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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

#81

Post by infinityio »

isodev wrote: post #67
neximo64 wrote: post #25

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 h…

> Inability to have non WKWebView type browsers. Safari can do the one it wants, which is Apples choice. This is primarily for privacy and security reasons. One wouldn't want a funny casino app, or the likes of Google or Facebook to hijack people's web access. Another aspect is the user experience - a piece of web content will render exactly the same way anywhere on the system. There is no need for people to be conce…

> A third aspect is actually very helpful to developers - you can count on 100% of the APIs you intent to use being available on the system's web browser, creating in-app experiences significantly easier (and cheaper) to develop.

This would still be true in the case where external web browsers were allowed - you can still rely on Webkit being available on all phones, but if you need access to APIs not provided by apple you can revert to bundling a different browser engine

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

#82

Post by ccouzens »

ccouzens wrote: post #55
mtomweb wrote: post #44

This article gives a much better summary. https://www.macrumors.com/2022/06/10/uk-to-target-apple-gami... It’s not “may face investigation”, it’s the start of the process to force Apple to support third party browsers and web apps.

And this is the press release itself. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cma-plans-market-investig... The pdf from the original article doesn't work. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/mobile-ecosystems...

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/62a22d5bd3bf7...

This is a comparison about the difficulties (real and perceived) about switching between platforms.

It gives me the impression that Apple goes out of their way to lock users in.

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

#83

Post by skohan »

neximo64 wrote: post #25

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 h…

Access to NFC is a huge one. This has a ton of use-cases in for instance IoT and smart home, and Apple limiting access prevents a lot of innovation in that space which might compete with their offering.

Another example is Apple's privileged access to your wifi credentials. Basically this means if you want to share wifi access via your app, as you might want to do in setting up an IoT device, this is only possible if you enter Apple's expensive MFI program.

So in other words, to have a seamless and competitive IoT hardware setup process, you essentially have to enter an agreement with Apple which involves giving them a percentage of your overall hardware sales revenue on MFI devices.

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

#84

Post by hbko »

infinityio wrote: post #81
isodev wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Inability to have non WKWebView type browsers. Safari can do the one it wants, which is Apples choice. This is primarily for privacy and security reasons. One wouldn't want a funny casino app, or the likes of Google or Facebook to hijack people's web access. Another aspect is the user experience - a piece of web content will render exactly the same way anywhere on the system. There is no need for people to be conce…

> A third aspect is actually very helpful to developers - you can count on 100% of the APIs you intent to use being available on the system's web browser, creating in-app experiences significantly easier (and cheaper) to develop. This would still be true in the case where external web browsers were allowed - you can still rely on Webkit being available on all phones, but if you need access to APIs not provided by app…

Not if the user chooses a different default browser.

I doubt all the Chromium clones would evenly support "normal" iOS integrations, and the ability to (privately) deal with, for example, universal links, App Clips, or even that banner offering a website visitor to use the native app.

I understand the sentiment for wanting to use custom features on desktop, but a phone needs to be much more reliable than this - you can't have something working "sometimes" or for users to have to retry or change settings on the go. Imagine a stressful situation at the airport, and the app you are using needs you to switch browsers or download another app to work...

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

#85

Post by MCArth »

agust wrote: post #72
MCArth wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Music to my ears - from my own experience, safari is a pain to deal with. I've run into many bugs that haven't been fixed for years, and they've lagged behind in implementing standards like WebGL 2. Hopefully this will force them to invest more resources into safari and webkit

It's actually already happening. Since the CMA started investigating around October last year, Apple has issued more than 70 job listings for WebKit, at least half of which have already been filled. They also have significantly increased their release cycles, and released a number of bug fixes and new features. They still have a long way to go to fix the huge number of bugs WebKit's been rigged with for years, and to…

Amazing!

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

#86

Post by isodev »

infinityio wrote: post #81
isodev wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Inability to have non WKWebView type browsers. Safari can do the one it wants, which is Apples choice. This is primarily for privacy and security reasons. One wouldn't want a funny casino app, or the likes of Google or Facebook to hijack people's web access. Another aspect is the user experience - a piece of web content will render exactly the same way anywhere on the system. There is no need for people to be conce…

> A third aspect is actually very helpful to developers - you can count on 100% of the APIs you intent to use being available on the system's web browser, creating in-app experiences significantly easier (and cheaper) to develop. This would still be true in the case where external web browsers were allowed - you can still rely on Webkit being available on all phones, but if you need access to APIs not provided by app…

> you can still rely on Webkit being available on all phones

But then... folks will complain that some apps open content in Safari and not their preferred browser.

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

#88

Post by tshell »

agust wrote: post #75
the_other wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO, at this point, Apple’s resistance to allowing other browser engines is the only viable resistance to a Blink/Chromium monopoly.

It's highly unlikely that opening up iOS to competing browser engines will result in Chrome taking over. It has always been that way on macOS, and yet Safari is dominant there with around 60% market share. What is much more likely is that Apple will start investing properly in WebKit to be able to compete with Blink and Gecko. It's in fact already happening.

Do you have a source for that 60% figure? That seems odd to me. Almost every non-techy person I know with a Mac still uses Chrome.

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

#90

Post by adrr »

agust wrote: post #34
Gigachad wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Extremely unlikely: browsers are not banned to use their own engine on macOS, and yet Safari is dominant there with around 60% market share. The fact that people think that tells a lot about the quality of Safari: "if people could use the real Chrome, they would all ditch Safari right away". That may lead you to wonder why Safari is so bad, considering the infinite funds Apple has? Perhaps is it because Apple has bee…

What percentage of that 60% is because safari is the only browser on IOS? I use safari on Mac because it has all more passwords as 90% of my web browsing is on my phone. With auto generated passwords it forces me to use safari.
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