Maintaining an Independent Browser Is Expensive

Yeah, it's enough to be infuriating. I've recently been thinking about what it would take to implement a lynx-like browser that had a better understanding of layout and could deal with the modern web.

Hurdle number one is that there's no "Web standard", but rather a great many interrelated standards. At a bare minimum, you need HTTP K₁, SSL/TLS K₂, HTML K₃, XHTML, DOM N, CSS K₄, and ECMAScript K₅. Several of those standards are actually multiple standards, so you'll have to do some digging. That's the easiest hurdle to overcome. Number two is that a few of the standards (including some really fundamental ones like the DOM) are maintained as "living documents", making them moving targets; even the—uh—"dead" documents are subject to speedy revisions (for example, there have been 3 new ECMAScript revisions in the last 3 years). Number three is all the up-and-coming experimental stuff that isn't standardized yet, but if at least one browser supports something, some website somewhere is already using it. Between two and three, you'll need to keep a finger on the rapid pulse of the Web. And on top of all that, you have to support legacy bullshit, deal with malformed documents, and be ever hyper-aware of security threats.

Allowing for off-the-shelf components like libcurl and duktape, I'm sure it's still doable by a single person, but it's a lot of work (much of it frustrating).

What im reading here is a preference for web technologies to be frozen as they were since 2000.

I further think, if you sell it right, you could get people running sites like blogs, documentation, wikis, to opt in to "strict" or "lite" or "document" mode, but that is an orthogonal issue.

> -Apple limits what your app can do, e.g. apps can't spawn processes (FU Apple, this is bad for security/pricacy),

What's the issue with that? Why would I want some random no-name devleoper randomly spawning processes on my device killing my battery life? How is it exclusively better for privacy? What prevents them from executing privacy-invading code as the separate process?

> can't do JIT compilation,

What's the advantage when all the devices, your apps are supposed to be running on, share the same OS, platform, ABI etc? What's the point when the hardware is already limited in scope compared to alternative platforms

>can't download code, etc...

Again, why would you want some random developer be able to download extra code? What prevents them from not misusing it for nefarious purposes? Even assuming that the developer is not malevolent, what prevents a third-party from compromising the developer's "update" servers and pushing malicious code?

>Apple rejects apps that compete with their own.

This is from a bygone era. For every native app on my iPhone, I can list an alternative -

  - Apple Photos -> Google Photos/Plex Photos
  - iMessage -> Whatsapp, Telegram
  - Facetime -> Skype, Allo, Duo
  - Mail -> Outlook, Spark, Airmail
  - Apple Music -> Spotify, SoundCloud, Wynk, Gaana
  - iBooks -> Kindle, Blinkist, Kobo
  - Files/iCloud Drive -> Dropbox, Tresorit, Google Drive
  - Apple Maps -> Google Maps, Waze
  - Keychain -> 1password, lastpass, minikeepass
  - Notes -> Evernote, Simplenote, Bear, Ulysses, Notion
  - Calendar -> Fantastical, Vantage
  - Clock/Timer -> Klok, Timeglass
  - Reminders -> Todoist, Due, Things 3
  - Video -> VLC
  - iTunes U -> Coursera, Udacity
  - Camera -> Halide, Camera Plus, Retrica
  - Weather -> Dark Sky, AccuWeather
  - Podcasts -> Overcasts, Pocket Casts
  - iTunes Store -> I'm not sure there's a perfect alternative but I can purchase music and movies from non-apple services as long as they provide it (and give apple their cut)
  - Settings -> Do we even need an alternative?
  - Voice Memos -> Recordium, Just Press Record
  - Pages/Numbers/Keynote -> Word/Excel/Powerpoint, Google Sheets/Slides/Docs
  - Apple Health -> I haven't gone looking for alternative but a lot of apps maintain their own data sources. I'm not sure what really prevents them from sharing data across or maybe they just don't want to? In any case I, sure as hell, trust only Apple with a centralized data source when it comes to my health tracking
  - iMovie -> Videoshop 
  - Stocks -> Stock Tracker

>Apple removes apps that some governments want to have removed.

True. Agreed

> they don't allow any other rendering engine other than their own

I am a developer and as much joy it would be to have Blink/V8 running on iOS, I'm totally fine with the decision apple made. In the absence of strong disincentives, companies and developers would try to get away with as much shenanigans as possible. I would absolutely not be happy if Google pushes a battery-killing update.

Sure Apple has its fair share of problem but out of all the big tech co's they are, by far, the best when it comes to preserving privacy, security and the least likely to pull shenanigans or gotcha's on their users.