I don't follow your logic. If a Gecko-based browser could be installed on iOS, there would be more Gecko users, which would mean developers would be slightly more likely to check rendering in Gecko. By what logic would more developers test against Gecko in the status quo. The only losers would be Safari and a good chunk of Apple's "services revenue" for selling the default search engine setting.
I think the argument is that users will install Chrome instead of Mozilla, further pushing up Chrome's market share. Even as Mozilla's share increases slightly, the loss in Safari's will lead to a super-super-majority of Chrome and thus developers not caring about any alternative browsers at all.
It's a good point, but I think some nuance is missing: yes, it's true that if the government was to suddenly direct all of their antitrust ire towards Apple, without providing a similar amount of scrutiny towards the other tech giants, it would serve to give the non-Apple tech giants more power.
They are all behaving anti-competitively in different ways, and they should all be looked at!
I honestly have no idea how to fix the browser market. It’s pretty clear that Apple locking users into Safari is the only reason why Chrome isn’t the only browser that matters…but this is kind of a “sucks both ways” deal.
Well, if we for instance forced Google to spin Chrome into a separate company, I think that would go a long way.
Now Google has much less influence over web standards. Instead of shaping the web to fit the needs of its own products, Google would need to work with whatever the browsers decide to allow.
Independent Chrome, for its part, wouldn't be able to advertise itself all over Google properties for free, and would need to find ways to fund itself. They could strike their own search deals, or maybe even start charging users. Either way, they'd be on a much more level playing field with e.g. Mozilla.
But they wouldn't care about Gecko-based browsers any less than they do now. They would simply not care about Webkit-based browsers. If anything, the developers who can now use a Gecko-based mobile browser who couldn't before would now care to test it. Meanwhile, Mozilla's job will be easier, only having to target mobile compatibility with one rendering engine.
When a browser has under X% market share, you can make a credible argument about why you can ignore it. That is happening right now. If developers could use it on their devices, they would be less likely to ignore it.
It's just a very strange argument for justifying Apple abusing its users for search engine revenue.
It's an explanation why Mozilla won't fight Apple harder.
Web developers don't just use 1 or 2 mobile devices they own. They develop with desktops where they could use Firefox. They test with desktops or emulated Android devices where they could use Firefox. They find ways to test Safari even if they don't have anything that can run it. They used to find ways to test IE even if they didn't use Windows.
They aren't going to go out of their way to emulate mobile Firefox on desktop Firefox, but if they use mobile Firefox as I do and notice bugs on their pages, they will fix them.
