One of the most common stats cited on HN to demonstrate that Apple has a supposed monopoly is StatCounter. StatCounter uses web browsing to measure the prevalence of given clients, in which we find that iPhone users make up more than 50% of US mobile devices.
Only in actual sales data, iPhone devices are far below 50%. It just turns out that users on iPhones browse a lot more than users on other platforms. In just about every country the representation on statcounter significantly exceeds the actual sales metrics of the device.
No, Apple doesn't "force" people into app store apps, and by actual empirical data, facilitates browsing the web even more than alternatives.
As to Safari being the "worst web browser in existence", after chuckling at what I assumed was some sort of parody, I realized some people actually believe this noise. Usually because someone, at some point, stomped their feet and had a fit because Apple didn't immediately support whatever their pet proposal was, and this got spun into a fantastic conspiracy about invented motives.
Yet in the actual real world, Safari is the most performant browser by a country mile. It's the most privacy focused. It supports everything and its brother. For all the pissing and moaning about edge conditions of standalone web applications, Safari was far and away the earliest mobile browser to actually support them! Long before Chrome on Android did.
> Safari is the most performant browser by a country mile
We all get carried away, given to hyperbole. Its neither the worst nor best. It's average.
As a web developer, I have a special hatred for it. As a person I understand its a browser for rich folk. Its faster than chrome but dusted by edge and firefox. It feels like an afterthought like IE and yet it might not be.
Only in actual sales data, iPhone devices are far below 50%. It just turns out that users on iPhones browse a lot more than users on other platforms. In just about every country the representation on statcounter significantly exceeds the actual sales metrics of the device.
No, Apple doesn't "force" people into app store apps, and by actual empirical data, facilitates browsing the web even more than alternatives.
As to Safari being the "worst web browser in existence", after chuckling at what I assumed was some sort of parody, I realized some people actually believe this noise. Usually because someone, at some point, stomped their feet and had a fit because Apple didn't immediately support whatever their pet proposal was, and this got spun into a fantastic conspiracy about invented motives.
Yet in the actual real world, Safari is the most performant browser by a country mile. It's the most privacy focused. It supports everything and its brother. For all the pissing and moaning about edge conditions of standalone web applications, Safari was far and away the earliest mobile browser to actually support them! Long before Chrome on Android did.