Get the top HN stories in your inbox every day.
MBCook
concinds
I can't wait until regulators do their job and take away Apple's dictatorial control, in all areas, and all these doom-and-gloom predictions on all these tangential issues end up proving ludicrous.
What kind of control would Chrome have over the web? Adding APIs doesn't force the billions of websites to adopt them. So what if a website adds WebBluetooth? You don't want the web to have that anyway, and if you keep using Safari, you still won't have it. Happy you!
If scrappy Firefox on open platforms could save the web from 95% IE, then why are we all dependent on Apple, alone, to save us from ~60% Chrome? It's learned helplessness and Stockholm syndrome. I wonder how our species survived before the trillion-dollar company started taking such good care of us!
icehawk
Not even a day ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46454115:
> I want my browser to protect me from ALL those things. Ublock origin did precisely that, then Google went in to kill ublock origin. Ublock lite is nowhere near as good.
>
> I consider this betrayal - naturally by Google, but also by random web designers such as on the python homepage who consider it morally just to pester visitors when they do not want to be pestered. I don't accept ads; I don't accept pop-ups or slide-in effects (in 99.999% of the cases; notifications for some things can be ok, but this does not extend in my book to donation Robin Hood waylanders)."
concinds
Why did you link me to a random comment?
edit: I see now. Firefox still has uBlock Origin. You missed the point. If Chrome wants to make itself less attractive, you should celebrate.
objclxt
> What kind of control would Chrome have over the web? Adding APIs doesn't force the billions of websites to adopt them.
You are assuming adding APIs is a net positive, and the debacle that was Chrome’s privacy sandbox initiative suggests that’s not the case
> why are we all dependent on Apple, alone, to save us from ~60% Chrome?
How’s Firefox doing now? They’re literally dependent upon Chrome to exist. Without Google they have no money to fund development.
The only viable non-Chromium browser engine today that is not funded by Google is WebKit.
bigfudge
That was almost 20 years ago though. Things are really different now and it's hard to imagine Firefox saving anything these days. Sadly, the only entities powerful enough to control FANGs are FANGs (although fingers crossed the EU holds it's nerve and EU nations belatedly act on the realisation that being beholden to US tech giants is a massive strategic blunder, akin to relying so heavily on US military satellite data for Ukraine).
concinds
Yes, new problems will require new solutions. I'm calling out the logic of paternalism and dependency, an impotent hope pinned on a "benevolent" corporation retaining absolute control forever.
chongli
I don't have much faith in Firefox saving us, given its organizational turnover and cultural issues.
I have much more faith in a new entrant, like Ladybird. I should be able to use Ladybird on iOS. Why not?
pipeline_peak
> What kind of control would Chrome have over the web?
Do you remember Manifest Version 3? They did away with ad block extensions.
If we all end up using Chromium, there’s no longer a web standard. It’s whatever conforms to Google’s standard because all sites will have to support Chromium. That means there will be an undocumented spec. It’s much too difficult for browser engine developers to compete with them, they don’t have nearly the resources.
Do you think the web should be an open standard? How can company catch up if Google is the one pushing the envelope?
mdhb
Just want to be super clear here… the other party in this question being Apple who is currently the worlds richest company who makes the worlds buggiest browser as seen here https://wpt.fyi/results/?label=master&label=experimental&ali...
The idea that you’re pushing is a hole that Apple themselves have dug on purpose, this is not an oversight but a very intentional decision of theirs to protect their profit margins that their main user retention strategy is that many courts in the world especially the US are never going to force them to compete freely in an open marketplace with consumer choice is a factor.
donkyrf
So according to you, a company that has about 25% of the global smartphone market, should be _legally forbidden_ from creating a tightly integrated software/hardware bundle.
Whereas, a company that has 70% of the global browser market somehow would have no way to take advantage if they had an even larger share.
I wonder how our species would survive without the unique market analysis from one-of-a-kind minds like yours.
well_ackshually
> a company that has about 25% of the global smartphone market, should be _legally forbidden_ from creating a tightly integrated software/hardware bundle.
Absolutely not. Most of us are perfectly happy with Apple tightly integrating Safari with their hardware.
However, we're going to legally forbid them to prevent users from breaking that tight integration, because it's their device. Apple doesnt "own" the smartphone market: it provides hardware and services, and it shuts the fuck up.
ivell
Web and Apple ecosystem is not comparable. IE had quite large market share and was brought down by Chrome in quite short time. Firefox challenged IE quite effectively before that. But Windows (desktop) still enjoys quite large market share even though Google, Linux and Apple (macOS) are trying hard.
The OS lock-in is much more difficult to break than Web where the standards are openly built and made available. One aspect in favor of Google is the complexity of implementing all those standards. But that is not lock-in, rather an issue of having enough resources to implement a compliant browser.
geon
> If scrappy Firefox
Because ie at the time was dogshit. FF was such an indisputable improvement that people just had to switch.
Chrome great. There is nothing a newcomer can do to compete.
simfree
There is plenty a browser could do to compete, from blocking modern popups (which now occur within the window, putting a gradient over the content forcing you to interact with their "subscribe to our mailing list" or "join our site to socialize" prompt that you would have to waste time clicking past, auto-pausing looping videos in unfocused tabs, throttling crypto mining tabs, providing uBlock Origin, handling WiFi Terms of Service click through, etc.
