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Japan: Apple Must Lift Browser Engine Ban by December

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Re: Japan: Apple Must Lift Browser Engine Ban by December

#61

Post by benoau »

ChocolateGod wrote: post #10
agust wrote: post #2

So after the EU and the UK, Japan is now putting an end to Apple's iOS alternative browser engine ban too. Those are 3 large jurisdictions, I wonder if that's now a market big enough for Chrome and Firefox to invest into iOS versions of their browser that use Blink and Gecko under the hood. From what I heard this was one of the main reasons they haven't done it yet.

I thought in the UK, the government decided to only weakly enforce the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024.

Weakly might even be overstating it. Their roadmap has all this ambitious stuff like sideloading and competing app stores and allowing apps to link to their own payments, that they are aiming to have categorized into priority-buckets by the middle of next year. This could take the rest of the decade to actually be implemented on Apple's side.

Re: Japan: Apple Must Lift Browser Engine Ban by December

#64

Post by bell-cot »

devinprater wrote: post #62
kjfaejgoaeijhei wrote: post #4

to anyone who believes this is good news: enjoy your chrome monoculture in a few years when apple stops developing safari

Lol Apple is too prideful to do that.

Prideful? Possibly.

But what's for-sure is that Apple is hugely profitable. And that browser control is a relatively important part of that profitability. Plain old greed will give Apple ample motive to keep Safari going.

Re: Japan: Apple Must Lift Browser Engine Ban by December

#65

Post by Towaway69 »

reorder9695 wrote: post #17
charcircuit wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if it would make more sense and be easier for Firefox to switch to Blink, working together with Google making an alternate browser engine for iOS.

It'd probably be easier but not good, diversity in engines is good here. We don't want something like the IE monopoly again.

Hahaha - as a European there is already a monopoly, a US based monopoly. But that's really due to the compliancy of europeans tech industry.

Re: Japan: Apple Must Lift Browser Engine Ban by December

#66

Post by arvinsim »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #57
Dah00n wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Safari is the IE of today. It is the browser that holds the web back the most.

Chrome is the IE of today: It's the single platform developers are developing for instead of web standards. The fact developers have to support Safari, a least common denominator, is the only thing protecting the web.

Safari being the least common denominator is promoting the monoculture of Chrome.

If Safari were more competitive, more people would use it.

Re: Japan: Apple Must Lift Browser Engine Ban by December

#67

Post by Shank »

fidotron wrote: post #52

Japan has a funny relationship with Apple. For example, the Felica ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FeliCa ) based ticket system is built into every iPhone globally, making life in Japan significantly easier for foreign iOS users. More surprisingly actually using the tickets does not require any app at all - you just use Apple Pay. This is all narrowing the scope of what advantages native apps have (they do still have…

FeliCa Networks support is the direct result of the fact that mobile transit and mobile payments use in Japan predates the iPhone. Mobile Suica and Osaifu-Keitai already existed, and Apple needed to compete. It started with Japanese SKU iPhones but expanded globally.

Even now in Japan, mobile payments are anything but a monopoly. When Apple is forced to compete, they do things like add Suica with Express Transit. PayPay, a made-in-Japan QR code payments app is more prevalent than credit card payments here.

Re: Japan: Apple Must Lift Browser Engine Ban by December

#68

Post by kikkia »

delfinom wrote: post #60
fidotron wrote: post #52

Japan has a funny relationship with Apple. For example, the Felica ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FeliCa ) based ticket system is built into every iPhone globally, making life in Japan significantly easier for foreign iOS users. More surprisingly actually using the tickets does not require any app at all - you just use Apple Pay. This is all narrowing the scope of what advantages native apps have (they do still have…

FeliCa is simply a patent issue. Apple got some sort of sweetheart deal somewhere. Every Google Pixel has FeliCa its just turned off on non-Japan phones due to said licensing, though people have rooted the phone to turn it on.

Apple having such a dominant hold of market share in the smartphone space gave a lot of leverage when negotiating royalties with Sony who makes the felica stuff. From what I heard it was basically just gifted to them, because if Apple says no we wont support it, then you lose a huge amount of users. Whereas with other manufacturers they pay on a per device basis tracked by the underlying osaifu-keitai stuff. If you are rooted though it is usually just 1 flag or something you need to change. Been using my US Pixel 6 for years daily on my commutes.

https://github.com/jjyao88/unlock-felica-pixel

Re: Japan: Apple Must Lift Browser Engine Ban by December

#70

Post by nemomarx »

a_vanderbilt wrote: post #54
agust wrote: post #2

So after the EU and the UK, Japan is now putting an end to Apple's iOS alternative browser engine ban too. Those are 3 large jurisdictions, I wonder if that's now a market big enough for Chrome and Firefox to invest into iOS versions of their browser that use Blink and Gecko under the hood. From what I heard this was one of the main reasons they haven't done it yet.

Culturally, the Japanese aren't likely to care. Take a look at Linux usage in Japan to get what I mean. You will have a small but very dedicated group of users who won't change for anything, and then the masses who just use what is convenient. They don't like tweaking.

is Linux usage significant enough in any country to really make judgements about culture from?
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