If you install Firefox on Windows, MacOS, Linux, ChromeOS, or Android you get *real* Firefox, complete with the Gecko engine. But not on iOS. Apple cripples engine competition in silent, deeply impactful ways.https://twitter.com/slightlylate/status/1176856950086275072 …
-
-
Replying to @slightlylate
Did you know that I ported gecko to iOS *twice*? Once back in 2010 on a jailbroken device and once again in 2015 on stock iOS:https://imgur.com/tBGy9hB
2 replies 0 retweets 24 likes -
-
Replying to @slightlylate @TedMielczarek
This might be the way to distribute alternative browser's on iOS: https://youtu.be/ftyWe6DVvO4 I know there will be some limitations, but hey, whatever works. But probably still not enough to invest in such browser's development.
1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @nekrtemplar @TedMielczarek
That's the issue; Apple's explicit policy suppresses both extant and potential browser competition. Combined with the worst-in-the-industry feature pace of their engine, a death knell for the web as computing goes mobile.
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes -
I agree with the sentiment that it'd be great to see more feature investment from Apple. If Apple relented on their iOS policy & allowed 3rd-party browser engines, the main effect would be a larger share for browser market leader Chromium. That's a decrease in competition.
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes -
Replying to @robpalmer2 @slightlylate and
Or they could compete by merit?
1 reply 0 retweets 10 likes -
Replying to @hashseed @robpalmer2 and
Lots of folks seem to accept that engine diversity is *de facto* desirable. It doesn't take much interrogation of this to see the edges. E.g., what if we had a 100 evenly-distributed engines, but half of them never added any new features? Or only features 2/3 of engines have?
3 replies 0 retweets 6 likes -
Replying to @slightlylate @hashseed and
In that configuration, it only takes 34% of engines adopting that policy to stall all progress. So we should be clear and specific about what we want engine diversity to achieve. Ability to diverge/go-own-way? Perf competition? Feature pace? Ecosystem resilience?
3 replies 0 retweets 3 likes
And what does OSS and the (sometimes exercised) threat of forking do to the equation? And, more locally to this thread, how much does not being able to deploy a fork further undermine the things you might hope OSS and diversity will achieve for the ecosystem?
-
-
Replying to @slightlylate @hashseed and
That is, if you value engine diversity, isn't what Apple has done on iOS the worst possible long-term outcome, undermining all the vectors along which competition and diversity can improve things?
3 replies 0 retweets 7 likes -
Replying to @slightlylate @hashseed and
I'm struggling to reconcile it too. The Safari-only situation on iOS has never felt good, but I suspect an issue many of us have is that the 1 engine that stands to dominate is run by a company w/ powerful business interests. It'd be different if we had say, 1 w3c-managed engine
1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes - 16 more replies
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.
& Web Standards TL; Blink API OWNER
Named PWAs w/
DMs open. Tweets my own; press@google.com for official comms.