Tim Berners-Lee on Apple’s WebKit monopoly
I recently listened to a podcast called Decoder with Nilay Patel, in which Tim Berners-Lee was interviewed. Nilay asked Sir Uncle Timbo about browser competition on iOS. I’m happy to report that the inventor of the Web agrees with me that Apple inexplicably doesn’t want the Web to compete with its single-platform rent-extraction App Store.
Unfortunately, you can only access a transcript if you’re a subscriber (yes, really!), but the audio is downloadable and I own MacWhisper, so here’s the salient part:
Nilay: But up until now, Apple has not allowed anything but WebKit on the iPhone. Even Chrome on the iPhone has a skin over the top of the core browser engine WebKit. Do you think that Apple being made to allow Chromium to run on the iPhone, for example, will actually lead to new browser innovation?
Tim: I can’t tell, but to have competition to allow Chromium to run on iPhone sounds like a good move… When you have a competition between different sections of the layer, it tends to improve innovation. You get more bright ideas out there … I’ve heard rumours that [the], but I can’t substantiate them, Apple is deliberately slowing down WebKit on the phone in order to not compete with Apple native apps.
and slightly later:
Nilay: Progressive web apps on Android have not taken the world by storm. Do you think a more powerful browser on the iPhone would ever change that dynamic, or do you think people just want apps on phones?
Tim: I think more powerful browser on the iPhone will change that dynamic.
So that’s sorted. You’ve heard it from me, you’ve heard it from Big Al, you’ve heard it from OWA, you’ve heard it from the Japanese, UK and EU competition authorities, and now you’ve heard it from Sir Uncle Timbo himself. Your move, Evil Tim.
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I watched your video with Léonie Watson, It taught me lot of things necessary as a developer working on accessiblity and AI