Apple's browser

Does Apple need a browser?

Apple has Safari, but maintains it poorly. Is Apple serious about its browser?

Come to think of it, why does Apple need a browser?

I can think of several reasons:

Ego Apple has to have a browser to satisfy its ego. It needs to have a browser to meet some internal need.

Freudian? Yes. Reasonable? No.

Apple is a smart company. It doesn't invest in products to suit its ego. It invests to improve revenue.

Keeping up with Microsoft Microsoft has a browser. Apple wants, at some level, to compete with Microsoft. Therefore, Apple needs a browser.

Doubtful. Apple doesn't have to match Microsoft one-for-one on features. They never have.

Superlative web experience Apple knows Mac OSX and iOS better then anyone. They, and only they, can build the browser that provides the proper user experience.

Possible. But only if Apple thinks that a good web experience is necessary.

Avoid dependence on others Max OSX (and iOS), despite Apple's most fervent wishes, still needs a browser. Without an Apple browser, Apple would have to rely on another browser. Perhaps Google Chrome. Perhaps Mozilla Firefox. But relying on Google is risky -- Google and Apple are not the best of friends. Relying on Mozilla is also risky, but in another sense: Mozilla may not be around much longer, thanks to the popularity of other browsers (of which Safari is one).

All of these strategies have one thing in common: the assumption that Apple considers the web important.

I'm not sure Apple thinks that. It may be that Apple thinks, in the long run, that the web is unimportant. Apple focusses on native apps, not HTML 5 apps. The dominant app design processes data on the local device and uses the cloud for storage, but nothing more. Apple doesn't provide cloud services for computing. Apple has no service that matches Windows Azure or Google's computer engine. In Apple's world, devices compute and the cloud stores.

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The more I think about it, the more I convince myself that Apple doesn't need a browser. Apple has already delayed several improvements to Safari. Maybe Apple thinks that Safari is good enough for the rest of us.

In the Apple ecosystem, they may be right.