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Reading through the comments, I noticed certain themes / lines of thought that keep popping up: - 3rd party browsers on iOS will allow Chrome to become dominant - Related: Web devs just want to build and test against one browser - OWA is pushing the Chrome agenda 🧵👇 x.com/MacRumors/status/1498998983796002818Permalink On twitter.com
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(Disclaimer: I've been involved with Open Web Advocacy (OWA) group for a little while, my opinion and especially wording below is my own but, in large, it should mostly cover the OWA standpoint regarding these matters) TL;DR: Read my full reply here: forums.macrumors.com/threads/web-developers-form-advocacy-group-to-allow-other-browser-engines-on-ios.2336367/page-5#post-30895966 2/nPermalink On twitter.com
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Let's tackle this first: - Allowing 3rd party browsers on iOS will allow Chrome to become dominant - Or: Apple is preventing a browser engine monoculture - Related: Web developers just want to build and test their sites for one browser 3/nPermalink On twitter.com
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First of all: none of these arguments are made by Apple (afaik?) as to why they only allow WebKit-based browsers on iOS. They point to privacy and security as the primary reason. 4/nPermalink On twitter.com
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Seeing how WebKit security bugs take the longest (and a full OS update) to fix when compared to other browsers - and that these bugs affect every single iOS user, no matter which "browser" they use - this argument can be quite easily dismissed. googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2022/02/a-walk-through-project-zero-metrics.html 5/nPermalink On twitter.com
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UK's Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) agrees: gov.uk/government/publications/mobile-ecosystems-market-study-interim-report/interim-report#:~:text=we%20have%20not%20identified%20compelling%20evidence%20to%20date%20that%20suggests%20that%2C%20for%20dedicated%20browser%20apps%2C%20the%20potential%20impacts%20on%20competition%20and%20users%20from%20Apple%E2%80%99s%20WebKit%20restriction%20is%20justified%20on%20security%20grounds 6/nPermalink On twitter.com
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Apple is certainly not the steward of browser competition and diversity (that's Mozilla's job ;)). Apple is, in fact, quite the opposite. 7/nPermalink On twitter.com
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Apple enforces a browser monoculture on an entire platform that has up to 50% mobile market share in most western countries! No other major general computing device prohibits 3rd party browser engines. 8/nOn twitter.com
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Meanwhile, Apple, the world's richest company, seems to starve the WebKit team from resources needed to compete (or even keep up) whether it comes to security fixes or APIs. 9/nPermalink On twitter.com
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Anyway, back to this: x.com/RGadellaa/status/1500529923911569413 10/nPermalink On twitter.com
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The OWA's hope is that allowing competition will create incentive for Apple to actually compete and invest in WebKit so users want to keep using it even if there are alternatives and developers want to support it because it's a great browser. 11/nPermalink On twitter.com
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Many macOS users use Safari (power of the default + it's actually a nice browser - from a user perspective, at least). Safari has unique selling points. And again, it's the default. 12/nPermalink On twitter.com
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The OWA actually wants *more* browsers on iOS like we have on every other general computing device, not less. 13/nPermalink On twitter.com
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Regarding developers and supporting multiple browser engines: supporting WebKit is quite a pain right now. You have to own a mac and at least one iDevice to debug any of the many bugs Safari will throw your way. 14/nPermalink On twitter.com
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Just look at this graph and you can probably tell which browser causes the most issues when building a site: 15/nPermalink On twitter.com
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When Apple is forced to compete they will hopefully fix many of the current bugs, add features and improve the dev tools so devs can more easily debug those bugs that remain. 16/nPermalink On twitter.com
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There will always be sites (especially highly specialized web apps) that require a certain browser because they rely on a specific feature that no other browser (yet) supports. This is already the case right now. 17/nPermalink On twitter.com
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If WebKit catches up, the chance that a site requires specific browsers should actually decrease. If WebKit ends up ahead (as it once was, Google chose WebKit as the basis for Chrome for a reason), it will be the browser that the web app will target. 18/nPermalink On twitter.com
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I also noticed how quite a few Firefox users are choosing Apple's side, often times citing the Chrome monoculture argument. 19/nPermalink On twitter.com
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It strikes me as odd that people who use and/or work on a browser whose mission is to ship an independent alternative browser engine argue that it's a good thing that WebKit is the only engine allowed on iOS. Shouldn't they want a full Firefox browser on iOS? 20/nPermalink On twitter.com
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Now, on to the next topic: - OWA is pushing the Chrome agenda Again, the OWA wants *more* browsers on all platforms, not less. 21/nPermalink On twitter.com
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We want more choice and we want that choice to matter. For example, we also strongly oppose apps like Google Search (on Android) and OSs like Windows not respecting default browser choice. We oppose apps like Facebook making it hard to open links in your default browser. 22/nPermalink On twitter.com
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It may seem like the OWA only targets Apple, but please believe me when I say we're not. The iOS browser ban is what we believe is the biggest issue that holds back the entire web - and we would like to see that fixed ASAP. But it's far from our only goal :) 23/nPermalink On twitter.com
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So head over to open-web-advocacy.org/ and check out what we're up to! #OpenWebAdvocacy #AppleBrowserBan 24/24Permalink On twitter.com
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Ugh the image is missing the explainer of what you're looking at: "Number of tests which fail in exactly one browser" In other words: lower is better :) #TweetsButEditablePermalink On twitter.com
