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iOS allows alternative browser engines in Japan

developer.apple.com

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Re: iOS allows alternative browser engines in Japan

#161

Post by swiftcoder »

ninkendo wrote: post #38

The fact we still can't get this in the US is atrocious. They have already paid the cost to implement this for the EU and Japan, but simply don't allow it for US users because... spite, I guess? Horrible. It reminds me of when I asked for my account to be deleted from some online learning site (Udacity maybe?) And they're response was: "Nope, we only do that for European users." Like they went through all the effort…

> They have already paid the cost to implement this for the EU and Japan, but simply don't allow it for US users because...

If by "this", you mean "a set of rules so complicated that no 3rd party will ever ship a browser"...

In practice, they've shipped a whole lot of nothing, and we still don't have any 3rd party browser engines available in the EU

Re: iOS allows alternative browser engines in Japan

#162

Post by crazygringo »

realusername wrote: post #125
crazygringo wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Safari is the modern IE. That's not true. It's not even available on most computers. IE was about Microsoft not following web standards and abusing its monopoly position; Safari is a minor browser by overall market share and is broadly standards-compliant. > the fact that PWAs didn’t take off in the last decade js purely due to Safari. So then why aren't PWA's super-popular on Windows and on Android? Since Safari d…

> Safari is a minor browser by overall market share and is broadly standards-compliant. It's officially compliant but in practice there's a lot of buggy implementations in Safari and you'll spend lots of time on workarounds and debugging. It's also the last non-evergreen browser being tied to the OS so it's the slowest to update, compounding that effect. > So then why aren't PWA's super-popular on Windows and on Andr…

If those are the extent of complaints, then I think Safari's doing just fine. That's nothing like the next IE, and shows that PWA still have their own problems regardless of Apple.

Re: iOS allows alternative browser engines in Japan

#163

Post by lxgr »

overfeed wrote: post #95
GaryBluto wrote: post #69

I'm surprised Apple haven't thrown in the towel and opened things up worldwide yet. It's only a matter of time until it becomes too confusing and problematic to try and run the same system relatively openly in one country and walled in another.

> It's only a matter of time until it becomes too confusing and problematic to try and run the same system relatively openly in one country and walled in another They will continue to do so for as long as it remains profitable. Navigating the complexities of multiple jurisdictions is the bread and butter of MNCs - it's the price of admission into the multinational club. Apple is guaranteed to have lawyers, admins, an…

Or until they’ve successfully “demonstrated” that it always was impossible.

> Apple is guaranteed to have lawyers, admins, and executives already on the payroll for this task.

As both a shareholder and user, I really wish they’d invest their resources into feature development instead of manufacturing obstacles.

Re: iOS allows alternative browser engines in Japan

#164

Post by ckcheng »

aryonoco wrote: post #79
ckcheng wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI. iOS Safari already supports uBlock Origin Lite. iOS Firefox can do the same anytime but it already has some tracking and content blocking built in too.

As someone who has recently switched from Android to iOS, I can tell you uBlock Origin Lite on Safari on iOS is a poor man’s imitation of the real uBlock Origin on Firefox on Android.

Oh definitely! I know you’re just using the phrase and don’t imply otherwise, but to clarify the word “imitation”, uBO lite is not a fake imitation but actually an official thing from uBO and Raymond Hill: see https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home

Re: iOS allows alternative browser engines in Japan

#165

Post by kelthuzad »

ChadNauseam wrote: post #136
leptons wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It absolutely is reality. Safari is the worst browser by far , it's been compared to Microsoft's old Internet Explorer browser. But don't take my word for it, lots of people have written about it... https://www.google.com/search?q=safari+is+the+new+ie And Apple purposely will never implement lots of APIs that only their native apps allow (which other browsers implement), specifically to force many developers to creat…

I suspect it might have been motivated by antitrust concerns, but safari is really not that bad. Check out Interop 2025: https://wpt.fyi/interop-2025 They generally are pretty caught up on features. They have webgpu, they support the web notifications API (once a PWA is installed), lots of stuff. My main gripe is that they make it too hard to install PWAs, but we're still waiting for an actual API for that. (Maybe in…

>> And Apple purposely will never implement lots of APIs that only their native apps allow (which other browsers implement)

>Can you give an example?

Web Bluetooth, Web USB, Web NFC, Web Serial...

Of course Apple will uphold its usual charade to claim that it's about pRiVacy & sEcuRiTy to maintain plausible deniability. They could easily implement it and keep it disabled by default, such that users could make the conscious choice to enable it or keep it disabled. Any adequate analysis of Apple's behavior and motivations must mention Apple's conflict of interest, because Apple will be biased against technology that could diminish the value proposition of "native" apps which Apple has been taxing so unchallenged for all these years.

