From Don Melton's Mouth [0]:

    We built our own browser because we didn't want to depend on another company for a critical application.

    We built our own browser engine because we wanted to use the technology in more things than a browser.
    
    We built that engine small and fast because Bertrand Serlet would have shot me if I had done otherwise. :)

[0] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5006704

Apple had been dependent on Microsoft and Netscape for good browser options. Microsoft released IE5.5 for Mac which was neither IE5 nor IE6 compatible, and then nothing. Netscape gradually turned into a gigantic steaming pile of crap.

I might add that Chimera -> Camino was the beacon of hope before Safari came out, and once it got going on Mac OS X, other folks got so excited they demanded a cross-platform version which eventually became Firefox.

In general, the need for a non-sucky non-bloated web browser alternative to IE reached a critical mass at that time, not just on Mac OS X.

"I might add that Chimera -> Camino was the beacon of hope before Safari came out, and once it got going on Mac OS X, other folks got so excited they demanded a cross-platform version which eventually became Firefox."

I'd never heard this and I can't seem to find any references to it. Would you mind pointing me in the right direction?

As mentioned in the story Dave Hyatt was the main guy behind Chimera, (a streamlined platform native browser using the gecko renderer but ditching mail, composer etc. from Mozilla Suite) and with Blake Ross, behind Phoenix, which became Firefox (a streamlined platform native browser using the gecko renderer but ditching mail, composer etc. from the Mozilla Suite).

Technically, they were both faking the platform native element to some degree, but they were at least trying to fit in with their respective target platform(s).

Yeah, I just found it in the story! I was an early user of Pheonix but never bothered to learn the history behind the browser.

Because the existing ones all sucked?

maybe every reason of making iOS Maps is acceptable here too.