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> 1. In many ways Apple's anti-competitive behaviour on iOS/iPadOS is a blessing. It's one of the few things that keep Chromium's dominance in check. Of course,

• metalliqaz 5y ago
  > battery usage is the number one KPI people care about. I wish all phone manufacturers actually understood that /me glances at my Pixel 3XL with 3430 mAh batt
  • 29083011397778 5y ago
    My BlackBerry KeyOne actually has a smaller battery at 3300 mAh, but I don't have to charge it every day. I still use Maps and GPS, stream music, and stray from wifi, because child commenter is right - there's more to battery life and screen on time than battery size.
  • KennyBlanken 5y ago
    Battery capacity != battery life. I switched to a used iPhone and was bummed my 8+ had a "small" ~2400mah battery compared to my Android phone, which was 3100. Then I actually started using it. Even though the Android phone had an OLED screen, it would absolutely melt the battery. I have so little "battery charge anxiety" now it's not even funny. I don't even bother to charge it above 80-85% most of the time...and the battery life estimator says the battery is down to 82% capacity.
    • officeplant 5y ago
      Idk, I'm a big fan of what companies like Motorola are doing by taking a 4000mah+ battery and pairing it with some of those low end SoC's that sip battery. Androids power usage can be complete trash, but I've managed 4 days of battery out of these cheap Motorola phones while still using discord/twitter/telegram like normal. If apple actually went up on their battery sizing they could easily achieve Monday to Friday battery life on something like the iPhone SE.
      • joecool1029 5y ago
        There's also the Oppo/Oneplus way of doing things and pairing high quality cells to a better charge standard (SuperVOOC/WARP) that can throw 65W (or more) at the phone and minimize time spent charging. I can't overstate how much this changes my use pattern when I know I can throw phone on charger, take a shower, and by the time I'm out it's full.
        • andrepd 5y ago
          Sure, but enjoy the battery being degraded to ~70% of its capacity after barely a year of doing that.
          • officeplant 5y ago
            Considering they use two batteries to manage the charging rate do we have anything showing its destroying the phones after a year? (the 8T is a year old so someone might have some proof)
        • officeplant 5y ago
          The 8T (and follow ups) do feel kinda crazy when it comes to charging. Especially considering it has a higher wattage charger than my laptop currently uses. I've also managed to get 2.5 days out of a single charge on my 8T which is impressive considering the hardware.
      • m4rtink 5y ago
  • ls612 5y ago
    That is legit my favorite feature of the iphone 13 pro max, the battery is like 4300 mAh and it never runs out during the day no matter what I do with it.
    • AniseAbyss 5y ago
      There are many Android phones on the market with a big battery and fast charging. Why people think Android=Pixel is beyond me.
      • jaywalk 5y ago
        Pixels are the definitive Android phones. Outside of the Pixel and Galaxy lines, you're getting into murky waters.
• K0nserv 5y ago
  I don't disagree that is their publicly stated reason for the limitation. Them having the ulterior motive of stifling PWAs on iOS and competition for mobile Safari is a common theory. Whether they do have ulterior motives or not, the effect is that innovation is stifled.
  • zepto 5y ago
    PWA’s aren’t ‘innovation’. Apps can do far more than PWAs.
    • LocalH 5y ago
      I believe the stifling of innovation the parent comment refers to is that of browser engines, not of PWAs.
      • zepto 5y ago
        It’s not innovation if it’s just catching up to what another platform has been able to do all along.
        • ygjb 5y ago
          In a walled garden, the ability to for the user to do what they want, where they want is perceived as innovation.
          • zepto 5y ago
            The user can’t do what they want where they want on the web. The web is an adware and privacy destroying machine.
            • smoldesu 5y ago
              > The user can’t do what they want where they want on the web. The web is an adware and privacy destroying machine. Sounds like you're setting a double standard when Apple also runs ads on their devices[0] as well as selling their user's private data[1] [0] https://stevestreza.com/2020/02/17/ios-adware/ https://stevestreza.com/2020/02/17/ios-adware/ [1] https://www.macrumors.com/2021/11/26/apple-italy-fine-user-data-commercial-gain/ https://www.macrumors.com/2021/11/26/apple-italy-fine-user-d...
