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Comment by kibwen | Hacker News Reader

> The rendering engine is a boring, unimportant implementation detail that users do not care for.

Then I'm sure users won't mind when I'm allowed to install my own rendering engine on my own computer, that I own, because I bought it, and, therefore, own it.

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You sending money to Apple doesn't mean you "own" anything really. You have the right to use it indefinitely, a sort of usufruct. It's like when my dad died, my moms had infinite use of the family house until she dies, while the children had the naked property.

Apple is the same: they own the IP, they can remote upgrade and forbid you to downgrade the software, they have no obligation to repair if broken after a while and do not allow you, for any reason, to use that thing you got to make copies. You don't "own" that phone in any full property sense. You own a license to use it.

So, ofc we other users won't care, but you bet Apple will not start letting you do anything that could harm their bottom line, like for example find a way to use browsers to launch Javascript apps that deal with online payments with them unable to get any revenue from it. Browser are not rendering engine only, they are also javascript interpreters and that is a giant scare for Apple.

Apple is trying to prevent familial and household abuse where people install invasive software on devices of household members to spy on them or otherwise take away their privacy and freedoms.

What solution would you suggest? Just look the other way?

Lol, this excuse is a new variation on "think of the children", I had not seen it in the wild before.

Apple is just trying to keep support costs low and extractive prices high. Everything else is fanboyish rationalisation.

I'm otherwise indifferent to alternate browsers/engines on iOS, but this is a complete fiction. You made this up just to prop up your personal preference.

Nope, Apple has been saying this for years.

The same solutions that prevents people from going to "scamwebsite.com" to steal their credit card information and ask for social security numbers. That's already an issue with a web browser like Safari is it not?

The same solutions we use for kids: parental controls that do not allow them to install new apps or give permissions like location permissions to apps. iOS already supports this.

Your idea of parental controls does not address the case where the parent is prone to spy on and do an honor killing of their own child, to state just one example scenario. This happens in some cultures. Apple can’t prevent all abuse obviously but it doesn’t want to be on the side of helping the abuser.

Disregarding the fictional/"but think of the children" nature of this for a second, apple airtags can also be used for nefarious reasons/invasion of privacy, would you advocate banning them from the market, or are you going to look the other way?

Don't worry. Apple already installs spyware on their devices for the Chinese market. It's called iCloud.

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