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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

#101

Post by TheDong »

dylan604 wrote: post #91
TheDong wrote: post #44

> the determination is made based on the degree of likelihood that [it will prevent alternative browser engines] If you interpret that very liberally, doing a region-locked "you can release alternate browser engines but only regionlocked to japanese apple accounts" could be seen as intentionally preventing alternative browsers from existing. Why would mozilla port firefox when it can only target a tiny fraction of it…

> Why would mozilla port firefox when it can only target a tiny fraction of its users? Mozilla is used to only a tiny fraction of users anyway. Why would this be any different? It could also be a chance to release a version for QA by the users before the rest of the market opens up.

Comparing all "tiny fractions" as if they're identical is nonsense.

"Why wouldn't apple make an iphone mini even though it only targets a tiny fraction of people? They already only target a tiny fraction of the living animals on earth because they don't make iphones for fish"

The reality is that japan is less than 5% of iphones, and mozilla has to focus it's limited resources.

Also, if mozilla's, mostly US based, developers can't run firefox on ios, they can't even build it in the first place

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

#102

Post by tempodox »

meibo wrote: post #82
ajaimk wrote: post #63

Is this a good thing? Doesn't this just expand the marketshare of Chromium?

Safari is not a good browser, by design, because it's in Apple's interest to cripple the Web as a platform. If they want their browser to be actually competitive instead of forcing people to use it, they should make a good browser. That is markets working as they are supposed to.

> markets working as they are supposed to.

Where Apple is doing everything they can to make that “market” work in their interests instead of as it is supposed to from a user perspective. And when you don't have a choice, it's not really a market either.

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

#103

Post by dcow »

troupo wrote: post #96
ajaimk wrote: post #63

Is this a good thing? Doesn't this just expand the marketshare of Chromium?

Yup. That's the downside of it. I am personally quite torn on the issue. On the one hand Apple must be made to open up iOS more. On the other hand it just leads to Chrome monopoly.

Then attack Chrome. There isn’t a moral conundrum here.

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

#104

Post by zakki »

nuker wrote: post #100
yupyupyups wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and as we all know that'll be the end of the world. I'll enjoy seeing all the accounts on MacRumors clawing their eyes out when that happens. It would be naive to think that Apple isn't funding sites and narratives on the internet to serve their economic interests. One of the most outlandish one being that freedom to use your phone however you want would necessarily compromise security and privacy for everyone. It's…

> ... freedom to use your phone however you want I want to use my phone locked down hard and apps reviewed by Apple. I sleep better with things as they are. I suspect 99% of normal users are in the same boat.

Apple must provide opt-in or opt-out for the lockdown.

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

#105

Post by rs186 »

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.

Weird argument. Linux mostly operates in a completely different space (enterprise) from where iOS/Chrome (consumer electronics and technology) lives

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

#106

Post by philipallstar »

zakki wrote: post #104
nuker wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... freedom to use your phone however you want I want to use my phone locked down hard and apps reviewed by Apple. I sleep better with things as they are. I suspect 99% of normal users are in the same boat.

Apple must provide opt-in or opt-out for the lockdown.

The market provides these options already.

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

#107

Post by ocdtrekkie »

arvinsim wrote: post #66
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I disagree. Safari is safer to use than Chrome, because Chrome implements antifeatures at a breakneck pace which introduce tracking and security vulnerabilities. Choosing not to implement a feature is as important or more than implementing one.

I'm not a Mac user, but I wish I had Safari on desktop as an option today.

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

#108

Post by TheDong »

troupo wrote: post #92
TheDong wrote: post #44

> the determination is made based on the degree of likelihood that [it will prevent alternative browser engines] If you interpret that very liberally, doing a region-locked "you can release alternate browser engines but only regionlocked to japanese apple accounts" could be seen as intentionally preventing alternative browsers from existing. Why would mozilla port firefox when it can only target a tiny fraction of it…

> oing a region-locked "you can release alternate browser engines but only regionlocked to japanese apple accounts" could be seen as intentionally preventing alternative browsers from existing. That's one of the things Apple has been doing with EU

Partly because the EU law's phrasing wasn't as "I'll know it when I see it", and partly because apple seems to not care about the spirit of the law and just want to exploit its users.

The japanese law's phrasing is apparently better, but I kinda expect apple to still ignore it and then drag whatever comes through court as long as possible

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

#109

Post by fragmede »

frou_dh wrote: post #59

We've got to assume that Google have internally been developing "real" Chrome for iOS for a long time, so that it'll be ready to go immediately, right?

(Blink is the Chrome web rendering engine)

> Checking out and building Chromium for iOS

> Building Blink for iOS

> The iOS build supports compiling the blink web platform. To compile blink set a gn arg in your .setup-gn file. Note the blink web platform is experimental code and should only be used for analysis.

> [gn_args] > use_blink = true > ios_content_shell_bundle_identifier="REPLACE_YOUR_BUNDLE_IDENTIFIER_HERE" > ios_chromium_bundle_id="REPLACE_YOUR_BUNDLE_IDENTIFIER_HERE"

> Note that only certain targets support blink. content_shell and chrome being the most useful.

https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/main/docs/i...

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

#110

Post by surajrmal »

Towaway69 wrote: post #65
reorder9695 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is it even worth investing in? It would require massive capital spend and the ongoing costs to stay afloat would be similarly high. There is little to no certainty to believe you could acquire users or a revenue model either. None of the chromium derivatives have managed to gain traction other than edge. It seems wiser to invest in the next platform rather than ones with big players already in the space.
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