Think of the plethora of instances where you wish your browser made minor changes to make browsing easier
eviks
There are plenty of things to compete on: efficiency (startup time, memory use), security (from ad blocking on sites to extensions to the app itself), customization (both in looks and behavior)
Loudergood
Additionally, the predatory UI in Windows that pushes Edge, and on Google.com that push Chrome, simply did not exist at the time.
idonotknowwhy
100% agreed, and I've been explaining this to people for the past year.
I have an iPhone now and miss Firefox for Android (with Ublock, sponsorblock, etc). But this painful restriction is the only thing stopping Chrome from becoming the new IE6.
At a few startups I've worked for, the devs all use chrome exclusively, and only test in chrome during development.
The only reason they consider other browsers, is because of Safari on iOS. Sometimes it's driven by support calls / complains from iOS users after a release. If Chrome's engine is allowed on iOS, that means support can just tell the users to install Chrome (like they do now if anyone has issues on Windows in other browsers). This means Firefox will usually work as well.
Many years ago, I was able to swap banks when my bank's website stopped working in Opera 12. If all the major banks / websites target Chrome-only, we'll have no choice but to use it. And then we'll have no control as Google push new restrictions into Chrome.
kace91
I don’t see that as a threat honestly. safari being the default app pretty much guarantees its place unless google comes up with a killer feature for iOS chrome. And they are unlikely to make that push considering apple demands the app to be distributed only in Japan.
Besides, the mobile web is becoming more and more of a niche platform, since the web is becoming centralised as time passes and most main sites redirect to their own apps.
And that’s without considering direct web search being replaced by AI search,which google seems convinced is the way forward.
MBCook
It was the default on the Mac and it’s nowhere near the most popular there.
Google pushes Chrome HARD.
cosmic_cheese
Yep. I've even been seeing Chrome TV ads lately (on Amazon Prime Video). They're marketing it pretty hard despite being dominant.
Also, it's wise to not underestimate the power of developers ceasing to test against non-Blink browsers and taking a page from their IE-era past selves with "Best Viewed in Chrome" and "Browser outdated! Download Chrome" badges. There are few user motivators stronger than things not working.
ribosometronome
Similarly, Edge is the default on Windows. Chrome has 75% of the market share.
ndiddy
Yeah it's fun how Google displays a full-page ad for Chrome every few times I do a Google search on iOS Safari that I have to dismiss before seeing the results.
benoau
Yeah but the solution to that is to be good at breaking monopolies, not allowing one to stop another.
rplnt
Always had. From blocking features by UA to ads worth billions of dollars (only little of which they had to actually pay).
geraldwhen
Google has no actual content left to find. It’s AI spam website after AI spam website.
And if you find any content, it’s on a website riddled with ads.
AI search has none of these issues. Google from 15 years ago was wildly superior to today.
kace91
>AI search has none of these issues
Yet. AI feeds from the content it substitutes. I’m skeptical to the long term feasibility for this reason, how is it going to bring me news when publishing those news is no longer profitable, for example?
zx8080
The last working site in google search is reddit. Adding keyword reddit enables it. But it's disappointing.
tom1337
> safari being the default app
but this can change. At least in the EU Apple already prompts a user which browser they want [1]. While at the moment every browser is WebKit under the hood, this will probably change as the EU is also pushing Apple to allow other engines [2] - and with users knowing Chrome from Ads, their work or from a previous Android phone, I can imagine a lot of them selecting Chrome as a default.
1: https://www.heise.de/en/news/Apple-alters-selection-screen-f... 2: https://developer.apple.com/support/alternative-browser-engi...
s3p
Until websites block you from logging in, completing transactions, ordering items until you open it with Chrome
MBCook
Or just get buggy. I have absolutely run into sites that work on mobile Safari but not on desktop Safari. Because they don’t test it and don’t care.
You HAVE to use Chrome or possibly Firefox. We’ve always seen what Firefox is doing, they’re not going to be our saviors again.
lukeschlather
That ship has already sailed. And Apple is part of the problem. Recently I used Microsoft Edge because Facetime doesn't support Firefox. I couldn't get audio working so switched to Google Meet (which does work in Firefox.)
gigel82
I'm sure if Apple keeps innovating and adopting some of the Web standards they'll outcompete other engines. But let's be realistic, they 100% are blocking other engines and not adopting standards in their own because they want that sweet sweet 30% cut when developers can't publish PWAs and are forced into the "app" model.
cosmic_cheese
WebKit's progress has been significant in recent years, it's just been more focused on things like improving CSS instead of things like an API that tells the developer how many beers the user has in their fridge.
kelthuzad
[flagged]
Jach
People didn't mind when IE was muscling in and adding useful new features. They abandoned Netscape because the features made the web better. It wasn't until they stopped adding features to the browser itself that it really started to become a problem. They would still add features, but too much relied on ActiveX -- which wasn't necessarily evil, there's a grand vision there of component re-use across the OS and varied applications, the same was done with Java Applets and even Shockwave/Flash, but it sucked more and they were all plagued with security problems. Then MS stopped innovating pretty much entirely, and wouldn't even play catch up for a long time, whether with their out-of-browser plugins (oh Silverlight...) or the browser itself. No support for tabs for a long time, or popup blocking (later ad blocking), they had terrible performance... And as various "web standards" advanced to make things nicer for the users and developers, and add capabilities that didn't require an external plugin, they drug their heels on that too.