• politelemon 5y ago
  > I think it’s worth noting that (at least I believe) the reason apple limit the usage of other browser engines in iOS isn’t (mostly) about maintaining control and dominance. It’s about battery usage, I disagree with this word gymnastics, it is Apple-ogism. It takes just a brief look at other decisions they've made to easily see that it is about user lock-in which fits in with their general philosophy. It is not great that they are stifling innovation at all, conflating it with browser dominance is a separate thing.
• gjsman-1000 5y ago
  Another reason is actually security. Remember that Apple doesn't allow other web browser engines in any application. Imagine if an Electron application on iOS just decided to ship with it's entire, own browser engine. We would have super-bloated apps like our desktops, and if a security flaw was found, good luck getting all those apps to update. In a way, Apple knows that allowing other browser engines means: 1. Chromium-based browsers just increase their monopoly, Firefox continues stagnation by almost all odds 2. The Electron mess on our desktops will claim new territory on our phones and bring security problems with it Not very appealing. Limiting competition? When your only realistic competition is Chrome with it's 80%+ dominance, I don't think a regulator would have a problem with that.
  • gjsman-1000 5y ago
    The ironic part of this is that if Apple allowed alternative browser engines, I guarantee you it is only a matter of time before you see Electron apps bringing their own browser engines with them to iOS. And not long after before Hacker News is screaming and moaning about it (like they do for Electron on desktop) and begging for Apple to stop it.
    • samwillis 5y ago
      HN already screams and moans about mobile apps built with PhoneGap/Cordova/Capacitor/Ionic ect. for not being "native" at the same time as promoting PWAs and complaining that apple doesn't support them, ignoring that PhoneGap, Cordova and especially Capacitor give you that functionality (mostly). I think that says more about HN than Apple...
      • burlesona 5y ago
        What it says is that people mostly just post when they want to complain about stuff. Some minority of people are outraged over lack of PWA on iPhone, so they post to complain loudly about it. Some other minority of people are outraged over electron apps on Mac, so they post to complain loudly about it. It's not the same people, it's just the same pattern of the loud minority and silent majority. I'll admit, though, I'm in the "I really want native Mac apps" minority :)
• simion314 5y ago
  >I think it’s worth noting that (at least I believe) the reason apple limit the usage of other browser engines in iOS isn’t (mostly) about maintaining control and dominance. It’s about battery usage Why would this be a believable excuse? you can install a Firefox skin of WebKit on iOS and this skin could maybe be terrible on battery usage. A good default browser like on laptops is good enough for battery, people who care about it will use Safari, the obvious reason Apple is doing this is to prevent competition, so if Apple fucks with WebGL then you can't have say a WebGL based mobile game that would go around the Apple Store.
• soperj 5y ago
  haha yes, and Microsoft included IE4 into the Windows desktop so that users could have all the benefits of IE for free.
• yborg 5y ago
  This is a specious argument. Allow competitors to deploy apps causing lousy battery life, and Safari should win easily on that basis. Apple's battery app makes it obvious when apps use a lot of energy.
  • r00fus 5y ago
    It doesn't matter if Safari "wins" if all other players "required" Chrome browsers. Apple sets the rules for its own products. Why didn't "open" win? Why for whatever reason is Apple still #1 in the mobile space? Perhaps users agree with Apple.
    • lern_too_spel 5y ago
      Users are easily duped by marketing. Even technologists. You can see how easily technologists buy Apple's bald-faced lies that its actions are not about user lock-in throughout this comment section. I can write a browser using WXWebView that wastes battery outside the rendering code, and Apple won't stop me. I can write a maps application that wastes battery, and Apple won't stop me. But if I write a web rendering engine that wastes battery, I have crossed a line? A line that is so important not to cross that Apple won't even let me try to write a rendering engine that uses less battery than WXWebView? I cannot believe that anybody would buy that argument without marketing distorting their thoughts.
      • dmitriid 5y ago
        > Users are easily duped by marketing. Even technologists. Ah yes. Everything can be explained by marketing, and marketing alone. Poor, poor Google, and Samsung, and so on, who are struggling to find the money and the power to make people buy Android phones through the power of marketing. Perhaps, just perhaps, I'm going on a limb here, Apple actually makes a phone that people want?
