I just read a very interesting article on OS News about the potential for Safari to be the next IE6. The author is exploring a future where Apple deliberately holds back on giving Safari certain features, especially on mobile phones and tablets. Give it a read:
http://www.osnews.com/story/23378/Will_Apple_Embrace_the_Web_No_
The argument is essentially that the web, being a platform that by its nature encourages platform independence, is a problem for Apple (and for Microsoft too). Apple’s business model revolves around selling hardware and content, and it does this by making iTunes an exclusive hub. All applications, music, videos and books that you want as a user has to come through it. If the browser was allowed to become so fast and so integrated with the native operating system that you could do everything with a great user experience that native apps can do, then suddenly Apple’s content kingdom falls apart. It’s not difficult to see the truth in this argument, and the implications it has.
I think we’re fortunate to have so much competition in the mobile space at the moment such that Apple can’t easily have an iPhone / iTunes monopoly – if that happened then yeah, Safari probably would be the next IE6 and we’d all be held hostage to the iTunes ecosystem.
The great thing about Google is that its business model ensures that it will continue to push the web as a platform. With the Chrome browser, Google is pushing javascript to its speed limits (http://asserttrue.blogspot.com/2010/05/chrome-5-aces-browser-benchmarks.html), so much so that it makes IE8 look like an elephant with concrete feet, and thanks to Firefox, Google and Apple, HTML5 and CSS3 are improving the presentation layer radically.
It’s now the “hooks” into the underlying native OS that future web browsers need (like access to the cameras, motion tracking, 3D graphics acceleration libraries, contacts/phone/sms, etc) to enable the next generation of web applications. Frameworks like PhoneGap are solving this to some extent and we will no doubt see Google give us the kitchen sink with Chrome and Android. But will we see Microsoft and Apple step up to the plate on the iPhone or Windows Phone 7? I tend to doubt it.