Looks like Japan learned from the malicious compliance shenanigans Apple is pulling with the EU. I hope Apple gets served some substantial fines that really hurt when they try to pull the same shit there. And I say, "when", not "if".
I would welcome if this global legislative push would end up in a more open app ecosystem for iOS overall.
BrowserEngineKit is a thin wrapper over XPC and iOS' extension system. The system would be so much better to develop for if XPC was an open API, and JIT for isolated sub-processes was permitted without Apple's blessing.
* Messengers could have separate sub-processes for preprocessing untrusted inputs -- iMessage already does this, third-party messengers are single-process and cannot.
* Applications could isolate unstable components for better user experience and crash recovery.
* Emulators, e.g. for retro systems, would benefit from speedy emulation.
* WASM would become useful in iOS.
* Browser could use XPC without special-purpose API wrappers such as BrowserEngineKit.
But alas, all of this would make it easier to load code that runs at native speed into an iOS app after a store review happened, and as we all know that'll be the end of the world.
> the determination is made based on the degree of likelihood that [it will prevent alternative browser engines]
If you interpret that very liberally, doing a region-locked "you can release alternate browser engines but only regionlocked to japanese apple accounts" could be seen as intentionally preventing alternative browsers from existing.
Why would mozilla port firefox when it can only target a tiny fraction of its users?
I know it's not super realistic, but maybe there's a path to global browser choice in there.
So after the EU and the UK, Japan is now putting an end to Apple's iOS alternative browser engine ban too.
Those are 3 large jurisdictions, I wonder if that's now a market big enough for Chrome and Firefox to invest into iOS versions of their browser that use Blink and Gecko under the hood. From what I heard this was one of the main reasons they haven't done it yet.
Is this a good thing? Doesn't this just expand the marketshare of Chromium?
Japan has a funny relationship with Apple. For example, the Felica ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FeliCa ) based ticket system is built into every iPhone globally, making life in Japan significantly easier for foreign iOS users. More surprisingly actually using the tickets does not require any app at all - you just use Apple Pay.
This is all narrowing the scope of what advantages native apps have (they do still have advantages), but it's hard to argue they simply aren't moving gatekeeping to other areas.
(Narrator) In one year Chrome market share hit 100% in Japan, and became the only browser websites are designed for.
I found the power of "It can be done" amazing. One country does it, everyone else thinks "It can be done, we don't want to be left behind" after 20 years of this being impossible.
We've got to assume that Google have internally been developing "real" Chrome for iOS for a long time, so that it'll be ready to go immediately, right?
For reference, here's Apple's requirements for browser engines in EU: https://developer.apple.com/support/alternative-browser-engi...
I think this is a net good in the long term. Even if you completely exclude obvious benefits, like being able to support more APIs than Safari, it forces Apple to actually compete with other browsers and implement things if they start getting real market share.
Not that you really should, but Safari has a limit of 500 tabs. Why? It's arbitrary. Safari doesn't support WebRequest in blocking mode, so you can't have real adblockers (just MV3 style content blockers, like uBOL). There are all sorts of edge cases too, like if you want cross-browser sync and extensions. Sure, you can totally run Safari with extension support, but extensions in e.g., Orion are shaky at best.
The biggest claim that Apple made about this whole thing was that web browsers offered an attack surface increase as a result of giving JIT to other browsers, and they could be owned. Frankly, though, I would take a browser without JIT if I had a real adblocker.
* in Japan. Apple has made it clear that they are willing and able to only allow consumer choice if they are in the jurisdiction where they are required to. I live in Norway, so I’m not able to sideload apps, because Norway, despite usually being lumped in with “the EU” is not actually part of the EU, and thus not covered by the EU ruling.
Hopefully EU can make the same requirements, and hopefully Firefox can port its engine to iOS
Not being able to run firefox is the only reason I don't use an iPhone.
There's a lot of nonsense buried in safari and webkit. For example, loading certain URLs will deep link to on-device apps. If you surf to amazon urls in the browser, the amazon app will be notified. I'm pretty sure this is unblockable snooping people don't realize is going on.
So I think this is great news, maybe we get rid of nonsense like that.
However, I'll bet apple will make this japan specific just like eu laws don't affect their behavior in the US.
For example, a japanese iphone will always make a sound when you take a picture. If you leave the country, that will go away, unless you're in airplane mode and then it will start making sounds for every picture again. country-specific behavior.
I don't see why apple wouldn't do the same thing -- firefox works in japan, but not outside japan.
How about smart TVs?
Oh, finally someone treats this issue right.
Big victory for poor little Google with its 70% browser marketshare.
Hope you guys like Chromium!
Im not sure the Japanese government will survive to December so this could change
Finally, Japanese will experience popups, location requests, notifications and constant tracking along with battery drain and zero days as glorious first party android users. IOS don’t need more spyware in form of chrome or firefox. If you need it, get spydroid with ios theme.
This is good news, the US should join in aswell in stopping this despicable behaviour by Apple. Apple handicaps browsers because web apps are the only viable alternative to Native Apps which generate huge commission for Apple.
> This results in no effective browser competition on iOS, and web apps being deprived of the APIs and performance they need to compete with native apps.
To my eyes, the regulators hit the nail on the head here. It's not about other browsers, it's about keeping the iPhone browser crummy so the app store and the 30% Apple Tax stays humming along.
to anyone who believes this is good news: enjoy your chrome monoculture in a few years when apple stops developing safari
good. DISMANTLE APPLE
You clearly do not understand the product if you buy an iPhone and then complain about its walled garden.
Of all the things that iOS could do, why browser engine is so important? Is there anything to them other than UI nowadays, especially on small form factor?
Sweet, WebBLE and WebUSB on iOS let's go.
Everybody is talking about Chrome, but I tell ya what I have that disabled on my Android in favor of Firefox. Firefox on mobile with full-fat uBlock Origin is the closest thing to parity with desktop web access you can get.
I don't just block ads, I block elements on sites I don't care about with :has-text RegEx rules. You can't do that on Chrome even on desktop anymore.
I'm this close to swapping to the Android as my primary device-- it's iMessage that has me chained. It's just too dang nice to respond to chats from my Mac during work so I don't need to pick up my phone.
Everything else is better on the Android. Don't get me started about the iOS keyboard or Siri.