Sometimes it is wise to be cynical, especially when dealing with companies which pride themselves on their profit margins while keeping their users at a tight l

Sometimes it is wise to be cynical, especially when dealing with companies which pride themselves on their profit margins while keeping their users at a tight leash. Doing anything else is not only bad for your budget but also rather illogical, knowing that those profit margins depend on keeping users' noses pointing in the 'right' direction. So, yes, there are good reasons for Apple being very determined over what you can, and more importantly can not do with Webview and Safari on iOS: they do not want iOS to become too good a host for web-based apps for fear that they might out-compete appstore-bought apps as Apple does not make a cent off the former. This is also why Apple does not allow other 'real' browsers on iOS as those could be used to circumvent these restrictions. That thing about power consumption goes just as much for other apps as it does for web browsers so it is rather easy to defeat that argument.