Linked by David Adams on Wed 29th Oct 2008 20:55 UTC, submitted by Geir Johasen
An interesting NYT Bits blog entry covers Opera's mobile browser. Buried in the middle of the article is this quote: "Opera's engineers have developed a version of Opera Mini that can run on an Apple iPhone, but Apple won't let the company release it because it competes with Apple's own Safari browser." It also talks about Opera on the Wii and browsers in cars. A good read. My Take: But back to the iPhone. As tempted as I am to just shrug it off, since Apple is free to run its App Store any way it pleases, as an enthusiastic iPhone user, I think Apple is shooting itself in the foot here, as it is with all the "competitive" apps being rejected. Apple does stand to lose some Google revenue by letting people use other browsers, but they have much more to gain by unleashing the creativity of the developer community and giving them the freedom to improve or replace core iPhone functionality. Hopefully competition from Android forces them to wake up.
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Member since:
2007-03-22
As much as I hate seeing apps refused on pretext of competing with Apple's apps (e.g. mail, music, etc.) and also as much as I hate Safari crashes (getting a bit better) and confusing reloading/not reloading decisions, I see one argument for banning other web browsers:
As a web developer, I know I can develop a website tailored to the iPhone by following one set of rules, which are nicely documented on Apple's website. If Apple permitted other browsers, I would have to test and develop for them as well (unless they can reach 100% compatibility), and also test on all of them.
Web browsing is so important for the success of the iPhone that Apple cannot risk fragmenting the iPhone-tailored www.
But for everything else, please let all applications loose! I want a GPS nav program, I want a network sharing app, I want a better email app, etc.