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Apple's Browser Engine Ban Persists, Even Under the DMA

open-web-advocacy.org

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Re: Apple's Browser Engine Ban Persists, Even Under the DMA

#301

Post by streptomycin »

ec109685 wrote: post #218
rafaelmn wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has an incentive to make everything work through the web. Safari has the incentive to gatekeep the app store revenue, which is why PWAs are a joke on iOS. Google also has bad incentives (Android, ads) but Safari is the IE6 of modern web.

Are PWA’s better and more popular on Android?

Biggest differences:

- You can fairly easily list them in the Google's app store, whereas they are basically banned from Apple's app store

- iOS/Safari is much more aggressive about deleting data from PWAs

Re: Apple's Browser Engine Ban Persists, Even Under the DMA

#302

Post by zamadatix »

ec109685 wrote: post #218
rafaelmn wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has an incentive to make everything work through the web. Safari has the incentive to gatekeep the app store revenue, which is why PWAs are a joke on iOS. Google also has bad incentives (Android, ads) but Safari is the IE6 of modern web.

Are PWA’s better and more popular on Android?

Much better but only slightly more popular. Partly because the Play Store ecosystem treats wrapping PWAs as a first class use case and you don't even have to source APKs from the official store anyways - so there's not much to gain by delivering via "true" PWA. Apple goes more the route of the stick than carrot.

Re: Apple's Browser Engine Ban Persists, Even Under the DMA

#303

Post by int_19h »

pickledoyster wrote: post #55

On top of that, iOS continues to push Safari on users by disregarding their default browser settings. Steps to reproduce: 0. Select a different default browser, delete the Safari app (just for good measure, even though it's not really possible just like deleting IE in older Win versions) 1. Open the Books app 2. Select text 3. Select Search 4. Press Search the Web 5. Safari search results open as you stare in disbeli…

Interestingly this is not the case on iOS. So much so that Apple Mail has an option in context menu for hyperlinks to open them in any of the installed browsers (while respecting your choice of the default).

Re: Apple's Browser Engine Ban Persists, Even Under the DMA

#304

Post by paisawalla »

hungmung wrote: post #281
stockresearcher wrote: post #103

Even if you get past the roadblocks Apple has put in place, it’s not beer and skittles for browser makers in the EU. The CRA, which is now in effect, lists browsers as class I important products. Technical documentation, design documentation, user documentation, security conformance testing, a declared support period at the time of download, software bill of materials, the legal obligation to respond to and make all…

Can somebody tell me if this applies to FOSS browsers?

Someone will need to establish an entity to bring a distributable version of that browser to an app store, and in doing so, taking on the compliance liability.

Re: Apple's Browser Engine Ban Persists, Even Under the DMA

#305

Post by Eisenstein »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #297
Eisenstein wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was responding to a specific aspect regarding population and labor, I am not an expert on Europe. I would like to say, though, that starting with a conclusion and working backwards from it is a really terrible way to proceed with a hypothesis.

>I was responding to a specific aspect regarding population and labor Like which example are you referring to? Be specific. Because you haven't provided any reproducible arguments or specific facts to support your opinion, and I gave you a real life example that disproves your hypothetical one. >I am not an expert on Europe You don't need to be one to argue on this, if you have other arguments that can be substantiat…

> Like which example are you referring to? Be specific. Because you haven't provided any reproducible arguments or specific facts to support your opinion, and I gave you a real life example that disproves your hypothetical one.

Your first paragraph, specifically.

> Same how the US's economy isn't stronger because Americans have more kids because we're not talking about agrarian civilizations here where every pair of hands on the farm ads proportional labor output. In service based economies, a smart person with a wealthy VC behind him can generate the GDP growth of tens of thousands of traditional labor jobs so population growth isn't the bottleneck.

> You don't need to be one to argue on this, if you have other arguments that can be substantiated with proof or facts to disprove mine.

I am not arguing with you about anything, I am stating why population is an important factor in economic growth. Are you disputing that this is the case?

> I'm not starting from the conclusion

You are starting from 'the US economy is better than Europe's because Europe is stifling high tech growth' and working backwards from there. It is incredibly obvious that is what you are doing.

