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It is literally done for strategic reasons to put a stranglehold on innovations on the web, so that there is no risk of web app technology developing to a point

It is literally done for strategic reasons to put a stranglehold on innovations on the web, so that there is no risk of web app technology developing to a point to threaten the dominance of native apps and the app store. Anybody that thinks otherwise is hopeless naive, Steve Jobs himself envisioned a web app future as the future of technology; before Apple found out the gold mine that the app store became.

otterley 9mo ago
> Anybody that thinks otherwise is hopeless naive This is inappropriate. People can reasonably disagree without being insulting to each other. If you have concrete evidence that Apple is deliberately withholding some essential advancement in Safari or its support for Web standards so that it can sell more apps, by all means, cite it.
- greiskul 9mo ago
  https://www.google.com/search?q=safari+is+the+new+ie https://www.google.com/search?q=safari+is+the+new+ie Just read the summary that Gemini provides for a good quick understanding, and follow up the multiple articles about it. Then please don't come back and say that there is nothing concrete about this evidence, that is just people speculating about a behavior that Apple has been engaging repeatedly and continuously for over a decade.
  - givinguflac 9mo ago
    Seriously, you expect people to click a Google search link for people who agree with you- and then read what the LLM has to say?? When did HN become a garbage dump where people don’t do their own research and/or thinking?
    - otterley 9mo ago
      About 10 years ago, by my reckoning. The less people know about a subject, the more strongly opinionated and certain they are about it. It’s not just HN, though; it’s a very human condition.
  - otterley 9mo ago
    It is you that needs to cite the evidence, not some LLM, and with hard facts coupled with evidence of intent, not just referring to mere opinions. You claim to know something with certainty, so one can reasonably expect you have the expertise and data to prove it. If you come to the kitchen claiming to be a chef, you’d better come with sharp knives, not photos of them.
  - xp84 9mo ago
    Look, I agree that Safari sucks, but with or without the AI overview (which I don’t believe is Gemini, rather that is a very cheap and dumb model that’s been told to summarize a few top results), linking to a search is not a strong debating technique. I could link to a search for “Safari has the best technology” and it would have the same zero value.
crazygringo 9mo ago
> to put a stranglehold on innovations on the web I think that's the hypothetical part, it's not reality. Safari continues to be a fully modern browser. It doesn't release new features quite as fast as Chrome, but it does generally adopt them. If Apple were attempting to put a "stranglehold on innovations on the web", Safari's feature set would look very different. But that's not what's happening. Like I said, Apple does lots of anticompetitive things. I'm not blind to what they do with the app store. I just don't think that the single browser engine policy is motivated by this, or has much effect on it, given how Apple does keep maintaining Safari as a modern browser.
- aryonoco 9mo ago
  Safari is the modern IE. the fact that PWAs didn’t take off in the last decade js purely due to Safari. The only reason Apple has banned alternative engines and continues to hold back on major web technologies is anticompetitive behaviour.
  - ryandrake 9mo ago
    No, I think Chrome is the modern IE. It has huge market share, to the point where developers often just ignore the other browsers or at best treat them as P2. Just like they did when IE was dominant. I'm torn on this honestly. Safari (particularly mobile Safari) is literally the only thing keeping the web from becoming Chrome-only. While I would love to see Safari-alternative engines on the iPhone, I fear that the "open web" in terms of browser compatibility is cooked the day that happens: Commercial web developers are supremely lazy and their product managers are, too. They will consider the web Chrome-only from that day forward and simply refuse to lift a finger for other browsers. I think when IE6 died, on one hand it was a relief for web developers, who (very quickly) deleted all the code needed to maintain compatibility, but on the other hand, it made the web worse by bringing us closer to browser monopoly.
    - xp84 9mo ago
      Chrome is the IE in that it’s all the web devs target or test and the browser that every enterprise just uses as the assumed target. Safari is the late-stage IE that doesn’t add any features or modern standards that its (supposed) competitors add. Although Apple seems to have different and more strategic reasons than MS did. Apple just hates the Web because they can’t effectively tollbooth it, whereas I think MS just didn’t care about investing in IE after 2001 or so.
avar 9mo ago
> Steve Jobs himself envisioned a > web app future as the future of[...] I'm not putting cynical motivations past Apple, but you're reading too much (or too little?) into what Jobs said at the time. His remarks at the time of the initial iPhone release (with the benefit of hindsight) were clearly because they weren't ready to expose any sort of native API's. Pissing on you and telling you it's raining was typical Jobs reality distortion field marketing, and not an indication that he actually believed it was raining.

