I don’t follow. If the percentage of people who care about non Apple software is low then it totally makes sense that Apple wouldn’t care about opening their platform for 3rd party software. People didn’t jump ship to Android after all. Apple allow alternate app store in Europe because of regulation, not users revolting

You can set the default browser.

And there are plenty of messaging apps on iOS.

App store, sure, they don't allow sideloading, but that's a different matter (and the number of users, not devs, who care about that is even smaller)

You can only change your browser in the EU, since three months ago, because of their consumer protection laws.

In all other countries, the "browsers" on the App Store are only skins on top of a crippled version of Safari.

I'm in the US. I can set the default browser on my iPhone to Chrome, right in the Safari settings.

> I can set the default browser on my iPhone to Chrome, right in the Safari settings.

You can set your browser to a Chrome UI wrapper around a Safari Webview. You can do this with any [browser] UI wrapper around a Safari Webview, as long as [browser] has received the relevant entitlement from Apple.[0]

Outside of the EU, all browser apps on iOS must run Safari's engine.[1]

[0]: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/Xcode/preparing-yo...

> Request the default browser entitlement by filling out the Default browser entitlement request form. If your request is accepted you get both the default browser entitlement, and the com.apple.developer.browser.app-installation entitlement. If you have the default browser entitlement, fill out this form to receive the app-installation entitlement for your browser app.

[1]: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/browserenginekit

> Important: To distribute an app that uses an alternative browser engine, you need to request the relevant entitlements for your developer account. For more information and to request the entitlements, see Using alternative browser engines in the European Union.

I don't comprehend why people feel like being a Safari wrapper is sufficient.

How do people imagine ad blockers get implemented? Why do they assume ad blockers will be supported by Apple, which once ran an ad network and runs an ad network in Apple News, forever?

If publishers wanted to support only ad-block-blocking browsers, that's their prerogative too! I don't either think Apple should get to decide that ads are protected if you appear in Apple News, but ads are not protected if you appear in Mobile Safari.

People opposing choice: it never ceases to surprise me.

I understand the X wrapper on Safari engine, and I don't believe most people care about the underlying engine. Just like Microsoft Edge just being a Chromium browser, most people don't seem to care.

People care about the effects. For example, you can install adblockers on every version of Firefox except for the one on iOS.

I agree with you on this. People that care about adblockers (or something else) care about whether they can do that or not. A minority of people care about the non-default Safari web experience.

Those aren’t anywhere near the same from a technical point of view.

Seems like a silly gripe - why not buy android and have it all?

But...I can't have Safari on Android!

You can set any browser you want as long as it’s a skin on top of safari.

The browser thing is meant for security and privacy, why do you think they allow alternatives to all their other default apps expect for browsers?

But more than that, why are your arbitrary expectations any more important than their arbitrary requirements?

Because it's my device.