Eventually, the hell that was IE was a combination of hostile user experience, security problems, performance problems, and developer pain in finding workarounds or other support because it was so far behind on everything. It had nothing to do with their power to dictate or experiment with new features. The extent of the hostile user experience that leaked outside the browser itself was the "only works on IE" problem that forced people to use IE for that site, on the whole it was comparable to the "only works with Flash or Java applets" problems and not as bad as the experience of the browser itself. For the most part these days, the two parts of that hell that remain relevant are the hostile user experience and the developer pains parts, and Mobile Safari is the successor to both for over a decade now. No one supports IE11 anymore (let alone older IEs) but they still have to support Mobile Safari. I have fonder memories of dealing with IE11 (and earlier) support/workarounds over Mobile Safari's crap. My view is more power to actual Chromium-based browsers on mobile even if I personally use Firefox on PC and android despite their user experience shortcomings (at least they're not very hostile). The only part of hell I'd be worried about is that of a hostile user experience, which can be worked around by individual users if they are allowed choices.
userbinator
It wasn't until they stopped adding features to the browser itself that it really started to become a problem.
Only for those misguided "push the web forward" idiots who just wanted the latest shiny shit, aided by Google's plans to control the Internet itself. Plain HTML worked well enough for everything else.
Google's weapon is change. They have the resources to outcompete everyone else by churning the "standards" as much as they want. The less people think that constant change is necessary, the better the web will be.
mdhb
This is silly IMO.
Technologies like HTTP and Wasm are truly excellent tools for cross platform software delivery and browsers are an ideal sandboxed execution environment.
This idea that the web should only be for straight up HTML documents is a broken mental model.
Apple have a multi-billion dollar income stream that is firmly premised on the fact that nobody could deliver software on their platform unless they could steal 30% of the companies profits and as such spent a huge amount of time and effort undermining the idea that the web could ever be an app platform but you’re not compelled to cheerlead for Apple’s profit margins and anti-consumer bullshit.
baby
Safari is so bad, I want a real chrome experience on iOS
lokar
Can you explain how? Poor standards implementation? Performance? UX?
socalgal2
No full screen API so impossible to make lots of types of game experiences.
No orientation API so impossible to make games and other experiences that require a certain orientation
No WebXR (though Apple will allow it on Vision Pro)
No support for ResizeObvserver devicePixelContentBoxSize so impossible to get correct rendering reguardless of user's zoom level.
No simple PWA installation. Requires an obscure incantation that only expert users know.
That's just a few off the top of my head.
Yes, I know all the comments will be about how they don't want those features. That's really irrelevant. Allow them to be turned off. Require permissions. Those features have been shipping on other OSes, Desktop and Mobile for > 5 years and the world hasn't ended.
jonhohle
I hear this a lot, but have used Safari as my since it was launch in 2003.Performance has always been great. UI has always been minimalist, out of the way, and has never upsold me on anything. There are times where it lags and times where it leads standards. There may be a a site every now and then that doesn’t work, but iOS makes that less likely. The only thing I can ever think of is that it’s not <insert favorite browser> or doesn’t have <some favorite esoteric feature>.
That said, the only plugins I use are ad blockers, so maybe I’m missing something.
panstromek
Late on a lot of standards, quirky in many ways and just a lot of bugs, especially around images and videos. Also positioning issues. They recently broke even position fixed, which broke a ton of web pages on iOS, including apple.com
vips7L
I’d like the extension ecosystem from chrome or Firefox. I miss having real Firefox with real Ublock like on Android.
concinds
I cannot go through a day without "this tab has been reloaded due to a problem" on Safari iOS and any other browser. It's been happening for years, across phones. It's dogshit. Safari Mac is fine.
Even if that's an edge case, it's why having only one engine is pathological. Maybe Safari iOS works fine for you. Not for me. I don't want rationalization on why it's not Apple's fault, or somehow not Safari's fault, or "they'll fix it one day", or "I'm doing it wrong", or all the fanboy-talk that sounds like the enabling relative of an alcoholic. Don't care. I should be able to switch for even the most frivolous reason. Maybe I don't like that it doesn't render every website in pink.
It's like having only one type of chocolate in existence. This was never normal.
kayart_dev
Although I partially agree with you, Firefox on Android is a wonderful mobile browser (with some weird stuff though). I would love to have the same Firefox on my iOS but it's currently just impossible.
Wowfunhappy
I know this isn't new for Japan, but this requirement caught my eye:
> Use memory-safe programming languages, or features that improve memory safety within other languages, within the alternative web browser engine at a minimum for all code that processes web content
Would Apple themselves meet this requirement? Isn't WebKit C++? Of course, I'm not sure what would be considered "features that improve memory safety within other languages," that's kind of vague.
rafram
hu3
Documentation to guide devs on safe usage of C++ is enough?
So any language should be allowed as long as they instruct developers to be careful.
resonious
Compliance often works exactly like this.
creato
I don't know if they do this, but those conventions could be enforced by a tool.
ladyanita22
Apple's resistance to rust is truly mind-boggling
giancarlostoro
I do wonder how long before Apple either replaces WebKit with something built in Swift, or starts slowly converting their browser engine to Swift.
