A deep dive: how Apple uses iOS WebKit monopoly to strip-mine and sabotage the web, hurting all browser engine projects and draining the web of future potential
the only platform that actually supports Safari *and* competing browsers. @satefan : An open letter to Tim Cook signed by all iOS browsers builders (big and small), an alliance, writing code to prove Apple wrong on their claims. Trying to ship things and challenge app rejections publicly. So many things we could have done. Miguel de Icaza / @migueldeicaza : @slightlylate MathML is finally coming to Chromium after a third party contributed it and the other browsers had it. Google has billions of dollars at their disposal, but their prioritized spammy tech instead of elevating the sciences Perhaps organizations have different goals and that's ok? https://twitter.com/... Miguel de Icaza / @migueldeicaza : @justinschuh I use the compelling browser exclusively on Mac - never had to use Chrome - so whatever fallback people are doing today works just fine Miguel de Icaza / @migueldeicaza : @justinschuh I see it differently, the only reason Safari is still a viable option is because iOS has prevented a chromium monopoly from being realized. When it happens, we won't have a web, we will have just whatever the largest chromium muscle can push out. Alex Russell / @slightlylate : @benadida ... I'm old enough to remember when Netscape had 90+% share. Competition, when allowed, is wicked effective. Miguel de Icaza / @migueldeicaza : @littledan @slightlylate Software is messy, patrons are messy (Apple, Google and msft), goal alignment is messy, engineering and planning are all messy. I give people a lot of rope for that. I wish Alex did the same rather than reducing it into the trite tropes he constantly badgers us with. Stephen Shankland / @stshank : One data point related to @slightlylate's (newest) post complaining Apple is hurting the web: I follow browser mailing lists, and a large fraction of the Webkit messages are browser devs requesting Apple's stance on dozens of new web standards. https://infrequently.org/... https://twitter.com/... Alex Russell / @slightlylate : @benadida ... “we shouldn't have first-order good things because second-order bad things might happen” is galaxy brain stuff Jake Archibald / @jaffathecake : @migueldeicaza ... Is that something to aspire to? My dad used to build motorbikes on his own. The engine efficiency was awful, emissions were bad, safety was worse. Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life : Apple has successfully done with WebKit what Microsoft tried and failed to do with Internet Explorer. Once IE beat Netscape on features, MSFT disbanded the browser team to work on native app tech (Avalon/WPF). This opened the door to Firefox then Chrome. https://infrequently.org/... Alex Russell / @slightlylate : @satefan You perfectly summarised my thoughts. Big “MoFo Board: you had one job” energy. Ben Adida / @benadida : @slightlylate @migueldeicaza I want the world you imagine @slightlylate, but I still worry we might get the world @migueldeicaza predicts. Coupling of OS and web browsers is bad. But coupling of powerful web sites and web browsers is problematic, too. Alex Russell / @slightlylate : @sayrer @satefan And for every single year that followed, the case got stronger. If Mozilla has a purpose, and it is not this, I cannot possibly imagine what it is. Alex Russell / @slightlylate : @migueldeicaza I really wish you understood the mathml story at more than a surface level. Alex Russell / @slightlylate : @migueldeicaza @littledan The mess is fine. I only dissent at the level of forced use of a substandard engine and no recourse through competition. Ben Adida / @benadida : @slightlylate ... As I've noted before, @slightlylate, debating with you can be painful, because you don't seek to understand the nuance of the other person's argument. I never said we shouldn't have browser competition. I said we should have it *and* recognize the risk of a Chrome takeover. @satefan : I'm extremely proud of what we built on mobile - within the limits of both Apple and Mozilla itself. But I'm convinced things could have looked very very different today had Mozilla truly put their shoulders under it to affect change (for everyone) on iOS. Alex Russell / @slightlylate : @SeeEvanR @Techmeme 🤷 https://www.statista.com/.... https://www.justice.gov/.... https://gs.statcounter.com/... Evan Rodgers / @seeevanr : @Techmeme @slightlylate iOS holds no monopoly market share globally in any segment they compete. Nice concern trolling though. Ed Zitron / @edzitron : Other than that mrs Lincoln how was the play? https://twitter.com/... Ben Francis / @bfrancis : The health of the web depends on having multiple interoperable implementations. A Chromium-only web would be the end of the web as we know it, in terms of openness, governance, innovation, regulation and public good. https://twitter.com/... Terence Eden / @edent : Excellent - if somewhat troubling - post. https://twitter.com/... Alex Russell / @slightlylate : If Web Push ships in 2023 as promised, Apple will be a mere eight years behind Chromium browsers and seven years behind Firefox to bring a feature to the web in iOS that it gave native developers in 2009. https://twitter.com/... Alex