>It's not even clear that having a full featured Chrome would hurt Apple in anyway
Perhaps this is how Apple sees it:
The browser might create a SDK that makes web apps work more like native apps thus resulting in reducing Apple's control over apps. Also, look at things like NaCl and how plugins like Flash might be enabled by browsers with rendering engines.
I think this is exactly how Apple sees it. Look at the specific language from the SDK agreement:
"Interpreted code may only be used in an Application if all scripts, code and interpreters are packaged in the Application and not downloaded. The only exception to the foregoing is scripts and code downloaded and run by Apple’s built-in WebKit framework."
This doesn't forbid third-party interpreters; what it really does is control distribution of code. All code that is run on an iOS device must be downloaded either through the App Store or through Apple's WebKit.
This means there are no distribution channels on iOS that use their own non-Apple mechanisms to obtain and run software -- no Flash Player, no Chrome Web Store with NaCL, not even MIT's Scratch programming environment for kids (whose runtime was banned from the App Store in 2010 [1]). Web apps on iOS are less controlled than native apps, but Apple still gets to decide which capabilities to expose to them. This is one of the major things that gives Apple such tight control over the user experience, security, and evolution of the platform.
> The browser might create a SDK that makes web apps work more like native apps thus resulting in reducing Apple's control over apps.
This claim come up occasionally. It always seems silly because web apps were the ONLY apps in the original iOS. Native apps came later and only with pressure from the development community.
> It always seems silly because web apps were the ONLY apps in the original iOS. Native apps came later and only with pressure from the development community.
I think that is a silly claim, web apps were pretty useless at the time, there were almost no html5 features at the time so web apps were no threats at all while Apple was adding support for apps.
> there were almost no html5 features at the time so web apps were no threats at all while Apple was adding support for apps.
The issue with this theory is that Apple did not want to add support for native applications, only developer pressure made them (Steve Jobs, mostly) relent, and order the cleanup and release of a native SDK.
>It always seems silly because web apps were the ONLY apps in the original iOS
I don't know why it seems silly to reckon that Apple's priorities on web apps has changed now that they have their own app store and control over it. You mean Apple's opinion on web apps has to be unchanged from the original iPhone?
Also, even after Jobs' Flash post more than two years blasting Flash and promising HTML5 improvements to replace it, we still haven't seen much improvement in HTML5 in iOS, with things like audio still suffering. If there were no App store, Apple would've easily devoted more resources to this.
Even simpler than that, in iOS 5, Apple broke local storage (by putting it in a cache folder than gets emptied every so often), making offline HTML5 apps unworkable.
A cynical mind might think they did that specifically to keep HTML5 from getting any closer to replacing the app store.
Fragmentation lowers the quality of the product. Apple has consistently made a design choice with the iPhone to shoot for quality rather than freedom, and evidently a lot of people like that tradeoff.
Maybe it doesn't have to be a tradeoff. But until all major carriers are selling an unlocked, rooted Android phone with guaranteed long-term OS updates with build quality and software stability as good as the iPhone, I'm going to continue to defend the idea that Apple's design choices are a perfectly valid set of tradeoffs to bring to market.
Some people (myself included) love Apple products because Apple's abstractions don't leak (much). If my grandmother has to be aware of the fact that she's using a "browser" with a "rendering engine," much less understand which one or which version, Apple has no UX advantage.
Perhaps this is how Apple sees it:
The browser might create a SDK that makes web apps work more like native apps thus resulting in reducing Apple's control over apps. Also, look at things like NaCl and how plugins like Flash might be enabled by browsers with rendering engines.