GaryBluto
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.
overfeed
> 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, and executives already on the payroll for this task.
lxgr
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.
valleyer
Lawyers, admins, and executives, sure. But what about the complexity on the engineers who now have to maintain an exploding matrix of modes? I can definitely see that becoming burdensome.
davnicwil
much has been written about the deteriorating quality of iOS.
There's bluntly not strong external evidence that software quality is a driving priority at Apple in recent years, so it most probably follows that concerns about maintainability aren't either.
xp84
You’re not wrong, it is burdensome but the sheer volume of money they secure primarily because of their license to rent-seek mercilessly (in the US especially because it’s the market they dominate most and with the weakest regulators) makes even a hilarious amount of complexity supportable. Besides, it’s mainly the users who suffer from the codebase falling apart, not Apple decision makers.
SheinhardtWigCo
$500k+ TC makes many burdens worth shouldering
npunt
they make $1b in revenue and $300mm a day in profit
theplatman
Engineers say they want to work on hard problems then complain that they can’t solve something because it’s too complex
abacadaba
sounds like a problem for claude to worry about
2OEH8eoCRo0
And since billions of dollars are on the line it will remain profitable for a long time.
hypeatei
I've always thought the same. Obviously there isn't much of a technical hurdle since they have the engineering talent. But, keeping track of all these cross-region rules and training your staff+customers on it has to be quite costly in multiple respects (time, energy, mental models, etc.)
My personal opinion is that keeping the browser engine locked down isn't much of a profit generator, unlike maintaining full reign over the app store would be.
bloppe
Hobbling browser engines is a key pillar of app store control. Decent PWA support would be a massive blow to Apple's bottom line.
madeofpalk
Is Chrome's PWA support on Android a massive glow to Android Play Store's bottom line?
I don't buy this line, that Safari is intentionally hobbled to prop up the App Store. What's iOS missing for PWA's to be a viable money-maker for companies? Surely there so much money on the line that we would see companies using them. What does Match.com's portfolio of dating apps need to be viable as websites instead?
In reality, when you actually pay attention to Apple's software engineering practices you realise how incredibly cheap and stingy they are. All the apps are so under funded and under developed. Bugs are introduced all over their native platforms all the time and never fixed.
benoau
It's not just that, Apple also gets $20+ billion per year in AdSense revenue from Google for being the default search engine in Safari. A change of even 10% marketshare would cost them billions, and this money is pure profit.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/14/google-pays-apple-36percent-...
gjsman-1000
This is the conspiratorial version.
The more likely explanation is that when every app can bundle their own browser engine, we will not see a competition explosion. Instead, Electron apps will come to mobile, with every app shipping its own browser stack.
You can’t tell me Gecko, which has already failed on desktop, will suddenly be popular on mobile. You can easily tell me every app shipping their own Chromium would be very popular with developers.
WD-42
Good. The sooner I can run Firefox with the legit uBlock origin the better.
steelbrain
While its not Firefox, you can run uBlock origin with the Orion browser from the Kagi people.
WD-42
That’s what I’m currently doing - it’s barely functional. I’m sure it’ll get there eventually but it misses a ton of stuff the desktop version blocks.
Imustaskforhelp
Okay now that we have come to the topic, How is Orion browser on App store whereas all others aren't?
is there a way to make more innovation in this area and maybe an extension or two developed adding more perms etc or forking Orion or the know-how behind it and replicating it could finally allow PWA on apple iphones?
inquirerGeneral
[dead]
mdhb
Apple is intentionally trying to make it frustrating in hopes that people will complain to relevant voices that “there’s too much regulation and you should just let Apple do its thing” which is something they've been pushing a lot in Europe the past few years for example
travisgriggs
This. It’s computation. Computation doesn’t really “get” geopolitical borders.
I’m so sick of the ever increasing variances between the different “store” offerings in different regions of the world. Seems like every time I push an update (every month or so), I have to answer updated questions and declarations, often relative to different parts of the world.
gjsman-1000
This is a poorly thought through argument, as there is nothing that “gets” geopolitical borders.
MBCook
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.
rorylawless
My hope for laws such as the ones Japan and the EU enacted was that companies would see the writing on the wall and change their practices worldwide, if only for cost reasons (it presumably being more expensive to maintain multiple sets of rules.) However, these companies are now so large that they can choose to absorb any inefficiencies on a country-by-country basis.
OptionOfT
At a hardware level it seemed to work. Looking at USB-C on iPhones for example.
Software wise? Fail. EEA gets to disable start search in Windows 11. RoW does not. Interestingly EEA membership is decided at install time based on your selection, and is not changeable afterwards.
iPhones on the other hand have a daemon running that checks your location. It's not based on where you set up the phone. So traveling from Europe to somewhere else can actually prevent you from updating apps that you got via an alt-store:
https://www.macrumors.com/2024/03/06/alternative-ios-app-sto...
ryandrake
Yea, unfortunately with software, using enough granular feature flags, they can make their software "maximally bad" for each given region. They lose a battle in the EU and are forced to make the software better? They will make it better only in the EU. Lose another one in Japan over a different issue? Just make a "japan" flag and only make it narrowly better for that use case in that region. Lose further battles in other regions, just add more flags.
They will never deploy the "better" feature worldwide if they have the opportunity to limit the better code to a particular region.
