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> To apple's credit, they've provided a web standards based browser to a mobile landscape that didn't have one (at the time) and which spawned many other web standards based browsers like Chrome.

As I recall it, Nokia started using WebKit on Symbian before the iPhone came out.

I have a US bias, from my POV they provided the first mainstream web browser, but sure...

Apple forked KHTML to create WebKit. They kept it open source though and now lots of companies (Nokia, Google, etc.) contribute to it.

Hahaha, thank you for providing this brilliant example of a blind anti-Apple troll.

Don't forget iOS is a walled garden since day 1, while Windows used the 3rd party ecosystem to gain relevance on the desktop. Now, with the x86 desktop fading slowly into irrelevance, they are trying to control the environment on what they perceive to be their lifeboat.

Without a JIT they ensure IE will be the only usable browser available on the platform. It's like what they did with private APIs available only to Microsoft programs - all other programs had to rely on slower/worse system functionality and, therefore, Microsoft programs enjoyed better performance.

Microsoft already went as far as making Windows 3 deliberately incompatible with DR-DOS. This is not new behavior - they just resort to it when they are threatened. I expect a lot more of it.

>Don't forget iOS is a walled garden since day 1, while Windows used the 3rd party ecosystem to gain relevance on the desktop

So? None, not even one, of the 3rd party programs running on Windows will run on Windows RT, so I fail to see the relevance of that point and Windows RT is on day -180 right now, not even day 1.

>Without a JIT they ensure IE will be the only usable browser available on the platform.

Apple does the exact same thing and you can say the same things about Apple, so I fail to see how Apple is better in this regard.

iOS is not the next version of OSX. Windows 8 on ARM is the next version of Windows.

> To apple's credit, they've provided a web standards based browser

If Microsoft did that with IE, would you then be OK with it? Or why give Apple a pass based on that?

On what grounds is Firefox not allowed in the App Store? Or does the restriction on JIT simply make performance unappealing?

No downloadable executable content. You can have an alternative programming language interpreter in your program (now), but it can only run scripts that are already in the application bundle.

It's a reasonable restriction from a user's point of view—you don't want to allow arbitrary code execution that may expose vulnerabilities in badly coded applications. It sucks from a developer's point of view.

> You can have an alternative programming language interpreter in your program (now), but it can only run scripts that are already in the application bundle.

If what you say is true, how come there are other web browsers in the App Store?

Opera loads and executes a page on its own servers before passing the content down to the browser.

Other browsers just wrap the native webkit.

On grounds that Apple bans any non Apple interpreter (which downloads code from the net) to be compiled with iOS SDK. I.e. any JavaScript engine including. It's a pure form of anticompetitive censorship.

In addition to the "no code interpreting code" limitation, I'm pretty sure that there's a more specific "any web browser in-app must be the safari browser" rule. Technically, Mozilla could attempt to release an iOS app that used the Safari rendering engine (and framing it around the FF look and feel, bookmark sync, etc.) but I'm sure that would never happen.

>There is a huge difference between iOS and other platforms.

>Apple, in legal terms, makes Firefox on iOS impossible. This was not the case with Windows; Microsoft was using covert means to undermine user choice.

Microsoft was using.. are you referring to the end 1990s or now?

Does the 'huge difference' between them go away if Microsoft puts in a legal clause similar to the one in the iOS agreement?

>To make a blanket statement that Mozilla thinks Apple's banning Firefox from iPad and the iPhone is 'not a problem' is wrong and disingenuous.

Then where are the similar posts about Apple's actions? Surely, the iPad has a much bigger marketshare and Windows RT can easily prove to be a real dud and be DoA? Why is only Microsoft being threatened with hints of anti-trust complaints and not Apple when they are the ones with a near monopoly. Remember "There is no tablet market, there is an iPad market".

There is constant talk of the post-PC world in the media and on HN, and I doubt they're referring to Windows RT instead of the iPad in those discussions which frequently claim that MS is dying in the new computing world.

To summarize, I am really failing at seeing a "huge difference" between iOS and Windows RT that you are.

So, because less people complain Apple does something similar (which is not really the same anyway) Microsoft gets a get-out-of-jail-free card? Because someone else does it, suddenly, doing it becomes right?

>which is not really the same anyway

How is it not the same?

>Because someone else does it, suddenly, doing it becomes right?

No it doesn't. But do you think different laws should apply to a company just because you don't like it? Why are you so against equal justice for equal acts?

It's not hard if you pay attention: Apple introduced a new, completely incompatible platform that can't run OSX software, runs only on ARM and whose programs you can't run on OSX. iOS is not the future version of OSX.

Microsoft has an OS whose next version is getting a new API. It's Microsoft's most important product and one you pretty much can't buy a computer without. So, we can agree that, one year from now, most PC's will be running it. It runs on both x86 and ARM and the big deal is that, on ARM, due to a deliberate choice, only Microsoft browsers will run JavaScript code acceptably. Many people believe ARM will be more relevant than x86 soon and that the browser is the API programs will be written for. Microsoft wants to re-enact the IE6 farce by artificially limiting what browsers run on Windows 8 on the platform they think will be most relevant.