This was a choice by Steve Jobs for how it is now. This was also the time they were trying to push HTML5 as the future as removing dependency on specialty software. If mostly everything was only needing a website, then it didn’t matter what OS you were using. This would help allow iOS and OSX (at the time) be fully compatible against Blackberry and Windows Vista. But then Android got popular and Windows 7 was a major improvement, Linux was growing as well (netbooks, before MS tried to push into that market). Suddenly their push of any device would be on equal footing was not in their favor, so Apple pushed HARD on “There’s an app for that” to start the hard lock in of iOS leading to where things are today.
This was a choice by Steve Jobs for how it is now. This was also the time they were trying to push HTML5 as the future as removing dependency on specialty software. If mostly everything was only needing a website, then it didn’t matter what OS you were using. This would help allow iOS and OSX (at the time) be fully compatible against Blackberry and Windows Vista. But then Android got popular and Windows 7 was a major improvement, Linux was growing as well (netbooks, before MS tried to push into that market). Suddenly their push of any device would be on equal footing was not in their favor, so Apple pushed HARD on “There’s an app for that” to start the hard lock in of iOS leading to where things are today.