1: And of course, by "better" I am always referring to "better for the user" not "better for Apple."
gjsman-1000
Even in a hardware level, this is easily obtainable, and Apple already does it.
Chinese iPhones? They have 2 physical SIM card slots and no eSIM.
EU iPhones? 1 SIM card slot, and 1 eSIM.
US iPhones? 2 eSIM card slots and no physical SIM. US iPhones also have mmWave when other countries do not.
If Apple wanted to, keeping a Lightning US iPhone was easily on the cards. The EU’s role in forcing the issue in the US is exaggerated.
gyomu
1) Apple loves USB-C, they helped invent it and were one of the first to ship a USB-C only laptop
2) Apple committed to 10 years of lightning support to weather the backlash from dropping 30-pin
USB-C on iPhone was going to happen regardless of the EU.
Max-Limelihood
> 1) Apple loves USB-C Sure, that's why they refused to adopt it for almost a decade after it became the standard and fought the EU regulation tooth-and-nail.
madeofpalk
iPhone getting USB-C was inevitable. I mean, their iPads were USB-C for years before any EU law.
The best the EU can say is that the law moved up the inevitable a year or two.
viktorcode
And what's your opinion if the law would oblige the companies to remove features their products have like tracking transparency popups? Two countries' courts already fined Apple for enforcing a popup that warns users about tracking across third party apps (a feature Apple themselves do not use)?
rorylawless
My prior POV was that Apple would jettison the feature globally, but the discussion elsewhere in this thread suggests that salami slicing at the software-level is a cost larger companies are willing to bear.
crazygringo
There are many things Apple does that have anticompetitive motivations, but the browser engine doesn't seem like one of them. It's genuinely about security and battery life and standardization. So if cost was never the reason in the first place, cost is not going to be the reason to change.
greiskul
It is literally done for strategic reasons to put a stranglehold on innovations on the web, so that there is no risk of web app technology developing to a point to threaten the dominance of native apps and the app store.
Anybody that thinks otherwise is hopeless naive, Steve Jobs himself envisioned a web app future as the future of technology; before Apple found out the gold mine that the app store became.
crazygringo
> to put a stranglehold on innovations on the web
I think that's the hypothetical part, it's not reality. Safari continues to be a fully modern browser. It doesn't release new features quite as fast as Chrome, but it does generally adopt them.
If Apple were attempting to put a "stranglehold on innovations on the web", Safari's feature set would look very different. But that's not what's happening.
Like I said, Apple does lots of anticompetitive things. I'm not blind to what they do with the app store. I just don't think that the single browser engine policy is motivated by this, or has much effect on it, given how Apple does keep maintaining Safari as a modern browser.
avar
> Steve Jobs himself envisioned a
> web app future as the future of[...]
His remarks at the time of the initial iPhone release (with the benefit of hindsight) were clearly because they weren't ready to expose any sort of native API's.
Pissing on you and telling you it's raining was typical Jobs reality distortion field marketing, and not an indication that he actually believed it was raining.
otterley
> Anybody that thinks otherwise is hopeless naive
This is inappropriate. People can reasonably disagree without being insulting to each other.
If you have concrete evidence that Apple is deliberately withholding some essential advancement in Safari or its support for Web standards so that it can sell more apps, by all means, cite it.
toast0
If browser F is worse at battery life than browser S, people will figure that out and adapt for themselves. If it's a big difference, it's self-evident; and small differences should show up in the battery life tool and computer press.
Security-wise, the sandbox should limit damage to within the browser, and if it doesn't that's not the browser's fault. Maybe restrict access to password filling and such though / figure out how to offer an API to reduce the impact.
Standardization, eh? Forcing Safari on iOS and not making it available on the mass market platforms (Android and Windows) makes it a pretty wonky standard. I guess there's a claim to be made for the embedded browsing engine, but IMHO, that should be an app developer choice.
michaelt
> If browser F is worse at battery life than browser S, people will figure that out and adapt for themselves.
Unfortunately, the makers of a certain browser also control several major web properties, and regularly make 'mistakes' that break compatibility with competing browsers, while releasing a set of apps that 'forget' users' browser selections on a monthly basis.
Personally, I'd much prefer apple allowed a browser engine with proper ad blocking support. But I do worry that the moment they do so, the almost-monopoly browser market would become a total monopoly.
n8cpdx
Safari exclusivity is the only reason we aren’t living in a 100% “this site built for chrome” world. I think folks must forget the IE days and how bad that was.
There is zero percent chance developers are wasting a second making sure their sites actually work cross platform if not for iOS (and iOS more moneyed user base).
Tagbert
Safari has long been better for battery than Chrome but people still install Chrome on their MacBooks.
crazygringo
> people will figure that out and adapt for themselves
No they won't. People on HN will. Not the average person.
> Security-wise, the sandbox should limit damage to within the browser
The problem is, arbitrary code execution vastly expands the risks. Your "should" is doing all the work there.
> Standardization, eh? Forcing Safari on iOS and not making it available on the mass market platforms
Huh? Apple follows web standards. Why the heck should it make Safari available on Android and Windows? Safari isn't a standard, web standards are.
gumby271
The web browser is the singular hole in Apple's grip over the user's device. While there are definitely arguments that can be made about security, I think it's naive to think that Apple is unaware of this and is operating on something other than protecting their app store fortune.
