Re:Open-sourcing Chrome on iOS
by coldtea on Wednesday February 01, 2017 @03:02AM
(#13539165)
>Of course it's a brilliant move: by controlling the stagnation of web browser tech, they can force developers to implement apps with their high-lock-in native app frameworks.
What "stagnation"? Semi-informed complaints aside whenever someone finds that their favorite desktop JS feature doesnt work on mobile, Webkit has been in the forefront of mobile web capabilities for ages.
Still better than Chrome on Android on several fronts. If it was just Chrome, we'd just have different unimplemented APIs and lower power efficiency.
And there's a much more obvious reason you don't want a competitor to have their own app platform on your platform. After some point they can be too powerful for your good -- the same way that continued support for Microsoft's Office or Adobe Photoshop was crucial for Mac OS/OS X success in the late nineties / early 00s.
Oh, and as somebody mentions elsewhere in this thread, how would an alternative browser implement GPU access (for WebGL APIs), or their JIT? They'd need to be given all kinds of first class access to the device which can be compromised or exploited.
What "stagnation"? Semi-informed complaints aside whenever someone finds that their favorite desktop JS feature doesnt work on mobile, Webkit has been in the forefront of mobile web capabilities for ages.
Still better than Chrome on Android on several fronts. If it was just Chrome, we'd just have different unimplemented APIs and lower power efficiency.
And there's a much more obvious reason you don't want a competitor to have their own app platform on your platform. After some point they can be too powerful for your good -- the same way that continued support for Microsoft's Office or Adobe Photoshop was crucial for Mac OS/OS X success in the late nineties / early 00s.
Oh, and as somebody mentions elsewhere in this thread, how would an alternative browser implement GPU access (for WebGL APIs), or their JIT? They'd need to be given all kinds of first class access to the device which can be compromised or exploited.