Re: There was a time.…
That's not the point, though. Whether safari is good or bad, the issue is about choices. I see exactly why Apple decided to write Safari. I like it, if only because it has stuck with its own rendering engine while most others have given way to Chromium. If people use it a lot because they really like it, that's fine.
The issue is that, on IOS, users have no choice. They must use a browser that uses WebKit whether they'd prefer to or not. The mobile versions of other browsers just change the skin. This means that users don't get the option to switch to anything else. In many ways, it's similar to the situation you describe on OS X in the 2000s--they get a single choice which might not always be to their liking. In the 2000s, someone could write a browser to run on OS X, just like Apple did. Today, the same is not necessarily true with IOS.
I don't really care whether Apple puts a choice screen into the setup process or just lets people download their desired apps later, but I would like them to reduce the restrictions they place on developers and users. Appealing to security is in many cases a cheap tactic which has little or no factual basis; there are bugs in every rendering engine, but there are also bugs in every similarly-sized codebase and plenty of those get accepted. The restrictions on rendering engine or on payment methods just serve to prioritize Apple's services over user choice. I don't think that should be allowed, and I frankly don't think they need it anyway.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
