Not that I like HLS even a tiny bit, but even if MPEG2-TS was patent encumbered (and I'm not sure it is) HLS now supports fragmented MP4 just like DASH (this was done so that content providers don't need to store two different muxings of the video for DASH and HLS).
Apple, as usual, wrote their own private format. A pretty sucky one at that. But don't get fooled, DASH is not much better, and for the few things it offers over HLS it comes with a massive implementation difficulty. There is basically no DASH compliant player around, not even the one developed by the DASH Industry Forum implements all the standard. It would be way easier for every browser vendor to support HLS than DASH.
Apple, as usual, wrote their own private format. A pretty sucky one at that. But don't get fooled, DASH is not much better, and for the few things it offers over HLS it comes with a massive implementation difficulty. There is basically no DASH compliant player around, not even the one developed by the DASH Industry Forum implements all the standard. It would be way easier for every browser vendor to support HLS than DASH.