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Comment by panic | Hacker News Reader

One thing the article doesn't mention is the effect of Apple's browser engine policy on iOS. Forcing everyone to use WebKit may be anticompetitive, but it's also the main thing keeping the Chrome/Blink monoculture at bay.

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Yeah, I've started to grow conflicted on that too. I used to hate it because Safari was lagging behind so far and users couldn't switch, but it also forces web developers to test for interoperability with at least one other browser engine, making it more likely to work in others as well.

Safari has caught up a bit, luckily, but it'd be great if it would actually compete with other browsers on features. Unfortunately, I guess if Apple opened up iOS to other browser engines, it'd also compete against Google's marketing machine and reach.

I too wish Safari was better about feature parity, but I console myself with the fact that WebKit is significantly more power-efficient than Blink, which is extremely valuable in a battery-powered portable electronic device. Maybe not as important for a desktop computer, but even there using less CPU means the browser works better when my computer is under heavy load (such as when I'm compiling).

  anticompetitive

It's not. Apple enforces whatever rule they want on their OS

Microsoft nearly got broken up for a much weaker version of this sort of rule.

The only market Apple has a dominant market position in is Apple phones. In the US and many of the other richest countries, Apple is like Pepsi in terms of market share; in the rest of the world it's more like Dr. Pepper.

(Yes, I know this is the Jolt Cola of analogies, I will stick to cars in the future.)

https://www.statista.com/statistics/225464/market-share-of-l...

Well, it's a shame then. They were doing nothing wrong

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