Based upon their actions I don't believe that Apple cares about the web beyond the bare minimum they have to to provide a tolerable browser experience for their users until everything happens via Apps.
That's even more true for publicly traded companies
Most of the money Apple gets from the App Store is from pay to win games - north of 80%. It came out in the Epic Trial.
Apple doesn’t really care if your banking app is a website or an app. They don’t make money either way.
Most apps on the App Store that could be a web app don’t charge users.
Not only that, the data for those apps are on a remote server that is accessible via any other platform. Even when an app uses the standard file picker, you can choose any installed cloud storage device to save and load files - ie iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive etc.
But the money they make on ads in the App Store has to pale in comparison to how much they get from Google
That was just the best answer he had to questions about third-party apps until they had the infra in place for it.
Apple will never tell you ahead of time about changes like that. So, while I wouldn't exactly call it lying, you'll get answers like the above.
It's not a paid app, just part of the walled garden experience.
