I'd argue that there are legitimately decent reasons that Apple is doing this, besides the selfish, monopoly-protecting, reasons that are also nicely aligned wi

I'd argue that there are legitimately decent reasons that Apple is doing this, besides the selfish, monopoly-protecting, reasons that are also nicely aligned with it as well. Besides the security thing mentioned elsewhere, I think performance and battery life are a huge concern as well. A big reason that Apple products (usually) work so well is that the vertical integration of both hardware and software can lead to compounding gains WRT performance and battery life. i.e. iPhones have excellent battery life and are pretty snappy for most of their life. A web browser is such a core (frequently used) experience for a smartphone that any tradeoffs made in the browser engine in favor of faster performance at the cost of power efficiency can have a big overall effect on the battery of the device. The vast majority of users don't know or understand why they see decreased battery life when they do, they just see that their phone doesn't last as long. Google has such a complete monopoly in the browser market that one can argue that there's a pretty good incentive for Google to make tradeoffs in Chrome that decrease battery life on the iPhone to hurt the iPhone's battery life, and most people would not realize or understand that its not the iPhone's fault but Chrome.