8note
why wouldnt they just drop safari and switch to firefox with ublock origin included in that case?
adtech is the big security and performance drain and allowing ads and making them hard to block is a big security and performance gap
giobox
Apple appear to be using the same rules that they made up when "allowing" third party browser engines in the EU. It's worth pointing out that these restrictions are such, that to best of my knowledge, no one has shipped a browser with an alternate engine in the EU app stores yet despite being permitted to for over a year now.
The demand that the application with its alternate browser engine must be a completely new and separate binary from any app already using the built in browser makes it hard for existing big players like Chrome - they would have to manage two apps on the store during any transition to their own engine, which supposedly has been one of the biggest stumbling blocks for them already in the EU.
benoau
Another hurdle in the EU is the browser app developers must be in the EU too.
koolba
Does this mean we'll finally have "real" firefox with support for ublock origin on iOS?
modeless
Apple is going to (mostly) obey the letter of the law but they will continue to resist strongly in every way they can. Onerous requirements, arbitrary restrictions, overzealous enforcement, and most of all bad APIs with limited capabilities and no workarounds for bugs.
Shipping a good and complete browser engine on iOS will require more than just developers. You'll also need a team of lawyers to threaten and sue Apple to get their policy restrictions relaxed and APIs fixed.
I doubt Mozilla or Google will be willing to spend the many developer-years and lawyer-years it will take to fully port every feature of a whole engine and properly maintain it in such a hostile environment, just for the Japan market. I expect to see some hobbyist-level ports but not something worth using for a long time. Unless other countries follow suit.
arcanemachiner
> just for the Japan market
Also the EU, no?
modeless
Does the EU also require third party engines to be able to replace the web view in apps systemwide? Or does it only require that single standalone browser apps can use alternative engines?
Zak
Probably not, at least not from Mozilla themselves. They cite onerous requirements and the difficulty of having to maintain different apps for different regions.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/26/24052067/mozilla-apple-io...
wolvoleo
Yeah malicious compliance :(
nntwozz
There is ublock origin lite for Safari in the meantime:
https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home?tab=readme-ov-file
(it's great)
viktorcode
Probably not, as the same rules were applied to Apple devices in EU earlier, and no third party browser engines appeared.
But right now you can use uBlock origin lite in Safari. Or any other of multitude of other adblockers.
mrtesthah
You can actually use full uBlock origin in Kagi's Orion iOS browser.
ckcheng
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.
aryonoco
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.
ckcheng
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
LetsGetTechnicl
How does it compare to 1Blocker? I use that in Safari and also a VPN when I'm away back to my home connection so it uses my NextDNS which also blocks a lot of in-app ads.
mi_lk
are there major sites that don't work for you?
Longhanks
Could’ve happened some time ago already in the EU, so there must be reasons for Firefox an Google not to ship their own engines (yet?).
__turbobrew__
uBO lite works pretty well on ios/safari for me.
concinds
The separate-binary requirement makes it completely DOA, so they're still breaking the law. Deliberately. It bans actions that make it unlikely for browsers to adopt alternative engines. And they mandate no sharing of login-state with any other app from the same developer, despite violating that themselves (Safari sync is turned on by default, no encryption by default). Funny. And they mandate blocking third-party cookies, great but completely inappropriate for an OS to impose. The most hilarious:
> Prioritize resolving reported vulnerabilities with expedience [...] Most vulnerabilities should be resolved in 30 days, but some may be more complex and may take longer.
Apple does not comply with this.
drnick1
2026 should be the year when every tech-minded person dumps Apple (and Google) for good and either starting running either a free Android OS (Graphene, Lineage or a couple of other variants) or a Linux phone.
At this point, Apple and Google devices are nothing more than instruments of coercion and mass surveillance.
criddell
Lectures and admonitions won’t change anything. People will move to Graphene and Linux when it’s better for them.
Coercion and surveillance problems are pretty far down the list of complaints most people have with their personal devices.
yokoprime
Making "tech-minded persons" dump apple etc does NOTHING to move the needle in terms of what most people use.
For example I'm running a pretty sweet calibre-web automated setup with Kobo readers. Ive changed the storefront on my kobo and have seemless sync OTA of selected shelves. And even I struggle to get my wife to choose that setup over Amazon kindle. The very minute there is a single snag, normies (sorry wife dear) lose interest.
EA-3167
I’m doing the same thing with a Boox and Amazon couldn’t pay me to go back. Calibre is a godsend.
EA-3167
This is profoundly out of touch with how almost everyone who isn’t a particularly zealous member of certain movements lives their lives.
airstrike
Unfortunately, I appreciate the deep integration between my phone and my laptop too much to drop either
drnick1
I don't have Apple devices to compare, but I think KDE Connect can closely replicate this, entirely locally. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple's "deep integrations" rely on cloud components that are privacy-violating by design (even if Apple promises not to look at the data flowing through their servers).
cosmic_cheese
Most cross device stuff in the Apple world actually works via P2P Bluetooth and WiFi and functions without an internet connection or even a shared WiFi network. Mac and iDevice WiFi hardware is even designed with this in mind and is capable of maintaining P2P connections to other devices and a WiFi network simultaneously without rapidly switching between the two like many commodity WiFi cards have to.
arzig
Unfortunately the integration is really quite weak with Apple. KDE Connect cannot remain active while the application is not in the foreground. It’s possibly a packaging issue but pairing from fedora is also quite flakey.
