HACKER Q&A
📣 gardnr

How does Apple legally exclude browsers from its App Store?


How does Apple legally exclude browsers from its App Store when Microsoft got slapped with an anti trust suit for positioning IE above the rest?

Firefox extensions don’t work on iOS. Tor Browser can’t publish to the App Store. How is this different?

  👤 dave4420 Accepted Answer ✓
1. Microsoft was found to have an OS monopoly (Windows) that they were found to be illegally extending into a monopoly on web browsers by bundling Internet Explorer. Apple has not been found to have a monopoly.

2. Apple does not exclude competing web browsers from their App Store. They exclude alternative web renderers and javascript implementations.

Re 1, the idea that an end user OS would be anything other than deficient if it wasn’t bundled with a web browser seems quaint. And honestly it was dubious at the time.