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Comment by rabuse | Hacker News Reader

This is why I'm all for the future of apps being web-based. Write once, and able to run everywhere.

Gradually making Chrome the only OS that really matters.

The web is already almost as closed (for apps) as phones are - you can choose Chrome, Safari if you're on Mac, or Firefox. Everything else is just repackaged Chrome. Edit: forgot Opera Mini, for what it's worth.

Firefox is dying out, and Google is pushing for less and less user freedom in Chrome, while Apple is extremely reluctant to implement new features that make Safari a better app platform.

Can you expand on which features Apple is reluctant to implement in Safari?

These ones:

    Web Bluetooth
    Web MIDI API
    Magnetometer API
    Web NFC API
    Device Memory API
    Network Information API
    Battery Status API
    Ambient Light Sensor
    HDCP Policy Check extension for EME
    Proximity Sensor
    WebHID
    Serial API
    Web USB
    Geolocation Sensor (background geolocation)
    User Idle Detection

Note: I do understand Apple's privacy concerns with some or even most of them. But most of these are obviously necessary if you want to turn the browser into the main application platform, for better and for worse.

> The web is already almost as closed (for apps) as phones are

What? Nobody needs permission to publish a webpage, while every week we hear about google or apple blocking or unpublishing apps with flimsy justifications.

I was thinking of closed in terms of number of options, not publisher control of apps. You're right that browsers don't tend to censor content on the web today. Tomorrow, we'll see.

Sounds a little like what Firefox OS was trying to do. They had a great idea, they were just too far ahead of their time.

Not really, the iPhone planned to do the same thing.

KaiOS. Firefox as a toolkit / OS.

(Likely wrong terminology but you hopefully get the idea)

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