> It could monitor users' activities through the day in ways other apps can't.
Nice, so even if users wanted to benefit from competition between Apple's and others' services, they can't because Apple blesses their software on iOS in ways that others' aren't.
That’s definitely true but I don’t think it’s that simple. I love some of the apps that are iOS native and how their preferential treatment makes everything work with security I trust.
BUT, I still prefer Google Maps, non-Safari browsers, Spotify over Apple Music, Feedly/my browser over Apple News.
I agree that it’s problematic that apps made by the OS developer receive preferential treatment, but I haven’t personally found that to mean that the experience is better than third party apps.
If you bless some app with private permissions that allow it to do what Apple's competing app can do wrt whole-OS tracking, you now need a contract, some level of source code access, and a lot of time dedicated to reviewing what goes into that software to ensure the company isn't beaming it (even accidentally) to a third-party like FB via the FB SDK, and then Apple needs to make the decision "do we allow them to store this in their servers, or do we force them to do it on-device?".
In every situation, it makes more sense to segment and triage private APIs for a promotion to a public API with user-friendly permission prompts and controls to protect the user's data.
Nice, so even if users wanted to benefit from competition between Apple's and others' services, they can't because Apple blesses their software on iOS in ways that others' aren't.