Apple profits means iPhone users still get no real browser choice

A web advocacy group says that iPhone users still get no real web browser choice more than a year after this was supposed to happen under antitrust legislation.

The non-profit Open Web Advocacy (OWA) claims Apple deliberately places obstacles in the path of developers, and that’s because doing so protects a large slice of its profits …

In theory, Apple allows choice

Since the first iPhone, Apple retained exclusive control over web browsing on the device. Even when third-party browsers were allowed onto the iPhone, they had to use Apple’s own browsing engine, WebKit.

The implication is that no competing browser could offer faster performance than Safari, nor offer features not available in Safari. Effectively they could only put their own branded wrapper around the same app.

The EU declared this unlawful, and said that Apple must allow free competition by third-party browser companies, allowing them to use their own engines. The iPhone maker complied in principle, and both Google and Mozilla started working on creating versions of their web browsers that used their own engines instead of WebKit. These browsers would only be allowed on iPhones in the EU.

But it’s malicious compliance, argues OWA

However, some 15 months later, OWA says there are literally no iPhone web browsers available using a different browser engine, and that’s due to malicious compliance by Apple. That is, the company deliberately places technical, legal, marketing, and practical barriers in the way of developers wanting to do it.

Apple’s rules and technical restrictions are blocking other browser vendors from successfully offering their own engines to users in the EU. At the recent Digital Markets Act (DMA) workshop, Apple claimed it didn’t know why no browser vendor has ported their engine to iOS over the past 15 months. But the reality is Apple knows exactly what the barriers are, and has chosen not to remove them.

Specifically, the OWA called out four types of barrier:

• Technical: Apple gave no way for developers to test apps using third-party browser engines
• Legal: Apple imposes “harsh” and “one-sided” legal terms on developers
• Marketing: Apple doesn’t let existing third-party browser users update to a new app, but forces the download of a completely new one
• Practical: Apple blocks updates of apps if EU users travel outside the bloc for more than 30 days

Since then, it says, Apple has addressed the technical issue, but not the others.

Apple is motivated by profit

It says the reason Apple does all this is to protect the profits it currently makes from Safari.

Safari is the highest margin product Apple has ever made, accounts for 14-16% of Apple’s annual operating profit and brings in $20 billion per year in search engine revenue from Google. For each 1% browser market share that Apple loses for Safari, Apple is set to lose $200 million in revenue per year.

While that deal looks unlikely to survive a separate legal ruling, it remains in place for now.

Apple denies any wrong-doing, saying it has complied with the law and doesn’t know why nobody has created an iPhone browser with a third-party engine.

We recognize under the DMA that we’ve been forced to change. And we have created a program that keeps security and privacy in mind, that keeps the integrity of the operating system in mind, and allows third parties to bring their browser engine, Google, Mozilla, to the platform. And for whatever reason, they have chosen not to do so.

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Photo by Jakub Żerdzicki on Unsplash