to see if Google has a serious porting effort or not. | | |
| ▲ | concinds 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > neither do the EU requirements Wrong, they do specify "standalone web browsers as well as web browsers integrated or embedded in software or similar" are both covered, that's in the law. What you're referring to is how Apple chose to implement it. The EU hasn't opened a compliance case on Safari yet but I expect they'll do so at some point. | | |
| ▲ | modeless 7 minutes ago | parent [-] | | It's not clear to me that the EU rules make Apple's implementation illegal. I hope they do. |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| ▲ | Zak 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Probably not, at least not from Mozilla themselves. They cite onerous requirements and the difficulty of having to maintain different apps for different regions. https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/26/24052067/mozilla-apple-io... | | | |
| ▲ | nntwozz 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | There is ublock origin lite for Safari in the meantime: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home?tab=readme-ov-file (it's great) | |
| ▲ | viktorcode 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Probably not, as the same rules were applied to Apple devices in EU earlier, and no third party browser engines appeared. But right now you can use uBlock origin lite in Safari. Or any other of multitude of other adblockers. | |
| ▲ | ckcheng 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | FYI. iOS Safari already supports uBlock Origin Lite. iOS Firefox can do the same anytime but it already has some tracking and content blocking built in too. | | |
| ▲ | aryonoco 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | As someone who has recently switched from Android to iOS, I can tell you uBlock Origin Lite on Safari on iOS is a poor man’s imitation of the real uBlock Origin on Firefox on Android. | | |
| ▲ | ckcheng 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Oh definitely! I know you’re just using the phrase and don’t imply otherwise, but to clarify the word “imitation”, uBO lite is not a fake imitation but actually an official thing from uBO and Raymond Hill: see https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home | |
| ▲ | LetsGetTechnicl 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | How does it compare to 1Blocker? I use that in Safari and also a VPN when I'm away back to my home connection so it uses my NextDNS which also blocks a lot of in-app ads. | |
| ▲ | mi_lk 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | are there major sites that don't work for you? |
|
| |
| ▲ | Longhanks 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Could’ve happened some time ago already in the EU, so there must be reasons for Firefox an Google not to ship their own engines (yet?). | |
| ▲ | mrtesthah 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You can actually use full uBlock origin in Kagi's Orion iOS browser. | |
| ▲ | swiftcoder 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Nope. Apple has successfully made the rules so complicated that we still don't have any 3rd party browser engines in the EU, more than a year later. | |
| ▲ | __turbobrew__ 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | uBO lite works pretty well on ios/safari for me. |
|
|
| ▲ | Schnitz 28 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I wonder what technical detail makes this so hard to enable for other locales. |
| |
|
| ▲ | concinds 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The separate-binary requirement makes it completely DOA, so they're still breaking the law. Deliberately. It bans actions that make it unlikely for browsers to adopt alternative engines. And they mandate no sharing of login-state with any other app from the same developer, despite violating that themselves (Safari sync is turned on by default, no encryption by default). Funny. And they mandate blocking third-party cookies, great but completely inappropriate for an OS to impose. The most hilarious: > Prioritize resolving reported vulnerabilities with expedience [...] Most vulnerabilities should be resolved in 30 days, but some may be more complex and may take longer. Apple does not comply with this. |
|
| ▲ | ninkendo 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The fact we still can't get this in the US is atrocious. They have already paid the cost to implement this for the EU and Japan, but simply don't allow it for US users because... spite, I guess? Horrible. It reminds me of when I asked for my account to be deleted from some online learning site (Udacity maybe?) And they're response was: "Nope, we only do that for European users." Like they went through all the effort of implementing a proper way to delete your data, but they just... don't do it if you're not in the right geographic area. |
| |
| ▲ | swiftcoder 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > They have already paid the cost to implement this for the EU and Japan, but simply don't allow it for US users because... If by "this", you mean "a set of rules so complicated that no 3rd party will ever ship a browser"... In practice, they've shipped a whole lot of nothing, and we still don't have any 3rd party browser engines available in the EU | |
| ▲ | __aru 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > The fact we still can't get this in the US is atrocious. To be honest, I suspect that Apple is purposefully doing this to make alternatives a logistical and legal nightmare vs their own App store. By having different rules for different countries, different fee structures, etc, Apple is basically making alternatives as inconvenient and painful as legally possible The US not getting these features is on purpose, it makes the entire idea of "alternatives on iOS" extremely inconvenient vs just using the App store. |
