Further, I don't think they are interested in controlling it because it's really really hard. Their web strategy has been to push open standards. They can't reasonably curate it or control it in any meaningful way. So they probably want to level the playing field and then deliver the best possible experience they can.
So your biggest argument that Apple is pro-web is that instead of choosing a proprietary plugin they chose a proprietary codec? That's not a very big improvement at all, at least not in terms of "openness", though it is an improvement in performance.
Still if they really wanted to support an open web, they'd support WebM.
A codec which no single party controls and is free for anyone to include in their video decoders.
> not in terms of "openness"
I'm not claiming Apple is "open" and nor is Apple. The one who is claiming to be open is Google, or Brin to be more specific.
> they'd support WebM.
At the time of writing, WebM is still not an option for mobile devices as it lacks support for hardware acceleration. Playing a WebM video on a mobile device would drain the battery at an unacceptable rate.
The only party claiming to be "open" is Google. And to the untrained eye Google looks very "open" with all its open-source projects. While both Facebook and Apple have their own open-source projects.
But these open-source projects don't necessarily make a company any more open than its competitors as long as their main asset stays closed:
- Google's main asset is search, closed
- Apple's main asset is the iOS platform, closed
- Facebook's main asset are the user profiles, closed
And now Brin is blaming Facebook for not opening-up the user profiles.
1. Most of those native clients use public Web-APIs
2. The iOS platform was one of the kick-starters to get rid of the closed Flash environment
3. And one of the kick-starters for better video standards, h264
Maybe Brin mentioned Apple to generate more headlines.