        • lern_too_spel 5y ago
          We are, in this very thread, discussing a reason why Apple's phones are worse that people have been duped into putting in the pros column. They are also worse for privacy, yet Apple markets their devices' privacy. They are worse for security, yet Apple markets their devices' security. The shoe fits. Apple has been a marketing-driven company for decades now and is better at it than any other tech company by a country mile. It's why they bought Beats, not for their technology, but for their marketing prowess. The other companies you listed pick features that are better on their devices to market. Apple's marketing department figured out long ago that no such restriction is necessary.
• the_solenoid 5y ago
  #1 reason, and, think back to when iOS came out, was security. The knock off effect was it ensured that ios/webkit gained defacto marketshare for each device since there was no other option - as the thread starter mentions. I disagree with the contention about innovation - keeping IOS from being a minefield for 99.9999% of users I think was the right course. And killing off flash.
• pmontra 5y ago
  Battery usage, yes, but if developers could create theirs apps as websites with no loss of functionality and pay zero money to Apple a non empty set of users would use them and Apple would lose some money. I think that Apple ultimately cares about money. Battery, PWAs, etc are all factors they ponder upon to optimize the bottom line.
• gizdan 5y ago
  Even if battery usage was the reason behind it, it's not good enough. Let the user decide whether or not they're willing to sacrifice battery life if they want to.
  • thewebcount 5y ago
    A user has no way to know that's the tradeoff. They don't know what tech any given app was built with and they don't understand what the tradeoffs are for different tech.
    • smegger001 5y ago
      simply make it easy for users to see what apps are responisble to battery usage. if someone sees that their crappy browser is using all of their battery but safari doesn't they will quit using the crappy browser.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• shmerl 5y ago
  That always sounded like very crude excuse to exert control over Web standards by them. If battery usage with their own browsers is so much better, then everyone would be using their browsers on iOS. Why even ban others? So I don't buy any of the Apple's excuses when they actively cause anti-competitive harm.
• emiliosic 5y ago
  Actually, as a tidbit, Chromium is a fork of WebKit, which is Safari's rendering engine, which for some reason started as a fork from Konqueror (KDE Linux desktop's browser). Google did however replace the javascript engine in Chromium. The Javascript engine in Chromium deserves a different discussion, since it also powers NodeJS. Back in the day, WebKit was quite popular as a rendering engine and is also used by Qt.
  • gonehome 5y ago
    Ken Kocienda writes about the origin of Safari in Creative Selection [0]. It started as a Konqueror fork mostly because Jobs wanted a browser on OS X and Ken was initially tasked with it (back then the mac had IE for mac). One person writing a browser from scratch even back then seemed an impossible challenge so he took a look to see if he could use most of Konqueror as an initial starting base. [0]: The book has some interesting stories, but I find it hard to recommend because it's weirdly written for an extremely non-technical audience (using grandma like analogies to explain basic concepts, the analogies are so basic they do more to obscure than explain - e.g. the filesystem is like a 'cabinet for files'). It doesn't often get into the weeds of the interesting technical details - which is disappointing since 90% of readers are probably technical. The stories in it are still good though and Ken has a lot of insight into the iPhone development story since he was there.
    • Arelius 5y ago
      KHTML was a pretty viable alternative to the mess that was Gecko at the time. And there were already some (underserved) alternative platform ports in-progress at the time.
    • irskep 5y ago
      Minor correction: Ken Kocienda didn't do the Konqueror port. He was working on getting Gecko to build and a teammate got Konqueror working in X11 before Ken even got Gecko to compile.
      • gonehome 5y ago
• danielheath 5y ago
  As far as I’m aware the justification is “no executing pages you can write to at runtime” (because it’s a huge security issue). They give safari an exception to that because you can’t make a JIT without doing that, and that’s the most straightforward way to get fast JavaScript.
  • jefftk 5y ago
    Even if you give up the JIT, Apple will still not allow your custom browser on iOS.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• Siira 5y ago
  So why can’t we just choose what we want? All evil actions have some pretext, though in some cases (such as this one) the pretext is quite flimsy.