This was more of an issue early in the App Store’s history than later on. Apple’s relaxed on that a lot a long time ago and you can use any number of contacts, calendars, email clients, browsers, camera apps, messengers, maps apps and so on.
But it still exists in their rules. That they don’t enforce it as often as they used to is cold comfort: they still can whenever they feel the need to do so. So if you get too successful they can still very easily chop you down.
Yeah but browser ≠ rendering engine. I know they get conflated a lot in tech, but when I’m using e.g. Arc on my Macintosh, I’m not using Chrome despite using the same rendering engine.
The extension ecosystem of browsers is pretty important though, and that is tied to the rendering engine.
On Android, I can install firefox-for-android and run ublock origin to no longer see ads on websites.
On iOS, that's not possible. Apple prevents mozilla from shipping a browser capable of running firefox addons.
This is a case where Apple's policies are hampering security since, well, blocking ads on the web is the thing has had the single largest positive impact on security for my elderly relatives. Giving them ublock origin stopped them from clicking on a ridiculous number of scammy ads and popups.
Most browsers don’t have a rendering engine unique to them. Apple made that a policy for iPhones and its derivatives, but a browser is more than its rendering engine.
So do I, but that doesn’t negate my original point: for almost every category of App that comes on a stock iPhone, you can replace it with a 3rd party alternative.
The exceptions are: SMS, Settings, and the Phone app for the numbers tied to your SIMs (there’s still a billion VoIP options including extra lines from carriers like T-Mobile’s Digits) and probably a couple others I’m forgetting. I think the Clock app has a couple of privileges not available to 3rd parties actually.
You can use a 3rd party browser, but that browser will use the version of WebKit that comes with the operating system (except soon, in the EU, whenever 3rd party browsers with their own rendering engines ship there).