Re: Apple's Browser Engine Ban Persists, Even Under the DMA

#306

Post by poisonborz »

swat535 wrote: post #288
poisonborz wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watch them not enforce this at all whenever they need something from the US, like how they delayed (and afaik still do) heavy Google/Meta/Apple fines for DMA. Laws don't matter, only enforcement. See TikTok ban.

This is the biggeest issue that techies on HN don't understand. These tech giants are essentially extensions of the United State's government now and fining them or imposing restrictions isn't as simple as fining any corporation due to the geopolitics at play. The long term solution is for EU to decouple its reliance on American technology. Anything else is a bandaid IMO.

The problem is not the technical reliance, EU is relying on the US, full stop. This isn't a question of making a new EU cloud hosting provider (already hard). This turn of events was completely unexpected and decades of strategizing crumbled.

Re: Apple's Browser Engine Ban Persists, Even Under the DMA

#307

Post by ashdksnndck »

hshdhdhj4444 wrote: post #180
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is why the EU's GDP versus the US is now only 65% and shrinking. The regulations are about beating US companies into compliance, sometimes with righteous motives; but there's no forethought on how a domestic EU startup might be able to comply, or how a startup would convince investors to take the gamble.

Yeah, because EU software companies were totally destroying the American software industry before the last decade… The EU’s relatively shrinking GDP has much more to do with their populations growing older and their population size stabilizing, and the relatively tiny amount of migration, than EU digital laws, most of which have been replicated throughout the world. Additionally, the EU has always had weak financial…

If my coworkers are anything to judge by, the smart ambitious Europeans are coming to work in tech in the US to seek their fortune.

Re: Apple's Browser Engine Ban Persists, Even Under the DMA

#308

Post by lemoncucumber »

kevincox wrote: post #295
lemoncucumber wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thus far Apple Maps doesn't have ads. There are rumors they may ad them (pun intended), but I don't think their motivations for steering people towards Apple Maps are primarily monetary.

I think they are. Maybe not directly as you point out but there are lots of indirect reasons that don't seem that far fetched. 1. Using Apple Maps makes the switching cost to other devices (that don't have Apple Maps) higher. 2. Having more users makes any future monetization more valuable. I understand that there doesn't yet appear to be any direct monetization but I very much expect to see it at some point. 3. Remo…

Agreed, I guess I should have said it's not directly about making money from Maps, it's all indirect business reasons.

Same thing with Apple operating iMessage for free without ads... they don't care about monetizing iMessage but it's also not about altruism.

Re: Apple's Browser Engine Ban Persists, Even Under the DMA

#309

Post by tensor »

SoftTalker wrote: post #232
semiquaver wrote: post #153

> Safari is the highest margin product Apple has ever made, accounts for 14-16% of Apple’s annual operating profit Does anyone know what this means? Safari is built in to the OS, how exactly would you measure its margin? Are they just talking about the Google search deal?

Safari is the default browser and they don't support ad blocking very well. It's easily the worst web browsing experience of any platform I've used in the last 5 years.

Safari supports ad blocking just fine. In fact I switched from a google pixel to iphone precisely for this feature. On the pixel there was no way to have ad blocking in embedded browsers, and of course so many apps defaulted to embedded browsers for that very reason. On iOS the blocking works everywhere.

Safari as a browser is great on iOS. The problem is the forced default of google search, and worse, you can't even use search engines outside of a very small number of built-in. E.g. I can't set the. default to be kagi. This is because the money from google is dependant on them sending users to the "search" site.

Re: Apple's Browser Engine Ban Persists, Even Under the DMA

#310

Post by notnullorvoid »

pxeger1 wrote: post #113

Relatedly, all Google apps (e.g. Maps) on iOS try very hard to push Chrome on you (even though iOS Chrome still has to use WebKit). When you click an external link, they present you the options of Chrome, Google (the search app), or Safari. This happens even if you don't have Chrome/Google installed, so they take you to the App Store instead of opening the webpage. If you choose Safari, it still doesn't open Safari,…

As someone who despises Apple's anti-competitive behavior, I would be okay with them removing apps for this kind of abuse.

Setting a default browser means when I open a link it should always use that browser without prompting.

Facebook/Messenger are another case of not respecting default browser, and always open with their own in-app browser.

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