I’ve never understood why Apple doesn’t allow other browser engines on iOS.
It seems a really ridiculous policy that doesn’t really benefit anyone.
It seems a really ridiculous policy that doesn’t really benefit anyone.
If they allow alternative engines on iOS they'll just slowly lose browser market share they still have which likely end up in death spiral for Safari support.
It's extremely hard to compete with Google since even Firefox on Android is still extremely rare no matter how much effort Mozilla put into it.
On the face of it, this seems bizarre but I could definitely see how Apple has an interest in having their User Agent stamped on outgoing requests.
Besides, Opera Mini does the same thing - Server side rendering - and has been on the Apple Store for years.
- Ensures a minimum level of battery performance for users browsing the web. Chrome and Firefox for macOS are notoriously hard on your battery and iOS versions would likely have the same issue.
- Reduces the number of vulnerabilities present on the platform.
- In the event that a bad vuln does crop up, Apple can and will scramble out a WebKit patch to fix it, quickly protecting all users, even those using browsers by small/independent developers. This would be impossible if said indie devs were using Blink or Gecko or something instead.
These problems could be worked around if alternate engines were bundled with the OS as part of a partnership with Google and Mozilla, but such a scenario seems unlikely at best.
All you say can be said for any other app on the app store.
2) Game engines are very low level and Apple doesn't have a problem with UE or Unity. Maybe the problem is the iOS sandbox would not work with JS engines?
3) I don't buy the security argument. Google and Mozilla are very diligent with updates, even more so than the Webkit team. It could be argued that the Android approach of unbundling components from the OS is actually better in terms of security.
Imagine if you could only use Safari on macOS...