The Earth is a beautiful blue sphere, with endless oceans and continents bathed in its waters. Forests cover the land like an emerald green blanket—a treasure trove of knowledge and beauty.
The web is the digital reflection of this blue sphere. Websites, like bustling cities, are centers of information and entertainment. Links, like roads, connect the web together, allowing information to flow freely and taking us to places waiting to be explored. Web APIs and standards are like vast forests that let life breathe fresh air into our digital world.
But now, there’s a battle between Apple and the European Union that’s spilling into the forest.
At his core, Steve Jobs was a web pioneer 1 who envisioned a technological world built upon the open web. When he introduced the first iPhone in 2007, there was no App Store. He unveiled the visionary idea of web applications after the one last thing 2 slide during the iPhone’s launch.
Jobs’ vision for the web wasn’t without its challenges. He famously waged war against Flash, a technology he believed threatened the health of the web. In his open letter titled “Thoughts on Flash”, Jobs criticized Flash for being closed, insecure, and inefficient. He was fan of open web standards like HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript.
However, Steve’s initial enthusiasm—which focused on an ecosystem built on Safari while overlooking the growing need for native applications—was short-lived. Apple soon announced an SDK to develop native iOS applications. The rest is history: a clear dominance in the mobile application ecosystem.
Today, our digital forest faces new challenges. Apple’s control over its ecosystem has tightened, and paths that were once open have become gated trails. The European Union is pushing back against these barriers, advocating for a return to open standards and fair access.
Apple announced that they developed over 600 new APIs to comply with the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) and opened alternative distribution paths with the iOS 17.4 update. But something unexpected happened. Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) were forced to run outside their own frame. It soon became clear that this wasn’t a bug, and Apple pointed to the DMA—the EU—as the reason.
iOS, built on the WebKit architecture, has some isolation and restrictions due to security concerns. Apple stated that they pulled the plug on PWAs because it could create vulnerabilities, at least for EU countries. This situation reminded me of an article I wrote about nine years ago titled “Is Apple a Monopoly?” Devices like the iPad and Apple Watch, running on iOS, were prioritized partly because of the principle of manageability.
As someone who believes that being techno-optimistic can sometimes overlook vulnerabilities affecting cultures and societies in the long term, I was surprised to see a gatekeeper take a regressive step in the industry.
Thanks to lots of feedback, Apple changed their minds and decided to let PWAs work within their own frame in the next version of iOS. For now, PWAs are still a big part of the future of the web.
The web’s backbone should foster the growth of fresh ideas and tech. Steve Jobs was a big believer in this, pushing for an open and innovative web. But now, the forest he helped create is being fenced off in some places, and its paths are being changed. The Apple vs. EU battle isn’t just about a business disagreement; it’s about the very rules that govern our digital world.
Finding a balance between security and openness, control and freedom, is the key. By going back to the roots laid by pioneers like Jobs, we can make sure the forest stays a place where everyone can live together and grow, where innovation isn’t stopped by walls but encouraged by the endless possibilities of the open web.
1. Make Something Wonderful was published in April 2023, the book collects Steve Jobs’ thoughts, philosophies, and early vision of the modern web.
2. Steve Jobs introducing PWA in 2007.
3. MOW is a global organization that deeply cares about the future of the World Wide Web, of which I am also a part.