Russell / @slightlylate : This zombie argument needs to die, so here's a few thousand words with charts and graphs: “Apple Is Not Defending Browser Engine Choice”: https://infrequently.org/... Eric Lawrence / @ericlaw : Amazing levels of detail here. Want your PhD in the browser business? The Professor is in. “From this data, we can assume a baseline cost to build and maintain a competitive, cross-platform browser at $450 million per year.” https://twitter.com/... Justin Schuh / @justinschuh : This is a longer read, but necessarily so because it uses actual data to make a cogent case. And it's a refreshing departure from the innuendo and anecdata that normally fills the space around browser competition. https://twitter.com/... @openwebadvocacy : Apple has claimed to regulators that it's using the #AppleBrowserBan to protect us all from a chrome monoculture. @slightlylate breaks this argument down and shows how Apple's anti-competitive ban likely stole 100's of millions of dollars from Mozilla https://infrequently.org/... Jake Archibald / @jaffathecake : I see folks saying that, if Apple stopped banning other browser engines on iOS, Safari would lose all its users to Chrome, resulting in a browser monoculture. Here's an analysis of the data, looking at the current situation on macOS vs iOS https://infrequently.org/... Haroon Meer / @haroonmeer : Great post / also sheds light on modern browser economics. “we can assume a baseline cost to build and maintain a competitive, cross-platform browser at $450 million per year” ☝️why I'm suspicious of ppl that aim to build a browser/ just fork chromium. https://infrequently.org/... Thomas Steiner / @tomayac : On browser engine choice, a common argument is “@WebKit couldn't compete if it had to”, as analyzed by @slightlylate: https://infrequently.org/.... On macOS—where there is browser engine choice—Safari does OK (2015-today). Stats via https://analytics.wikimedia.org/ ..., i.e., all Wikimedia sites. https://twitter.com/... Bruce Lawson / @brucel : Apple Is Not Defending Browser Engine Choice https://infrequently.org/... “both the present and future of browser engine choice are squarely within Cupertino's control” says Big Al.
Context & Ripple Effects
Alex Russell's deep dive lands mid-arc in a years-long argument: HTTP Toolkit had already documented Safari's slow adoption of popular web features and refusal to engage on contentious API proposals, and Matthew Ball had argued iOS inhibits the growth of the future internet unless regulators force competition in app distribution. Russell's contribution is to name the mechanism — the WebKit-only mandate on iOS — and to show the coalition forming against it, including an open letter to Tim Cook from iOS browser builders writing compatibility code to disprove Apple's claims.
The stakes run both ways: advocates argue Apple's browser ban likely cost Mozilla hundreds of millions in lost revenue, while defenders counter that the ban is what has so far kept a Chromium monoculture off mobile. The later EU outcome — iOS 17.4 allowing default third-party browsers and alternative engines in the EU — is the first real test of which side was right.
First-order effects
- Apple faces a coordinated bloc of iOS browser builders publicly challenging its WebKit mandate — an open letter to Tim Cook plus code and compatibility tests designed to refute Apple's stated technical justifications, raising the reputational cost of each app rejection.
- WebKit's own maintainers are squeezed: browser developers routinely ask Apple's stance on dozens of new standards via WebKit mailing lists, and Apple's non-engagement leaves engine projects unable to plan around the platform that controls iOS rendering.
Second-order effects
- Mozilla's funding model is directly exposed — advocates' claim that the ban cost it hundreds of millions means the WebKit mandate isn't just a Safari advantage but a revenue transfer away from the only major non-Chromium competitor, weakening the counterweight to Google's engine dominance.
- Regulators get a concrete, testable grievance: the same exclusivity economics that made the App Store users' only real choice (per the earlier distribution critique) now extends to the browser layer, giving the EU's DMA process a specific target beyond app-store fees — a path Apple's later proposed DMA compliance changes only partially concedes.
Third-order effects
- If the EU's engine-choice experiment holds, mobile web development splits into two regimes — a regulated EU market where Chrome, Firefox, and other engines ship natively, and a WebKit-only everywhere else — forcing developers to treat browser parity as a regional variable rather than a platform constant.
- The deeper structural question the article forces is whether gatekeeper-controlled rendering becomes the norm: if Apple's defense (preventing a Chromium monoculture) is accepted, every platform owner gains a template for freezing out rival engines; if rejected, browser engines become a regulated utility layer like app distribution is becoming.
The trend: Mobile browser engines are moving from a de facto Apple monopoly toward regulator-mandated engine choice, with the EU's iOS changes as the first crack and the browser-builder coalition supplying the evidence base.