6 ms·

The intention of most of their decisions is more about their own money... Case in point, it took forever for chrome or opera to come to iOS because they "compe

The intention of most of their decisions is more about their own money... Case in point, it took forever for chrome or opera to come to iOS because they "competed" with the apple product already integrated into the OS, and "provided a less seamless user experience" ... basically, Apple didn't want to be outshined on their own platform...

scarface74 11y ago
That's not true. Apple allowed third party browsers - as long as they used WebKit - from day one when the app store opened.
- Karunamon 11y ago
  Which makes them not really third party browsers anymore, they're basically frames around a UIWebView (which is Safari) which can't do anything interesting.
  - sosborn 11y ago
    UIWebView and Safari are different things. Yes, Safari uses (essentially) UIWebView, but a browser is much more than its rendering engine.
    - Karunamon 11y ago
      The important bit there is "do anything interesting". Forget about any plugins that directly manipulate the markup (so no µ/adblock, no ghostery, no noscript). Yeah, they can display web pages, but iOS Firefox/Chrome provide almost no benefits over the stock safari. Less in fact, since it's a near certainty that Safari is using privileged APIs to integrate with the OS in a way that no other browsers are allowed to. (Didn't a very prominent company get sued for something along these lines back in the 90s?)
      - sosborn 11y ago
        You can actually load whatever you want into a UIWebView. You could do the request, manipulate the response and display your modified HTML. Adblocking is of course now integrated into the OS.
simonh 11y ago
I'm not sure who you're quoting with those quote marks. It's not Apple though, because I don't believe they ever said any such thing. The reason Apple has always given is security. This is the reason they gave for not allowing third party access to the JIT version of the javascript engine. Their critics at the time claimed this was really because they didn't want other browsers competing with Safari, and they'd never let anyone have it because of that. Then when Apple developed the XPC framework allowing secure remote execution, they opened up the JIT engine to third party browsers in a secure way. So far Apple's actual behaviour has been completely consistent with their stated reasons, which are not the reasons you are 'quoting' from somewhere, and in several respect contrary to the predictions of their critics. Isn't it possible that they are being honest about their motives? But on the other hand, yes, the Mac App Store is a broken mess. Right now it's part of the problem with app distribution on the desktop, not part of the solution.
- pcwalton 11y ago
  > The reason Apple has always given is security. This is the reason they gave for not allowing third party access to the JIT version of the javascript engine. This doesn't make sense. You could disable the JIT, compile WebKit to native code, and ship it on iOS without the app requiring any more technical permissions. Apple just doesn't want you to do that for business reasons. If you want to maintain that it's a security measure, there should be a specific attack concept you can describe that preventing alternative browser engines (suitably modified to work with W^X) stops.
  - hapless 11y ago
    You're free to do exactly that. Nothing stops you from publishing a web browser that renders static HTML. But the only way to include a JS interpreter is to use the Apple-provided WebKit. Language interpreters are forbidden to download any code from the internet, so you cannot use JS found on a web page in your own interpreter.
    - pcwalton 11y ago
      > Nothing stops you from publishing a web browser that renders static HTML. That would not remotely be a practical Web browser in 2015. > Language interpreters are forbidden to download any code from the internet, so you cannot use JS found on a web page in your own interpreter. Which is a business decision. I don't understand why this is controversial; it's well-established that many of the iOS restrictions are business-related. Note that I'm not even arguing here that those business-related restrictions are a bad thing.

scarface74 11y ago

That's not true. Apple allowed third party browsers - as long as they used WebKit - from day one when the app store opened.

Karunamon 11y ago
Which makes them not really third party browsers anymore, they're basically frames around a UIWebView (which is Safari) which can't do anything interesting.
- sosborn 11y ago
  UIWebView and Safari are different things. Yes, Safari uses (essentially) UIWebView, but a browser is much more than its rendering engine.
  - Karunamon 11y ago
    The important bit there is "do anything interesting". Forget about any plugins that directly manipulate the markup (so no µ/adblock, no ghostery, no noscript). Yeah, they can display web pages, but iOS Firefox/Chrome provide almost no benefits over the stock safari. Less in fact, since it's a near certainty that Safari is using privileged APIs to integrate with the OS in a way that no other browsers are allowed to. (Didn't a very prominent company get sued for something along these lines back in the 90s?)
    - sosborn 11y ago
      You can actually load whatever you want into a UIWebView. You could do the request, manipulate the response and display your modified HTML. Adblocking is of course now integrated into the OS.

simonh 11y ago

I'm not sure who you're quoting with those quote marks. It's not Apple though, because I don't believe they ever said any such thing. The reason Apple has always given is security. This is the reason they gave for not allowing third party access to the JIT version of the javascript engine. Their critics at the time claimed this was really because they didn't want other browsers competing with Safari, and they'd never let anyone have it because of that. Then when Apple developed the XPC framework allowing secure remote execution, they opened up the JIT engine to third party browsers in a secure way. So far Apple's actual behaviour has been completely consistent with their stated reasons, which are not the reasons you are 'quoting' from somewhere, and in several respect contrary to the predictions of their critics. Isn't it possible that they are being honest about their motives? But on the other hand, yes, the Mac App Store is a broken mess. Right now it's part of the problem with app distribution on the desktop, not part of the solution.

pcwalton 11y ago
> The reason Apple has always given is security. This is the reason they gave for not allowing third party access to the JIT version of the javascript engine. This doesn't make sense. You could disable the JIT, compile WebKit to native code, and ship it on iOS without the app requiring any more technical permissions. Apple just doesn't want you to do that for business reasons. If you want to maintain that it's a security measure, there should be a specific attack concept you can describe that preventing alternative browser engines (suitably modified to work with W^X) stops.
- hapless 11y ago
  You're free to do exactly that. Nothing stops you from publishing a web browser that renders static HTML. But the only way to include a JS interpreter is to use the Apple-provided WebKit. Language interpreters are forbidden to download any code from the internet, so you cannot use JS found on a web page in your own interpreter.
  - pcwalton 11y ago
    > Nothing stops you from publishing a web browser that renders static HTML. That would not remotely be a practical Web browser in 2015. > Language interpreters are forbidden to download any code from the internet, so you cannot use JS found on a web page in your own interpreter. Which is a business decision. I don't understand why this is controversial; it's well-established that many of the iOS restrictions are business-related. Note that I'm not even arguing here that those business-related restrictions are a bad thing.