|
|
| ▲ | drnick1 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| 2026 should be the year when every tech-minded person dumps Apple (and Google) for good and either starting running either a free Android OS (Graphene, Lineage or a couple of other variants) or a Linux phone. At this point, Apple and Google devices are nothing more than instruments of coercion and mass surveillance. |
| |
| ▲ | yokoprime 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Making "tech-minded persons" dump apple etc does NOTHING to move the needle in terms of what most people use. For example I'm running a pretty sweet calibre-web automated setup with Kobo readers. Ive changed the storefront on my kobo and have seemless sync OTA of selected shelves. And even I struggle to get my wife to choose that setup over Amazon kindle. The very minute there is a single snag, normies (sorry wife dear) lose interest. | | |
| ▲ | EA-3167 5 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I’m doing the same thing with a Boox and Amazon couldn’t pay me to go back. Calibre is a godsend. |
| |
| ▲ | criddell 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Lectures and admonitions won’t change anything. People will move to Graphene and Linux when it’s better for them. Coercion and surveillance problems are pretty far down the list of complaints most people have with their personal devices. | |
| ▲ | bsimpson 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | So far as I can tell, Linux phones are still ass. Linux on mobile is probably even more behind than Linux on desktop was in the 90s. | |
| ▲ | airstrike 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Unfortunately, I appreciate the deep integration between my phone and my laptop too much to drop either | | |
| ▲ | drnick1 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | I don't have Apple devices to compare, but I think KDE Connect can closely replicate this, entirely locally. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple's "deep integrations" rely on cloud components that are privacy-violating by design (even if Apple promises not to look at the data flowing through their servers). | | |
| ▲ | cosmic_cheese 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Most cross device stuff in the Apple world actually works via P2P Bluetooth and WiFi and functions without an internet connection or even a shared WiFi network. Mac and iDevice WiFi hardware is even designed with this in mind and is capable of maintaining P2P connections to other devices and a WiFi network simultaneously without rapidly switching between the two like many commodity WiFi cards have to. | |
| ▲ | arzig 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Unfortunately the integration is really quite weak with Apple. KDE Connect cannot remain active while the application is not in the foreground. It’s possibly a packaging issue but pairing from fedora is also quite flakey. As absurd as this sounds windows -> iPhone via their phone link is actually almost as good as apples built in ecosystem to the point where I can make phone calls and send texts on my computer. It’s not quite as seamless especially the setup but that is a well done wizard and it mostly works. | | | |
| ▲ | cpuguy83 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | KDE Connect with iOS, while useful, is terrible. |
|
| |
| ▲ | websiteapi 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | UX is much worse imo on graphene compared to iOS | | |
| ▲ | drnick1 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I disagree. I had an iPhone in the past and find the minimalist Graphene UI refreshing. It's like comparing KDE on Arch to Windows 11 or MacOS. Nothing gets in your way or distracts you, the OS is what an OS is supposed to be, a platform for managing and launching apps. | | |
| ▲ | cosmic_cheese 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It’s definitely something that varies from person to person. I tried putting Graphene on a secondary Android device (an old Pixel 3XL) and compared to the stock ROM or more typical AOSP fork (e.g. LineageOS or Pixel Experience), I found it rather frustrating. I can’t imagine running it on my daily driver. Similarly with Linux, the sheer number of rough edges, papercuts, and quirks is still too high (regardless of if I’m using a big name DE or hyper minimal tiling WM or somewhere in between) for them to serve as my main desktop environment. | |
| ▲ | websiteapi 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | UX, not UI. perfect example is you copy something on your laptop and paste it on your phone. trivial on iDevice. | | |
| ▲ | bdd8f1df777b 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Trivial as in it works well sometimes and badly in other times with no explanation for why. That’s my experience anyway. | | |
| ▲ | umanwizard 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | It literally always works flawlessly for me unless Bluetooth is turned off. |
| |
| ▲ | drnick1 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | KDE connect over Bluetooth or WiFi seems ideal for this, so it's definitely possible. I am not sure how the iDevices deal with this, but I really don't want anything cloud-connected. | |
| ▲ | 8note 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | so you have your file on a laptop running linux, and its just easy to move the file to your iOS phone? | |
| ▲ | bigyabai 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | KDE Connect is more reliable than Continuity Clipboard, in my experience. | |