otterley 9mo ago

> Anybody that thinks otherwise is hopeless naive This is inappropriate. People can reasonably disagree without being insulting to each other. If you have concrete evidence that Apple is deliberately withholding some essential advancement in Safari or its support for Web standards so that it can sell more apps, by all means, cite it.

greiskul 9mo ago
https://www.google.com/search?q=safari+is+the+new+ie https://www.google.com/search?q=safari+is+the+new+ie Just read the summary that Gemini provides for a good quick understanding, and follow up the multiple articles about it. Then please don't come back and say that there is nothing concrete about this evidence, that is just people speculating about a behavior that Apple has been engaging repeatedly and continuously for over a decade.
- givinguflac 9mo ago
  Seriously, you expect people to click a Google search link for people who agree with you- and then read what the LLM has to say?? When did HN become a garbage dump where people don’t do their own research and/or thinking?
  - otterley 9mo ago
    About 10 years ago, by my reckoning. The less people know about a subject, the more strongly opinionated and certain they are about it. It’s not just HN, though; it’s a very human condition.
- otterley 9mo ago
  It is you that needs to cite the evidence, not some LLM, and with hard facts coupled with evidence of intent, not just referring to mere opinions. You claim to know something with certainty, so one can reasonably expect you have the expertise and data to prove it. If you come to the kitchen claiming to be a chef, you’d better come with sharp knives, not photos of them.
- xp84 9mo ago
  Look, I agree that Safari sucks, but with or without the AI overview (which I don’t believe is Gemini, rather that is a very cheap and dumb model that’s been told to summarize a few top results), linking to a search is not a strong debating technique. I could link to a search for “Safari has the best technology” and it would have the same zero value.

crazygringo 9mo ago

> to put a stranglehold on innovations on the web I think that's the hypothetical part, it's not reality. Safari continues to be a fully modern browser. It doesn't release new features quite as fast as Chrome, but it does generally adopt them. If Apple were attempting to put a "stranglehold on innovations on the web", Safari's feature set would look very different. But that's not what's happening. Like I said, Apple does lots of anticompetitive things. I'm not blind to what they do with the app store. I just don't think that the single browser engine policy is motivated by this, or has much effect on it, given how Apple does keep maintaining Safari as a modern browser.

aryonoco 9mo ago
Safari is the modern IE. the fact that PWAs didn’t take off in the last decade js purely due to Safari. The only reason Apple has banned alternative engines and continues to hold back on major web technologies is anticompetitive behaviour.
- ryandrake 9mo ago
  No, I think Chrome is the modern IE. It has huge market share, to the point where developers often just ignore the other browsers or at best treat them as P2. Just like they did when IE was dominant. I'm torn on this honestly. Safari (particularly mobile Safari) is literally the only thing keeping the web from becoming Chrome-only. While I would love to see Safari-alternative engines on the iPhone, I fear that the "open web" in terms of browser compatibility is cooked the day that happens: Commercial web developers are supremely lazy and their product managers are, too. They will consider the web Chrome-only from that day forward and simply refuse to lift a finger for other browsers. I think when IE6 died, on one hand it was a relief for web developers, who (very quickly) deleted all the code needed to maintain compatibility, but on the other hand, it made the web worse by bringing us closer to browser monopoly.
  - xp84 9mo ago
    Chrome is the IE in that it’s all the web devs target or test and the browser that every enterprise just uses as the assumed target. Safari is the late-stage IE that doesn’t add any features or modern standards that its (supposed) competitors add. Although Apple seems to have different and more strategic reasons than MS did. Apple just hates the Web because they can’t effectively tollbooth it, whereas I think MS just didn’t care about investing in IE after 2001 or so.

avar 9mo ago

> Steve Jobs himself envisioned a > web app future as the future of[...] I'm not putting cynical motivations past Apple, but you're reading too much (or too little?) into what Jobs said at the time. His remarks at the time of the initial iPhone release (with the benefit of hindsight) were clearly because they weren't ready to expose any sort of native API's. Pissing on you and telling you it's raining was typical Jobs reality distortion field marketing, and not an indication that he actually believed it was raining.