Why would they do that when they essentially control an entire browser engine?

Because their browser engine sucks, people just use it on mobile (iOS) because they basically have to in order to open any link.

Every full time job I've had I've been issued a MacBook and step 1 of setup was "install Firefox or Chrome".

Safari is one of the few things that truly outright blows about the Apple ecosystem.

Safari is the first thing I launch when I open my Mac and it's the last thing that I quit before shutting it down. If you're looking for battery life and RAM to spare for other applications, use Safari.

Safari is a fantastic browser, actually.

It's as fast as Chrome and Firefox. (Firefox is curiously sluggish on the Mac, even when the latest Quantum improvements.)

Sure, it tends to lag behind when it comes to adopting certain newfangled web technologies, but it supports everything that's important (even web workers now? I think?), and it's super stable.

I use Chrome for web development, though, because of the built-in dev tools. (The tools are pretty gnarly for 2019, but they get the job done, for the most part.)

Because safari will sooner or later become another Edge. Apple doesn't invest enough into safari and now it's a browser which is most behind in terms of technologies.

Apple's Safari investment is focused on features like tracking prevention and anti-fingerprinting. Stuff for users at the expense of developers.

I've seen what happens to web browsers that trail behind the industry in features.

It doesn't matter how nice the privacy features are, when a user encounters web site after web site that doesn't work right in their browser, they eventually each out to a more technical friend that recommends trying browser X. When browser X fixes their problems, they never return.

iPad / iPhone are captive rich markets, where only Safari is available. So companies/devs will keep on testing/supporting for it.

Sadly Apple took the wind out of my all-time favorite browser, Camino, née Chimera, when they started up the WebKit/Safari project by hiring away key people like Dave Hyatt: https://donmelton.com/2013/01/10/safari-is-released-to-the-w...

Stupid question probably... since I haven't had an iPhone for a couple years. Is Safari there still a thing? On my Mac I'm not using Safari at all. Havent opened it a single time since i got my latest MacBook - well I must have to download firefox but I dont remember.

I remember at one point Apple wouldnt allow any other browsers rendering engines on iOS - is that still the case?

Safari is still a thing and still under active development.

All iOS browsers use Safari WebKit under the hood.

iOS apps can use whatever rendering engine they want. The restriction is on JIT -- Apple doesn't allow apps to compile native code on the fly, which modern JavaScript engines like V8 do. The exception is Apple's own JavaScriptCore, which works with WebKit.

In theory you could have Firefox Quantum as a tenderer with JavaScriptCore as the JS engine, but that might be more work than it's worth.

> iOS apps can use whatever rendering engine they want. The restriction is on JIT

Wrong.

> 4.7 HTML5 Games, Bots, etc.

> your app must use WebKit and JavaScript Core to run third party software and should not attempt to extend or expose native platform APIs to third party software

https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/

You're not contradicting me. The section you're quoting is not about this, by the way. You want section 2.5.2:

"Apps should be self-contained in their bundles, and may not read or write data outside the designated container area, nor may they download, install, or execute code which introduces or changes features or functionality of the app, including other apps."

Yeah, but if you read carefully, section 4.7 explicitly says that you must use WebKit and JSC to run third party software. Therefore, you can use your own engine to render your app (see games or Google's Flutter), but you cannot use it to render third-party content (thus making impossible to create a browser)

Oh interesting.

There is 2.5.6 > Apps that browse the web must use the appropriate WebKit framework and WebKit Javascript.

https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/