| ▲ | hu3 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | this doesn't work sometimes. my wife complains frequently | |
| ▲ | Larrikin 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Tailscale drop is better and works across devices. | | |
| ▲ | websiteapi 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | tail scale drop is much more complicated than literally copying and pasting on iDevice. that's literally all you do, no setup, nothing and this is just one example for one type of action. https://tailscale.com/kb/1106/taildrop look at all of that, lol. iDevice is literally copy and paste any file or text. the end - you don't even have to set it up. | | |
| ▲ | Larrikin 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | How do I copy it from my Mac to my Android? | |
| ▲ | rendaw 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | This sounds like hyperbole. I've never used tailscale, but reading that doc: Installation: Install the tailscale client Sharing: Click on the share menu and select tailscale It's a beta feature so there's also a switch you have to flip for now. | | |
| ▲ | websiteapi 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | you don't need to believe me. I use it daily. don't know why you're so defensive lol - it's our own opinion. fyi I didn't have to do anything for this to work (clipboard laptop to phone) | |
| ▲ | umanwizard 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Meanwhile, for Apple: Installation: nothing. Sharing: Cmd+C/Cmd+V |
|
|
|
|
| |
| ▲ | IlikeKitties 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | >UX is much worse imo on graphene compared to iOS Freedom and privacy exist on graphene. |
| |
| ▲ | EA-3167 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | This is profoundly out of touch with how almost everyone who isn’t a particularly zealous member of certain movements lives their lives. | |
| ▲ | meindnoch 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Unfortunately, I prefer smooth animations. | |
| ▲ | viktorcode 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Can you please elaborate on how iPhones are instruments of mass surveillance? | | | |
| ▲ | umanwizard 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > 2026 should be the year when every tech-minded person dumps Apple (and Google) for good Why? I am a very tech-minded person but simply don't care about running alternative browser engines on my phone. Am I "wrong" in your opinion? | |
| ▲ | bigyabai 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | 2026 should be the last year when anyone technical-minded comes around to the realization that Google/Apple are in the Fed's pocket. If you're making the switch in 2027 or 2028, it's probably too late for you. |
|
|
| ▲ | threethirtytwo 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Why only Japan? Seems like something forced them to in Japan. |
| |
|
| ▲ | mettamage 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I would love to have a browser that I can use my stylus to scribble with. |
|
| ▲ | gumby271 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It's so disappointing to be fed crumbs like this instead of seeing real consumer protection laws put in place. Let users install software on their computers outside of what the manufacturer permits, why focus on browsers and "app stores"? |
| |
|
| ▲ | keepamovin 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It will become a weird menagerie |
|
| ▲ | lcnmrn 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Hopefully with AI we will have other browser engines than Chrome and Firefox. |
|
| ▲ | shmerl 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Did Japan decide to push proper competition laws? Time to force Apple to do it everywhere. Very long overdue. |
| |
| ▲ | signal11 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | I agree with the “enforce competition laws” sentiment, but in this context, enforced naively, all it’ll do is entrench the dominant browser engine, Blink, even more across the mobile ecosystem. I’m sure some devs will love this. But equally, some may worry about the monoculture implications. | | |
| ▲ | concinds 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The "monoculture" has never been less of a threat. WPT.FYI is driving towards asymptotically perfect compatibility and behavior. And the real web, the long-tail of websites, is too chaotic to be controlled by any entity regardless of browser market share. Chrome can cook up whatever API they want, no website can be forced to adopt it. And if someone can't use some WebMIDI site on Safari, well, they can't complain, they didn't want that site to exist in the first place. It's simply not a good excuse to defend the iOS browser ban. | |
| ▲ | dekoidal 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It hasn’t on Macs. Safari is still popular among non-tech folk | | |
| ▲ | cosmic_cheese 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It’s still got popularity within tech-inclined Mac/iOS circles too because it’s easier on the battery than Chrome (+derivatives) and Firefox. Some would like to switch but because neither Google nor Mozilla has much to lose for their browsers being battery hogs, relatively little engineering effort gets dedicated to improving efficiency compared to WebKit (which is similarly efficient under Linux in e.g. GNOME Web, proving it’s not purely first-party advantage). | |
| ▲ | crossroadsguy 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | That’s because Apple adds two extra legs to Safari on OS level and cuts both the legs of other browsers in a manner of speaking by rigging this comparison. | | |
| ▲ | argsnd 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | In what way do you think this is meaningfully occurring? I ask because I have not heard of Chrome or Firefox being inhibited on energy efficiency by platform limitations. | |
