Apple has absolutely kneecapped web technologies. Mobile Safari has simple, egregious bugs that have been open for years. We're talking about things like being able to crash the browser with CSS or file selection, etc. It's impossible to make the case that Apple is just rejecting features for the sake of the user. The next question is why, and you'll need some creativity to come up with any other answer than pointing to the monolithic, money printing app store.
Any input that can crash the browser is a potential security vulnerability. Can you point me to an example of an inpatched crash in Safari that has been "open for years"?
This is just mince. There are no long-standing crashes in Safari that "crash the browser with CSS or file selection". And from a purely anecdotal point of view, I've found it the least annoying browser to use by far.
I think you missed the Mobile part. Do a search for "Mobile Safari file selection crash" – that one minor but severe example was still happening as of earlier this year and for at least four years prior. Mmm, mince!
If all Apple cared about was the App Store then why do they continue to hire WebKit engineers and build new features ? It would be easier just to fork WebKit, never add anything new and deliberately make it so unusable that everyone rushes to apps.
Sincerely, what's confusing about it? There is a massive monetary incentive toward native. I don't think it's any kind of top-down nefarious decision, but is probably an emergent quality based on priority.
I worked with a group of engineers full time for years around mobile/iOS, and we were pretty amazed at how severe but unaddressed these bugs were. The move to WKWebView was helpful, but still lacking. The app store parallel that you take issue with is an easy one to make when you contrast those failings against the talent and financial bandwidth of a company that size.
> Sincerely, what's confusing about it? There is a massive monetary incentive toward native.
No there's not. I'm a web developer so I'm pretty invested in the web platform, but even I can see how incredibly naive this assertion is. Native will always win due to just having more power and capabilities. Web will always be a step behind.
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by apathy or lack of resources.
Did you read the next sentence after what you quoted?
Because Apple has always shaped so much of our development environment, it's easy to take these things as natural law. I'm assuming you're a younger developer based on your assertions – I would probably even agree with those suppositions based on the tone of posts like mine that seem anti-Apple. But the history of these technologies is glaring, and native/web/hybrid apps have never been given equal footing.
Nothing you said refutes a financial incentive in the app store, and most apps don't need "more power and capabilities", they need access to a basic API that isn't randomly crippled.
If you care about this subject, read about the history of UIWebView, WKWebView and hybrid apps, you will see how uniquely broken the platform is. Android doesn't suffer the same problems for a host of reasons, but that makes sense given Google's incentive for web. Hybrid and web apps are then not terribly appealing since they're only effective on one platform, so the ecosystem stagnates.
