I certainly think they would have been safer. Bear in mind though, at the time, Windows had 97% of the desktop market [0]. This wasn't a corporation with ~50% of the market (like Android in the US) trying to muscle in, this was a company with their hooks so deep in personal computers that any product they pushed became a de-facto standard that everyone was expected to at least have access to, if not use.
Hell, the most dominant companies on the planet today, including the literal trillion dollar ones, do not have that kind of market penetration. Google search, the closest I can think of, is still <92% [1]. And it's not that I think holding 92% of a market is good. Nor do I think Apple should get away with only allowing re-skins instead of real browser engines. But percentages are room to quibble, and re-skins can be spun as integration or security.
Whenever Apple's gilded cage comes up, there's backlash, whataboutism, and apologists - so as we start to force interop, openness, and more pro-consumer behavior, I stick to the unimpeachable arguments. Even if it's just till we break the inertia and get the ball rolling. I think you're right, and you make an excellent point. But first I want to convince even the Apple die-hards that this level of control is fucked up, because then we can all agree that something has to change.