| ▲ | Klonoar 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | This needs a big ol’ “citation needed” slapped across it. |
| |
| ▲ | Spivak 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I think the narrative is that once developers have the option to tell all of their users "we only support Chrome, just install Chrome" then any support for Safari will dry up. Unfortunately I don't think we will see if this is how it plays out until Apple has to allow other browsers globally. | | |
| ▲ | leptons 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | The reason Apple doesn't allow any other browser engines on iOS is due to them collecting up to 30% of purchases made through the apps from the app store. If a developer can do the same things with a capable web browser, then they won't need to create a native iOS app and that cuts into Apple's app revenue. So Apple purposely hobbles Safari so it doesn't have any advanced browser APIs for stuff like bluetooth or other APIs that apps have access to, forcing developers to create an app, where Apple can then cut into purchases made through the app. It has nothing to do with people no longer using Safari and Apple being sad about that. Other browsers can technically be installed on iOS, but the underlying browser engine is forced to be Safari, which lacks many APIs other web browsers could implement, reducing the need for a native app. It's purely Apple's anti-competitive greed that drives this situation. And the EU, Japan, and the US DOJ have noticed. So far only the EU and Japan have actually taken measures to force Apple to change this. Here's the entire DOJ lawsuit which includes many other instances of anti-competitive practices by Apple. https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/media/1344546/dl?inline | | |
| ▲ | otterley 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | What evidence do you have, other than speculation, that Apple is so motivated? What standard features are missing from Safari’s rendering engine that makes it a less capable browser such that developers are forced to produce apps instead? | | |
| ▲ | koolala 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | WebXR hasn't been supported for 10 years so they control their own AR market. | | | |
| ▲ | leptons 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Specifically for me, my company has a product that could use Bluetooth, but Safari will never implement the Web Bluetooth API, where Chrome has for some time on Android. So the workaround is to use Wifi instead (my product supports both bluetooth and Wifi), which drains the phone battery faster. No, we do not want to write our own iOS app where Apple can then extort us for a percentage of any sales through the app, and we have to pay for the priviledge to develop that app, as well as buy Apple hardware to do so. So instead we use Wifi, where we can maintain one single codebase - the web application, which works on both Android and iOS, but has to use Wifi. If Apple allowed Chrome to use its own browser engine, we would simply tell users to install Chrome to interact with our device. Then we don't have to pay Apple for anything, nor should we have to. Apple purposely won't implement some APIs so they can force developers to create an app for their app store where they can collect money from any additional sales through the app. It's all spelled out in the DOJ suit, why won't you just read it?? https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/media/1344546/dl?inline | | |
|
|
|
| |
| ▲ | shmerl 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Banning competition can't possibly help increasing competition. It would be good to see Firefox with its own engine there for example. |
|
|
|
| ▲ | iqandjoke 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| So can people in Okinotorishima, Takeshima, Senkaku Islands use that alternative browser? |
|
| ▲ | zb3 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The title is misleading. "Allows" need to be in quotes - they did everything they could to make sure this won't change anything in practice. Screw Apple. |
| |
| ▲ | ninkendo 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Could you elaborate? Other than the "Japan" requirement it seems legit? I guess the requirements are pretty onerous, but they all seem like table stakes for a browser these days (Firefox or Chrome should have no problem with them, for instance.) | |
| ▲ | catlikesshrimp 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | They weren't going to title "Apple forced to allow alternative..." They are the ones allowing the alternatives because they are the gate keepers. They have "the keys" |
|
|
| ▲ | d--b 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| I'm all for privacy and alternative app stores, but opening browser engines to the competition isn't something I'm keen to have. Now every phone will ship with 2 engines (inevitably chrome is going to be bundled in at least one of your apps). Both are tied to large tech companies. And both have approximately the same feature set. At this stage, I can't think of any upside for the end user. New CSS crap or obscure web APIs, or proprietary DRM? And the cost is that we're going to get new website badges "only in Chrome", or "only in Safari", like it's 1999. This is Apple, people know what they get into, and they kind of want that an iPhone is not a PC. It looks like everyone thinks that this is a good thing. Can anyone explain beyond the "this is a monopoly" argument? It's not a monopoly if the engine is free, and if they need the engine to more or less match all the desktop engines. I don't feel cornered by Apple on that one. |
