Apple could add a bunch of new APIs to support this case for third-party browsers. Presumably there's something equivalent that's being done for said web apps currently in Safari. But they're not wrong to say that there's not an existing system in place that said third-party browsers are already written to use. (And, you know, they're clearly not invested in trying to make this law succeed.)
Like I said, Apple could totally make APIs so that Chrome could know it was being launched in a container with data isolation and should behave as a web app. Google could then adopt those APIs, with the alacrity that it's famous for showing with new iOS system APIs. But the behavior Apple is implementing here is probably how any default-browser that hadn't yet opted into those new APIs would have to behave.
(To be clear: I think Apple is being petty here by not having those APIs announced. But "we're going to regress everything to bookmarks" is probably more DMA-compliant than "things are better when you use Safari, and we promise we'll extend that to other browsers someday".)
This strikes me as the way to go, there’s no good reason for anything else to be copied and it reduces the amount of data that integrated privacy-compromising ad and analytics services can readily glean from users.
Other browsers would have to be trusted, Apple doesn’t have a mechanism to ensure that they do what they’re supposed to.
So until they have time to add one (remember they already had to create all the API‘s for third-party browsers to use), they’re not allowed to give Safari preferential treatment. So they had to remove the feature.
https://www.theverge.com/24054329/microsoft-edge-automatic-c...
Ask MS, they already did it.
How is this even possible? It's shocking that these APIs even exist for any browser to use.