Apple's original plan was that third-party stuff would be in web app form. They took tons of flak from the developer community over that, so no, they didn't "push everyone to apps".

And webkit derived from KHTML (loosely), the project coming to public attention as Apple came under criticism for taking but not giving.

Apple's original plan

And Google's original plan was don't be evil. I would never -- even if I ever got some screwed up idea that I need to defend a corporation online -- reference that to defend their honour.

I don't even understand what you want Apple to do. Not allow third party developers to make native apps for iOS? Apple did that and nobody liked it. I can't imagine that you think this is a realistic solution.

Here's the chain of events as I see it:

1) Apple decides not to support flash. 2) A lot of people get upset. 3) Apple releases their thoughts on flash[1] which revolves around flash being proprietary and HTML5 being an open solution. [1]http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/ 4) Content owners can't delivery video through HTML5 because it's not DRM. 5) Apple works with content owners (specifically ABC) to create native iOS apps. Native apps on other platforms come way later, if ever. 6) HTML5 still doesn't have a solution for DRM content. Apple isn't working on this problem.

Basically they said one thing and then did another.

What is wrong with you?! You are talking about the tiny slice of all possible stuff that pretends it needs fucking DRM. What. The. Hell.

Yeah, I see John Gruber likes to say that.

It is, so to speak, horse shit. I apologize for the language but it's all that satisfactorily delivers my opinion on that. Have you ever actually used the Android browser?

Only the Android browser doesn't actually suck. I've never, ever heard someone actually describe why it sucks, they just repeat that going meme and smile and nod at each other. Yet despite all of its CSS chrome, many mobile dev projects abandon the effort and switch to an app after facing the less sexy, but deadly deficiencies in the iOS browser.

People are sure the iOS browser is great because they never actually use it. Instead they use apps.

I agree with some of your points, but as far as I'm aware every article I've seen on the subject points to iOS devices accounting for a large majority of mobile web browsing, so clearly a lot people don't think it sucks.

My personal experience using the Galaxy Nexus default browser for the last 2 months has been:

1. A bit more overall studdering when scrolling webpages than my iPhone. Nothing dramatic, but noticeable.

2. Double tap to zoom on paragraphs of text is really hit or miss. Half the time it zooms in incorrectly cutting off the edges of the text.

3. Embedded videos on a lot of websites refuse to play and prompt me to install Flash. On iOS they just serve up the html5 version and pay.

Overall I never found the default browser to be absolutely terrible, but I didn't love it either. Chrome beta has been a big step up in the last 24hrs already and am hoping this is where Google is set to put it's energy.

I use an RSS reader and the Twitter app (both pf which I also use on my PC). The rest (and majority of my time) on iOS devices I spend in a browser and I love it. The web experience on my iPad is awesome. I just don't see how Apple is hindering or sabotaging the open web with iOS. Sure, people like apps, but that's not unique to iOS, that's also true for Android. It's a property of native apps, not a property of Apple pushing native apps.

My two years on a Nexus One say otherwise.

> People are sure the iOS browser is great because they never actually use it.

What?

> Instead they use apps.

Last 8 apps launched on my iPhone: Safari, Messages, Settings, Flashlight, Mail, Phone, AirPhones, Kindle.

I spend more time in Safari than the latter 7 combined.