It's nearly 2023, and iOS still blocks use of:
- Web Push Notifications
- Fullscreen & wakelock (critical for games)
- WebXR
- WASM threading & SIMD
- `content-visibility`
- form participation for Web Components
- CSS Custom Paint & other Houdini APIs
- Web Codecs
- Trusted Types
- PWA install prompts
- Sharing to PWAs (Share Target)
- Virtual keyboards
- every Fugu 🐡 API
This is nowhere near a full list.
/cc @owa
Also, and I cannot stress this enough, Apple can *absolutely* afford to both keep up, or even lead (although they've successfully lowered expectations such that nobody can even imagine that today):
https://infrequently.org/2022/06/apple-is-not-defending-browser-engine-choice/
/cc @owa
Apple's profit from web search traffic is more than *all Mac sales combined*.
Their investment in WebKit/Safari? A shockingly tiny fraction of the revenu Apple makes *from the web*.
/cc @owa
What kind of web could we have if Apple took it's boot of our necks? The landscape for software would be unrecognizable (in a good way): imagine not having to wait for an app to install every time you brought home a new IoT device? Or not needing to worry about how invasive native apps are. It's possible *now*:
https://developer.chrome.com/blog/fugu-showcase/
/cc @owa
The *ONLY* reason we don't have that alternative world today -- a world of lower friction, better security, and better privacy -- is because Apple will not volunteer it and you aren't demanding it.
So demand it.
Let Apple know that their monopoly on the future of the web -- constructed to tax "digital whale" users in "casual" games 30% from their problem gambling habits -- is not acceptable.
Then go check out @owa and find out how you can get involved in making change non-optional for Apple.
@slightlyoff @owa Or better yet, vote with your wallet and don't buy Apple products. This is only one of many of their creepy, sleazy programs.
Campaigning to regulators and legislators is is far more effective avenue to success.
@owa @slightlyoff No, it's not. Switching from a closed platform to an open platform is instant success.
Campaigning to regulators is deferring a problem you can easily solve yourself to someone else while seeking to impose it on others who may have different values than you.
We suggest you read the CMA's mobile ecosystems final report:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/mobile-ecosystems-market-study-final-report
This very clearly outlines the market dynamics at play and the effective solutions.
Here is a shorter more condensed argument:
https://open-web-advocacy.org/walled-gardens-report/#effective-competition%3F
Where as we focus on Browsers and Web Apps, the CMA report is comprehensive when it comes to understanding how competition in mobile ecosystems functions.
"Businesses have little recourse as they can not suggest their customers install another real browser (there are none) and they are unwilling to lose more than half their mobile customers. Additionally iOS users tend to be wealthier and spend more making them a higher priority for companies. In the end the majority of large businesses simply throw in the towel and make an iOS Native App and in doing so agree to pay Apple 15-30% of their revenue."
"As such, Apple faces little effective competitive pressure to improve the quality of their iOS Safari browser and has incentives to inhibit it from competing with native. Thus Apple’s decade long prohibition on competition for Safari on iOS has a compounding anti-competitive effect as companies sink money into non-interoperable native iOS applications instead of Web Apps."
@LouisIngenthron @owa: ok, then know that OWA was able over the past 18 months to sway the direction of legislation all over the world, perhaps most notably in the EU's now-ratified Digital Markets Act.
In normal times, this wouldn't be the most useful approach, but this is a market failure, and can't be corrected from within the market itself...and OWA is seizing the moment at a critical juncture.