Re: iOS allows alternative browser engines in Japan

#166

Post by inquirerGeneral »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #110
bloppe wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a browser is essentially an app store with no 30% cut for Apple. If you can ship a browser, you don't need to pay the Apple tax

Has PWA become popular on unencumbered platforms like Android or Windows? No. Even if unencumbered on iOS, it will still fail, because PWA is an intrinsically confusing technology. The pitch to non-technical users is terrible. Just like passkeys, which has also been terrible.

[dead]

Re: iOS allows alternative browser engines in Japan

#167

Post by judah »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #110
bloppe wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a browser is essentially an app store with no 30% cut for Apple. If you can ship a browser, you don't need to pay the Apple tax

Has PWA become popular on unencumbered platforms like Android or Windows? No. Even if unencumbered on iOS, it will still fail, because PWA is an intrinsically confusing technology. The pitch to non-technical users is terrible. Just like passkeys, which has also been terrible.

> "Has PWA become popular on unencumbered platforms like Android or Windows? No."

Yes, PWAs have become popular on these platforms. I work for Microsoft on the Microsoft Store (app store on Windows) and I work with the Edge team, and I work on PWABuilder.com, which publishes PWAs to app stores. Some of the most popular apps in the Microsoft Store are PWAs: Netflix, TikTok, Adobe Creative Cloud, Disney+, and many others.

To view the list of PWAs in the Store, on a Windows box you can run ms-windows-store://assoc/?Tags=AppExtension-microsoft.store.edgePWA

I run PWABuilder.com as well, and I can tell you that many, many PWAs get published to the Google Play Store, including some very popular ones.

I agree there is some confusion around PWA installation. There are some proposed web standards with Google and Microsoft's backing to help with that, e.g. Web Install: https://github.com/MicrosoftEdge/MSEdgeExplainers/blob/main/...

Re: iOS allows alternative browser engines in Japan

#168

Post by inquirerGeneral »

steelbrain wrote: post #106
WD-42 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good. The sooner I can run Firefox with the legit uBlock origin the better.

While its not Firefox, you can run uBlock origin with the Orion browser from the Kagi people.

[dead]

Re: iOS allows alternative browser engines in Japan

#169

Post by MBCook »

GaryBluto wrote: post #69

I'm surprised Apple haven't thrown in the towel and opened things up worldwide yet. It's only a matter of time until it becomes too confusing and problematic to try and run the same system relatively openly in one country and walled in another.

I don’t think you understand Apple‘s stubbornness. They DO NOT like being told what to do.

They seem to have gotten a long way better with Japan in this process than the EU, but they’re still not happy about it. So they’re absolutely not gonna just roll over for everyone.

Re: iOS allows alternative browser engines in Japan

#170

Post by jauntywundrkind »

ChadNauseam wrote: post #136
leptons wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It absolutely is reality. Safari is the worst browser by far , it's been compared to Microsoft's old Internet Explorer browser. But don't take my word for it, lots of people have written about it... https://www.google.com/search?q=safari+is+the+new+ie And Apple purposely will never implement lots of APIs that only their native apps allow (which other browsers implement), specifically to force many developers to creat…

I suspect it might have been motivated by antitrust concerns, but safari is really not that bad. Check out Interop 2025: https://wpt.fyi/interop-2025 They generally are pretty caught up on features. They have webgpu, they support the web notifications API (once a PWA is installed), lots of stuff. My main gripe is that they make it too hard to install PWAs, but we're still waiting for an actual API for that. (Maybe in…

Personally my feel is Safari at least isn't dead in the water any more, does ship some stuff. It's much better than 2 years ago. 4 years ago it was a travesty.

But there's still all sorts of wonkiness they just makes Safari non viable. If you don't PWA install, your storage gets cleared alarmingly quickly. If you do install it's still cleared wicked fast. Notifications seem to have incredibly unreliable delivery issues and require PWA installs to work at all. The features are closer to parity than before but the base functionality is still sabotaged deeply. 'The user is secure' with Apple is amazing doublespeak (the second meaning being securely in Apple's pocket with no where to go).

It's worth noting that Interop participants meet and decide via unanimous consent what they are going to work on each year. The anti-trust case against Apple would be far stronger if they didn't show up & find some stuff to work on, to agree to. And with apologies as I break out the tin foil hat, showing up also gives them some leverage to shape what doesn't get worked on too.

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