Safari and WebKit and the Google revenue deal
Safari on iOS is not a browser of choice as much as a browser that was forced on the user. This doesn't make the impact of WebKit lower. However, let's not fool ourselves into thinking that Safari is as successful as it is on iOS because it's a "better" browser. It's the ONLY browser.
Gurman Says New UI Is Named ‘Liquid Glass’ (and Makes a Terrible Analogy Regarding Apple’s Risk With Falling Behind on AI)
If it takes Apple as long to have its own competitive LLMs as it did to have its own competitive web browser, I suspect they’ll soon be paying to use the LLMs that are owned and controlled by others, not charging the others for the privilege of reaching Apple’s platform users.
But because they own and control Safari and WebKit, and Safari and WebKit are very good (so that most of Apple’s customers use them), Apple is in a position to profit very handsomely from web search, even though it doesn’t even have a search engine to speak of.
I like Safari and I think WebKit is critical for even Chrome's success. Chromium and blink are after all forks of WebKit. That said, I don't believe for one nano second with any conviction that Safari would have had the pull it has today to be paid by Google if there were true browser competition in iOS.
Now we cannot prove a counter factual and Gruber can believe what he wants.
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