As absurd as this sounds windows -> iPhone via their phone link is actually almost as good as apples built in ecosystem to the point where I can make phone calls and send texts on my computer. It’s not quite as seamless especially the setup but that is a well done wizard and it mostly works.
cpuguy83
KDE Connect with iOS, while useful, is terrible.
bsimpson
So far as I can tell, Linux phones are still ass.
Linux on mobile is probably even more behind than Linux on desktop was in the 90s.
drnick1
I don't think they're terrible, but there are two main issues: (i) lack of flagship-level hardware, (ii) app compatibility. Issue (ii) is largely mitigated by Waydroid. For the time being, Graphene on a modern Pixel is still the best compromise of freedom and usability though (>99% Android app compatibility, fully degoogled).
umanwizard
> 2026 should be the year when every tech-minded person dumps Apple (and Google) for good
Why? I am a very tech-minded person but simply don't care about running alternative browser engines on my phone. Am I "wrong" in your opinion?
Max-Limelihood
Huge benefits: the ability to run any website as an app (dramatically cutting back on development costs and allowing us to finally replace Electron with PWAs), 30% cheaper apps (no Apple tax), ad-blocking, and better performance since WebKit will finally have some real competition.
websiteapi
UX is much worse imo on graphene compared to iOS
drnick1
I disagree. I had an iPhone in the past and find the minimalist Graphene UI refreshing. It's like comparing KDE on Arch to Windows 11 or MacOS. Nothing gets in your way or distracts you, the OS is what an OS is supposed to be, a platform for managing and launching apps.
cosmic_cheese
It’s definitely something that varies from person to person. I tried putting Graphene on a secondary Android device (an old Pixel 3XL) and compared to the stock ROM or more typical AOSP fork (e.g. LineageOS or Pixel Experience), I found it rather frustrating. I can’t imagine running it on my daily driver.
Similarly with Linux, the sheer number of rough edges, papercuts, and quirks is still too high (regardless of if I’m using a big name DE or hyper minimal tiling WM or somewhere in between) for them to serve as my main desktop environment.
websiteapi
UX, not UI. perfect example is you copy something on your laptop and paste it on your phone. trivial on iDevice.
IlikeKitties
>UX is much worse imo on graphene compared to iOS
Freedom and privacy exist on graphene.
meindnoch
Unfortunately, I prefer smooth animations.
arn3n
Especially with Apple, I often see people scared that if they open up their ecosystem, then users will lose one of the most consumer friendly tech companies out there. It’s not just “if apple allows alternative browsers then Chrome will win”, which is (probably) true. It’s:
* If Apple allows alternative app stores then the whole ios ecosystem will rot and be foooded with malware, brough up during the Apple vs. Epic cases
* If Apple can’t control the data on their user’s phones, then privacy rights will disappear, a common talking point during the Apple vs. Facebook case for opt-in data collection.
And like, these points are correct — Apple kind of acts like a “benevolent dictator” when it comes to their ecosystem. But shouldn’t there be alternatives between “Apple can control all software on the hardware they sell” and “the moment Apple doesn’t have control of their user’s experience then it’ll be far worse”? Like, we should have more tech companies, more options to pick from between these two extremes. The market needs to be more competitive, and if that isn’t possible shouldn’t there be regulation to protect users and devs better? This constantly feels like a “pick your poison“ kind of deal, where we can only pick between a company locking down their hardware or abuse of users via. software. If Microsoft banned alternative browser engines there’d be riots in these comments. Apple is just better to its users.
Giving companies the power to lock down hardware they sell isn’t a solution that will work when Apple inevitably turns against its users, and is a horrible precedent to set legally. Lord knows John Deere and a million other predatory hardware companies are salivating at the idea of users of their hardware not having control over what they bought, and Meta and Microsoft love the idea of users not having control of the software they run and the data it collects. We can’t just picking between the least worst of two companies.
concinds
It's weird that people never distill those arguments to their most basic logic.
Apple directly dictate the shape, speed, and existence of any innovation on iOS, and by extension, any innovation involving mobile phones or meant to run on mobile phones. They don't simply have "power" over it, in the sense that they get to say "Yes" or "No". iOS is locked down in such a fundamental way that any innovation will not come about unless Apple specifically envisions it and designs the OS to support it.
Browsers didn't exist when Windows 1.0 came out. But they happened. If it had been iOS, there would have been no networking, no JIT (I know that came later, bear with me), Firefox/Gecko could never have existed and been able to fix the web. Apple alone would have controlled the evolution of the most important tech of the past few decades. It couldn't have existed in the first place unless Apple, and no one else, invented it and put it in iOS themselves. Basic OS features: files and the filesystem, sharing, casting your screen, communicating with other devices. It doesn't exist until Apple makes it. It doesn't change until Apple changes it.
Even something as simple as file syncing. They forced Dropbox, GDrive, OneDrive to adopt their shitty, buggy backend. Those services all had to drop basic features to adapt. Those features can't ever come back unless Apple allows them. Any hypothetical new features won't exist unless Apple, and no one else, thinks of them and adds them.
How is this sane?
wpm
> iOS is locked down in such a fundamental way that any innovation will not come about unless Apple specifically envisions it and designs the OS to support it.
