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Apple and Google’s mobile browser ‘stranglehold’ may face UK investigation

theguardian.com

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Re: Apple and Google’s mobile browser ‘stranglehold’ may face UK investigation

#21

Post by throwaway4good »

Terry_Roll wrote: post #16

Will this set a precedent for car infotainment systems or even TV extra's? When is a device with a general purpose cpu something that can be upgraded or modified with other software and when isnt it?

At least with cars things are different for now; the browser/platform business model is a "surveillance capitalism" one.

Where we (Google or Google via a deal with Apple) give away a product, that has been extremely costly to build, for free, in return for you giving us a (de-facto) exclusive on profiling and data mining your online behaviour, so we can get an effective monopoly on brokering advertisement.

Re: Apple and Google’s mobile browser ‘stranglehold’ may face UK investigation

#22

Post by tgv »

underdeserver wrote: post #9

Honestly I'm surprised it's as low as 90%. What's the rest? The Samsung browser? From my experience using Firefox on Android, very few websites care about compatibility with it.

The Samsung browser is a Chromium wrapper. Some people dismiss wrappers around Safari on iOS, although I think there are more important things to worry about than exactly which rendering engine gets used.

Re: Apple and Google’s mobile browser ‘stranglehold’ may face UK investigation

#23

Post by Barrin92 »

throwaway4good wrote: post #17

For the foreseeable future the only companies that may foster alternatives to the Apple / Google duopoly are Chinese ones. And there is absolutely no way they will be allowed to gain foldhold in the west.

I've been using Xiaomi phones since forever, they're very popular in Europe.

Re: Apple and Google’s mobile browser ‘stranglehold’ may face UK investigation

#24

Post by numpad0 »

Terry_Roll wrote: post #16

Will this set a precedent for car infotainment systems or even TV extra's? When is a device with a general purpose cpu something that can be upgraded or modified with other software and when isnt it?

Compulsory headunit/car separation? That...would be ideal...

Re: Apple and Google’s mobile browser ‘stranglehold’ may face UK investigation

#25

Post by neximo64 »

It's interesting to hear Apple always talk about the level playing field they've tried to create. From within the company i think they really believe they've got a level playing field.

But then Apple has apps that can do much more than everyone else has access to, in ways that have nothing to do with security or privacy.

- Apps access to NFC (e.g Apple Pay vs you being able to make your own nfc card)

- Inability to have non WKWebView type browsers. Safari can do the one it wants, which is Apples choice.

- Health app has access to nicer push notifications than standard

- Federated Identity type login only works with Apple. So login with Apple is built tightly into the OS, where you can't make an app that does that.

- Wallet app can access 2FA SMS code without having to type it

The list is much longer but it is not a level playing field with regards to the access to apis. If Apple has an app like Messages, other apps should be able to access the same things too.

I pretty much couldn't care less about the app store and review process, but the asymmetric access to APIs really helps Apple cement their moat (e.g with iMessage, Wallet), basically any app where they do it has serious market power.

Re: Apple and Google’s mobile browser ‘stranglehold’ may face UK investigation

#26

Post by throwaway4good »

Barrin92 wrote: post #23
throwaway4good wrote: post #17

For the foreseeable future the only companies that may foster alternatives to the Apple / Google duopoly are Chinese ones. And there is absolutely no way they will be allowed to gain foldhold in the west.

I've been using Xiaomi phones since forever, they're very popular in Europe.

A Xiaomi phone is a Google phone with full GMS (outside of China).

Re: Apple and Google’s mobile browser ‘stranglehold’ may face UK investigation

#27

Post by nixass »

tgv wrote: post #20
Aardwolf wrote: post #13

On Android I can install Firefox, Edge, other versions of these browsers from f-droid, and many other browsers, all with their own engines. On iPhones, afaik, you can only get Safari, or other browsers that are just a thin wrapper around Safari. That is a huge difference and I hope they know that.

What's wrong with a wrapper around Safari? It's a capable and efficient browser. Firefox can wrap its bookmark sharing and whatever around it (I actually use Firefox on iOS, though I don't bother with the profile sharing). We don't need Safari to be 100% Chrome compatible, right? That's just for lazy programmers and greedy marketeers.

It's literally crap and lacks features. See Firefox on Android, compare it to iOS and update your post

Re: Apple and Google’s mobile browser ‘stranglehold’ may face UK investigation

#28

Post by Gigachad »

Aardwolf wrote: post #13

On Android I can install Firefox, Edge, other versions of these browsers from f-droid, and many other browsers, all with their own engines. On iPhones, afaik, you can only get Safari, or other browsers that are just a thin wrapper around Safari. That is a huge difference and I hope they know that.

Ironically, safari mostly only exists because of this restriction. If iOS allowed real browsers, only chrome would have users.

Re: Apple and Google’s mobile browser ‘stranglehold’ may face UK investigation

#29

Post by NonNefarious »

tgv wrote: post #20
Aardwolf wrote: post #13

On Android I can install Firefox, Edge, other versions of these browsers from f-droid, and many other browsers, all with their own engines. On iPhones, afaik, you can only get Safari, or other browsers that are just a thin wrapper around Safari. That is a huge difference and I hope they know that.

What's wrong with a wrapper around Safari? It's a capable and efficient browser. Firefox can wrap its bookmark sharing and whatever around it (I actually use Firefox on iOS, though I don't bother with the profile sharing). We don't need Safari to be 100% Chrome compatible, right? That's just for lazy programmers and greedy marketeers.

What's wrong is that you're stuck with the same shitty browser engine. If you encounter a problem with WebKit, you're screwed.

Think it through.

Re: Apple and Google’s mobile browser ‘stranglehold’ may face UK investigation

#30

Post by Gigachad »

tgv wrote: post #22
underdeserver wrote: post #9

Honestly I'm surprised it's as low as 90%. What's the rest? The Samsung browser? From my experience using Firefox on Android, very few websites care about compatibility with it.

The Samsung browser is a Chromium wrapper. Some people dismiss wrappers around Safari on iOS, although I think there are more important things to worry about than exactly which rendering engine gets used.

The rendering engine is less important than the JS apis. Safari is missing half of them and some of them are flat out broken.
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