Safari and anything using the Safari View Controller. Which is, admittedly, a bit limited to use for a full custom browser.

The faster JS engine was also limited to Safari for a few iOS versions before it was extended to third-party applications, so perhaps they're taking the same approach here.

It's worth noting that they could also integrate their own ad blocking into their custom browser, which other third-party iOS browsers have been doing for years.

Didn't know it also applied in the safari view controller. +1 Informative.

Yes. It just seems misleading to say "by Firefox" for the majority of users, who don't know that.

It feels excessive to call this misleading. The web browser team within Mozilla must be pretty well placed to be significant in creating an app for mobile web browser experiences.

Maybe that's hopefulness that Apple reverses its decision.

"Why doesn't Focus by Firefox work on Firefox?" is an amusing and fair question for Apple.

That's true, I was wondering myself why it wasn't "by Mozilla."

What? When is someone going to sue Apple? Why would anyone even create a browser on iOS with all the restrictions?

IANAL, but I'm not sure anyone would have a legal leg to stand on.

Microsoft's legal troubles about bundling IE were possible because MS was ruled to have a monopoly position in desktop PCs.

Apple has around 14% of the smartphone market, by no means a monopoly. Their share gets even smaller when you look at the total cellphone market.

To the best of my knowledge, there isn't anything illegal about using product A to promote product B, or having a restricted platform.

You need some other trigger, such as having a dominant market position, or collusion between vendors, etc..

> When is someone going to sue Apple?

For what? Not writing an API so that their software that runs on 15% of phones works the way you want it to? Good luck.

> Why would anyone even create a browser on iOS with all the restrictions?

The same reason anyone creates a browser for any platform. Because people use it.

> The same reason anyone creates a browser for any platform. Because people use it.

I wouldn't use a browser that was crippled like most people... Actually, I'd move to a different platform.

That's fine, do what works for you. Many don't care though, and browser vendors are happy to cater to them as well.

There are no legal breaches here. Apple's platform, Apple's rules.

I have no idea. I don't create browsers for that and many other reasons. Any browser on iOS is still using Safari webkit underneath anyway so there isn't much point.

> There are no legal breaches here. Apple's platform, Apple's rules.

That hasn't been the case for Google...

> I have no idea. I don't create browsers for that and many other reasons. Any browser on iOS is still using Safari webkit underneath anyway so there isn't much point.

That is another ridiculous restriction...

Apple isn't stopping you from making a web browser. The "restriction" is that the development tools are still going to use the same underlying web engine. You can make all the browsers you want, but you couldn't, for example, create a web browser using Mozilla's engine. It would still report itself as webkit/Safari.

> That hasn't been the case for Google...

On what platform? Google in web search is a monopoly, Google or Apple in Smartphones are not. That matters for most of these things.