4 ms·

>would have become a web browser Not on iOS where that sort of thing is prohibited. Sure they could put a skin over safari, but apple would have banned the ent

>would have become a web browser Not on iOS where that sort of thing is prohibited. Sure they could put a skin over safari, but apple would have banned the entire FB app as soon as they found a developer's app they didn't like.

deckard1 5y ago
I always wondered: why is Apple allowing WeChat to exist? Their mini apps seem in direct competition with the app store. Is this a China political thing? Are they worried about losing all access to the market there? It seems clear Apple is not applying their own rules consistently. If that's the case, wouldn't there also be anti-trust implications here?
- Thorentis 5y ago
  > Is this a China political thing? Yes.
- piggybox 5y ago
  I can bet if Apple banned WeChat, most people in China would switch to Android. Apple doesn't apply the same privacy rule in all countries as well. It's all about business, never about consistency.
- dbtc 5y ago
  But apple can pull the plug on it, right? It would hurt business of course, but it's probably a good position to have that hypothetical power.
ipaddr 5y ago
Apple would have lost the mainstream user back then. Now they have power over facebook
- scarface74 5y ago
  That’s the same thing Adobe thought when Flash wouldn’t work in the iPhone.
  - ipaddr 5y ago
    Different audience. People went on the internet for the first time for facebook. A lot of people never leave the facebook ecosystem. Having a phone that didn't have facebook would make it less popular. A phone not supporting flash might get developers upset. But by that time developers wanted html5 to take over and developer preference doesn't push product. One can make the case that the most inexperienced with computers person is Apple's ideal customer / most profitable. Not being able to get on facebook would push this demographic to other phones.
    - scarface74 5y ago
      Wasn’t FarmVille and applications like them Flash based? You also have to remember even as late as 2011, Motorola was trying to sell the Xoom tablet as being able to browse “the real internet” because it (belatedly) supported Flash. But then we still get back to the fact that in 2008, the iPhone 3G had 128MB RAM and couldn’t even fully load a regular web page. When you scrolled to fast, there was a checkerboard while it tried to render the rest of the page. It definitely couldn’t do any complex animation within Safari.

deckard1 5y ago

I always wondered: why is Apple allowing WeChat to exist? Their mini apps seem in direct competition with the app store. Is this a China political thing? Are they worried about losing all access to the market there? It seems clear Apple is not applying their own rules consistently. If that's the case, wouldn't there also be anti-trust implications here?

Thorentis 5y ago
> Is this a China political thing? Yes.
piggybox 5y ago
I can bet if Apple banned WeChat, most people in China would switch to Android. Apple doesn't apply the same privacy rule in all countries as well. It's all about business, never about consistency.
dbtc 5y ago
But apple can pull the plug on it, right? It would hurt business of course, but it's probably a good position to have that hypothetical power.

ipaddr 5y ago

Apple would have lost the mainstream user back then. Now they have power over facebook

scarface74 5y ago
That’s the same thing Adobe thought when Flash wouldn’t work in the iPhone.
- ipaddr 5y ago
  Different audience. People went on the internet for the first time for facebook. A lot of people never leave the facebook ecosystem. Having a phone that didn't have facebook would make it less popular. A phone not supporting flash might get developers upset. But by that time developers wanted html5 to take over and developer preference doesn't push product. One can make the case that the most inexperienced with computers person is Apple's ideal customer / most profitable. Not being able to get on facebook would push this demographic to other phones.
  - scarface74 5y ago
    Wasn’t FarmVille and applications like them Flash based? You also have to remember even as late as 2011, Motorola was trying to sell the Xoom tablet as being able to browse “the real internet” because it (belatedly) supported Flash. But then we still get back to the fact that in 2008, the iPhone 3G had 128MB RAM and couldn’t even fully load a regular web page. When you scrolled to fast, there was a checkerboard while it tried to render the rest of the page. It definitely couldn’t do any complex animation within Safari.