How did we end up back in this place, and why is it being framed as a success? Opening up iOS in this way would only be a success if it was destroying a monopoly. Instead, this move enables Google’s browser monopoly to grow.
https://apps.apple.com/au/app/orion-browser-by-kagi/id148449...
Despite Orion being built by Kagi (and works natively with Kagi search), you're still free to use other search engines like Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and some other obscure ones.
Orion also allows you to chose a different search engine in private mode, which is a nice feature.
As a side-note, I thought I'd still be using Google a lot despite subscribing to Kagi for search. I barely use Google now as Kagi works just as well, without Google's crap, for essentially everything bar some really obscure spatial questions I have which Google seems to have indexed more. Though I don't expect that to last long.
I was not paid by Kagi to say this. I was a skeptic at first, I am very happy with how good Kagi is.
From this point of view I'm not sure what we're losing in the proposition when we still get Firefox and alternative browsers on iOS.
Right now the choice is between Safari holding back the whole web on mobile (as Safari stagnates Chrome gets a pass for barely coasting as well on android) or finally have it move forward at perhaps the cost of Chrome gaining more market share. Refusing progress just to spite a single company doesn't feel worth it to be honest.
Today they need to ensure it works on the iPhone, and if they are already testing two browsers, or ensuring capability across two browsers, that means Firefox is likely coming along for the ride.
With this move I’m preparing for a future where developers simply put up a message, “best viewed in Chrome”, or they simply do a user agent check and don’t even load the page if it’s not Chrome. Not because the page wouldn’t work in Safari or Firefox, but rather because they couldn’t be bothered to test.
I don’t see this as refusing progress, I see it as defense against a monarchy on the Internet, where Google holds all the cards.
I like that I can use Firefox on my Mac, and that I only very rarely come across something that doesn’t work and DOES in Chrome. I’m aware of the reality that Mobile Safari is the biggest thing standing in the way of Google just doing whatever they want with web “standards”, regardless what bureaucracy fetishists say about there being “other members” in standards bodies. I see the prospect of Blink (or whatever it’s called now) on iOS as a threat to the browser ecosystem. And as a web developer I’m just flat-out tired by the mere thought of having to go through another IE.
But hey, I’m glad that we are getting all this to briefly allow some freedom-loving nerds to play make-believe and enjoy a couple of years of Firefox on their devices before they start seeing sites break.
Also our main and primary goal is to ensure that web apps become viable. That was never going to happen, while Apple had no incentive whatsoever to invest in Safari to the level required to make a competitive browser.
OWA was only formed out of deep frustration with both the feature set and stability of Safari, born as a result of a lack of competition.
This paper is a couple of years old now, but it really describes the issues in a lot of detail: https://open-web-advocacy.org/walled-gardens-report/#introdu...
I don’t like the verbiage Apple used either but this doesn’t layout what the actual “unworkable” issues are
If an issue arises, how can they even troubleshoot it adequately if they cannot reproduce the problem reliably?
We will have to see. This is a natural experiment.
Would be ironic if the EU strengthens native apps’ hand. More entrepreneurially: there might be a niche for a testing suite that emulates across these phone-OS-browser sets, perhaps on real devices.
I guess the user can't stop them from using the GPS to get your real location and send it home, so maybe there really isn't a solution with such a tightly controlled platform.
It’s highly unlikely the iOS engine will be too different from the Android one for example. There may be some differences but I doubt it’ll be in the rendering, at least in practice
+ the article is a bit of celebration of a milestone, it took us 3 years and collectively thousands of hours of work to force Apple to do this.
What a mess.
https://www.macrumors.com/2024/01/26/apple-eu-app-ecosystem-...
