Sure you can install other browsers. But if you want to have website links open in Firefox or whatever, that relies on every single app that links come from implementing their own capability to launch a different browser for links (most of them never will), and then you have to set the default in each app.
Having done a stint on Android, I miss being able to pick default handlers for everything.
and Apple Maps. I was very excited to get turn-by-turn directions while bicycling via Apple Watch; Apple Maps frequently sends me down freeways if it thinks I’m driving, or the wrong way on 1-way streets if it thinks I'm walking.
If the Watch platform was open enough that any Maps app could "snap in," this situation would be just fine. But as long as Apple apps are first-class citizens and everyone else has to deal with limited APIs, I'm not inclined to give Apple the benefit of the doubt on this.
This extends to hardware too, incidentally. It's literally impossible for competitors to make earbuds or styluses that can compete with the Airpods or Apple Pencil, because those use private/secret APIs. Not cool.
> And yet there are many Maps, Airpods and Apple Pencil competitors.
Yeah, and they're all garbage because Apple's offerings make use of private APIs that competitors don't have access to.
Look, I love Airpods. I love the Apple Pencil. I use Apple Maps because I don't trust Google with my location data. But all of these products dominate their respective markets because they have access to private APIs.
It is literally impossible to make a stylus that works as well as the Apple Pencil because Apple. Ditto for Maps and Airpods. This isn't me being anti-Apple, they're seriously the only FAANG company I trust at all. But they have an unfair advantage here.
All it would take would be to license the M2 chip for Airpods and open the API, to open the APIs that make Apple Pencil work and let Apple Maps push to the Watch and Airpods. They're not. That's a choice.
I mean, Apple's advertising is stating that it's an open platform with free competition, so either their idiots or lying - they can't have it both ways.
> Developers also receive free marketing opportunities through our store design, including the new Today editorial feature, personalized recommendations, search tools, top lists, and social marketing. All this helps to support the millions of successful apps on the App Store.
And then...
> A store that welcomes competition.
> We believe competition makes everything better and results in the best apps for our customers.
> We also care about quality over quantity, and trust over transactions. That’s why, even though other stores have more users and more app downloads, the App Store earns more money for developers. Our users trust Apple — and that trust is critical to how we operate a fair, competitive store for developer app distribution.
It's not a choice of rendering and javscript engines, but it's still a choice of browser sync ecosystem.
I'm loosely locked in to Safari on Mac/iOS if I want my phone's default browser to sync its bookmarks to my computer, because my phone's default browser can't be anything but Safari.
Sure you can install other browsers. But if you want to have website links open in Firefox or whatever, that relies on every single app that links come from implementing their own capability to launch a different browser for links (most of them never will), and then you have to set the default in each app.
Having done a stint on Android, I miss being able to pick default handlers for everything.