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Comment by webwielder2 | Hacker News Reader

A computer with apps from only one vendor is still a computer (unless you prescribe to the ideological notion that a "computer" must be "open" somehow).

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To say nothing of the fact that from day one the iPhone had a best-in-class web browser. It's funny how the iPhone has been continually derided for not being open enough while having full access to the open web, the platform that is routinely held up as the future of computing by those who think local binaries are a relic of the past who also deride the iPhone for not being open enough.

Partially because it's lagging behind in "open-web technologies", although it's fair to question if all of those are really as necessary.

(Which wouldn't be an issue if you could install an alternative browser (edit: rendering engine) on it, but it's not open enough for that)

Look man, you can have any browser you want, as long as its Safari.

You're right. It's too bad we don't have all those great web browsers that existed on phones before. I remember how great PocketIE was. The Opera thing that sent down screenshots? The joys of WAP?

People complain about Safari but it was a REVOLUTION compared to what was available before.

I was strictly talking about the criticism now, not back then (I mean, Apple briefly tried to champion the web-only approach some of those critics now advocate and see Safari as in the way of. We'll see if it has more success this time)

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