No platform highlights the issue you hit on here like VisionOS.
It is barren. Not just because of the lack of customer base for paid apps, that hurts too, but because the APIs aren't there, and because you can't hack on the private APIs or the hardware directly...they won't be. The app store on Vision Pro is filled with half-assed "spatial computing" consumption apps (Wow, I can put the stock tickers on the wall! That I can only see with these huge goggles on! Neat!), "showroom" apps that are just pure consumption, mostly 3D models of products, and media consumption apps. The games that exist are all pretty lame, and you can't enjoy any of the backcatalog of games written for VR because A. They'd never pass app review, and B. you can only use the PSVR controllers with it, so my Index controllers that I already have are useless.
The Vision Pro demands being as open as the Mac. The problem space is too ill defined and the hardware too packed with interesting use cases to gate behind the restrictive App Store rules. The iPad model worked because it was 2010 and had all the upward momentum of the iPhone to ride. Here and now, on a stagnant, occupied app market where room for innovation is small, on a device with far less promise, the App Store restrictions take all the air out of the room. The entire device is suffocated by Apple's iron grip and belief that they are entitled to own any good ideas that happen on the device, and that they are entitled to 15-30% of any economic exchange happening on the device. Just an utterly kneecapped platform right out of the gate, pricing, specs, weight, and everything else aside. There are no good apps because you just can't write the sort of apps your imagination is likely to want to make. Hell, accessing the main camera wasn't allowed until visionOS 2.0, and you have to use the "enterprise apps" API/entitlement to access it.
Apple's grip has killed it. It is a glorified TV you can wear on your face. It's a very good TV. It's even alright as an external monitor for a *real* computer.
robertoandred
Isn’t the alternative Android?
ninkendo
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 of implementing a proper way to delete your data, but they just... don't do it if you're not in the right geographic area.
swiftcoder
> 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
__aru
> The fact we still can't get this in the US is atrocious.
To be honest, I suspect that Apple is purposefully doing this to make alternatives a logistical and legal nightmare vs their own App store.
By having different rules for different countries, different fee structures, etc, Apple is basically making alternatives as inconvenient and painful as legally possible
The US not getting these features is on purpose, it makes the entire idea of "alternatives on iOS" extremely inconvenient vs just using the App store.
jccalhoun
Apple didn't donate to Trump's inauguration, give him a gold and glass paperweight, and donate to his demolishing of the East Wing so that they would have to open up the app store in the USA
shmerl
Did Japan decide to push proper competition laws?
Time to force Apple to do it everywhere. Very long overdue.
signal11
I agree with the “enforce competition laws” sentiment, but in this context, enforced naively, all it’ll do is entrench the dominant browser engine, Blink, even more across the mobile ecosystem.
I’m sure some devs will love this. But equally, some may worry about the monoculture implications.
dekoidal
It hasn’t on Macs. Safari is still popular among non-tech folk
cosmic_cheese
It’s still got popularity within tech-inclined Mac/iOS circles too because it’s easier on the battery than Chrome (+derivatives) and Firefox. Some would like to switch but because neither Google nor Mozilla has much to lose for their browsers being battery hogs, relatively little engineering effort gets dedicated to improving efficiency compared to WebKit (which is similarly efficient under Linux in e.g. GNOME Web, proving it’s not purely first-party advantage).
crossroadsguy
That’s because Apple adds two extra legs to Safari on OS level and cuts both the legs of other browsers in a manner of speaking by rigging this comparison.
Spivak
I think the narrative is that once developers have the option to tell all of their users "we only support Chrome, just install Chrome" then any support for Safari will dry up.
Unfortunately I don't think we will see if this is how it plays out until Apple has to allow other browsers globally.
concinds
The "monoculture" has never been less of a threat. WPT.FYI is driving towards asymptotically perfect compatibility and behavior. And the real web, the long-tail of websites, is too chaotic to be controlled by any entity regardless of browser market share. Chrome can cook up whatever API they want, no website can be forced to adopt it. And if someone can't use some WebMIDI site on Safari, well, they can't complain, they didn't want that site to exist in the first place.
It's simply not a good excuse to defend the iOS browser ban.
shmerl
Banning competition can't possibly help increasing competition.
It would be good to see Firefox with its own engine there for example.
zb3
The title is misleading. "Allows" need to be in quotes - they did everything they could to make sure this won't change anything in practice. Screw Apple.
ninkendo
Could you elaborate? Other than the "Japan" requirement it seems legit?
I guess the requirements are pretty onerous, but they all seem like table stakes for a browser these days (Firefox or Chrome should have no problem with them, for instance.)
catlikesshrimp
They weren't going to title "Apple forced to allow alternative..."
They are the ones allowing the alternatives because they are the gate keepers. They have "the keys"
Get the top HN stories in your inbox every day.
I’m not going to say I think Apple should be able to lock out competing browsers, I know this is going to happen.
But God I don’t want this. The iPhone is basically the only thing stopping a total Chrome/Chromium hegemony from ruling the web the way IE did.
I don’t think Google will practically abandon things the way Microsoft did. But they will absolutely have the kind of power Microsoft did to force any feature.
I don’t want to be forced to use Chrome because it’s the only browser that works on most sites. It’s already bad enough with some sites.
But Apple‘s stubbornness and completely different reasons are the only things accidentally holding back the tide.