Apple Considering Dropping Requirement for iPhone Web Browsers to Use WebKit

[turbineseaplane]

..as long as Apple doesn't abandon WebKit.

Agreed.

And the world we should all be rooting for is one where users have choice and Apple is forced to work and make Safari great --- SO great, that we choose it OVER the options.

It's sort of amazing how many folks defend Apple having total control ... but don't realize that's exactly what allows them to not innovate and make things better, much much faster.

Just look at why so many choose Chrome (or Firefox, or Orion, or Vivaldi, etc) -- it most often gives them the experience they want so they choose to use it.

 

[Treq]

You don't deal with the problem you're articulating by restricting choice to only what a vendor allows.

Any diversity we do currently enjoy is mostly happenstance and comes at the cost of restricting users choices.

I understand what you're saying, but the solution is not to tell Apple customers they have "no choice other than what Apple gives them"

Soon enough though, if chromium becomes more dominant, we will no choice at all. Web designers are already designing their crappy websites to work only with chromium. I refuse to use ANY Google products and I would prefer designers make their sites work with safari as it is much better in my mind and less creepy spyware reporting everything back to Google.

 

[Detnator]

So glad to watch iOS finally potentially open up! It'll become the best of two worlds - openness of Android, and smoothness and quality of iOS. I've waited for this for years.

Why do you think iOS is smooth and quality?

People just can’t seem to grasp that the reason Apple devices function as smoothly as they do is BECAUSE they are such tightly controlled platforms.

You can’t “open it up” without removing those controls. And when you do that, it will lose its smoothness and quality.

Then instead of having the choice between an open platform (Android) and a smooth platform (Apple) we’ll only have two open platforms. Those that like smooth and not open will have had our choice taken away.

 

[BaldiMac]

Just don't any Apps that are doing things you don't like

"Just" is doing a lot of work there. I don't want to abandon apps and services that are valuable to me.

The answer is not "restrict everyones App choices to only what Apple wants"

That's literally the reason I choose to buy Apple products over their competition. I want them to make decisions about the user experience, so I don't have to.

I bought my first Mac simply because Apple said that contacts go in the address book and apps can access that database. On Windows, I kept having to copy addresses to various contact lists and none of them stayed in sync.

 

[Detnator]

Not being locked into WebKit and sideloading are just two more reasons that will make users consider the iPhone over Android. I am not concerned about either of these things as Apple will put actual thought into it and keep the iPhone as secure as possible.

But no matter how much thought and work they put into it it still won’t be as secure then as it is now.

 

[mcic1984]

I missed the part where if 3rd party browsers no longer have to use WebKit, you'll also be prevented from using Safari and will be forced to use one of the 3rd party browsers. And the 3rd party browser will be random selected and force installed on your Apple devices.

The problem is when third-party apps start bundling non-Safari in-app browser. Already difficult enough knowing that Facebook / Meta etc injects code into the in-app browser, but at least it is still fundamentally Safari. Once options for third party browsers are fully wide open, then we'll get a lot of custom browsers and custom code with additional security holes - think much more widespread Electron style apps everywhere.

 

[theinsaneworld]

3rd party App Store aka side-loading, dropping WebKit requirement. EU is really forcing Apple to be more consumer friendly.

More like - more friendly to other massive corporations. None of these things will have a huge impact on benefits to users or indie devs. The vast majority of users aren’t clamoring for this stuff. It’s mostly large developers pushing for this to line their own pockets. Apps aren’t going to all of a sudden become cheaper. Anyone that thinks they are, aren’t actually paying attention to the dynamics in the market.

 

[Detnator]

To me that’s a problem with those sites. Safari has a large enough user base that sites should be testing for compatibility. Personally I’m not going to keep multiple browsers installed just because they can’t test.

Exactly.

Yet we’re going to have to if this goes through.

When the companies start saying “Sorry we don’t support Safari now that we don’t have to” I will be forced to use other insecure battery sucking browsers that are more corporate developer friendly than they are user friendly.

I had to live through the 90’s with this problem with IE. I really don’t want to have to go back to that.

You people saying I’ll have more choice don’t seem to understand the part where all the banks and whoever else will decide it’s easier for them to support one browser and force me to have to use multiple.

These governments forcing Apple to open up are more developer friendly (so Epic, Meta, Google, etc can steal my data, etc.). They are not more consumer friendly.

 

[Detnator]

I remember the days of “this site only works with Internet Explorer” and am not keen to return to them. That could be an unfortunate side effect of this and would realistically be “not having a choice”. Imagine if Amazon only worked with Chrome because it saved them engineering resources?

I think a lot of the EU decisions sound good on paper, but the potential repercussions of these decisions aren’t fully thought out. Fingers crossed this goes well though!

Exactly (again).

 

[theinsaneworld]

This is an absolute MUST. There are a lot of pages that don't work correctly with Safari on iOS/iPadOS. Some things that don't work on Safari can sometimes be solved using other browsers, although they use the same engine. Things that don't work on the mobile version of Safari are certain pop-up menus and in many cases actions buttons (Continue, OK, etc.) are nonfunctional. Web pages of banks are sometimes a nightmare.

A lot devs are lazy and code for Chrome because of its dominance. It isn’t actually a consumer friendly tactic, when you have such a massive user base that uses Safari.

I’d also add, that Chrome/Edge is the most bloated piece of software on my work PC. The other one that is horrible is Microsoft Teams. Those two bring my otherwise well-specced computer to a crawl. Having the latest web technologies doesn’t mean a superior user experience.

 

[User 6502]

Thanks EU, for this and for side loading which is also coming soon.

 

[FeliApple]

My only issue with Safari is that I don‘t want to update iOS and I can’t update Safari as a standalone app, therefore websites start breaking.
Chrome is a battery-draining, horrible browser. I’m only forced to use it because Apple won’t let me update Safari as a standalone.

 

[theinsaneworld]

But how is this a problem? They aren’t removing Safari and you can still use it. Nothing will change for you and @WestonHarvey1

That’s not necessarily true. If the rendering engine opens up, then there’s nothing preventing devs from using Chromium and all the tracking that that can bring. Instagram/Facebook already bring up a non-standard webview and inject tracking code. This would just make it easier to do.

 

[Detnator]

You don't solve for that by locking folks into a vendor choice (like we have now with iOS/iPadOS)

Ok. Then how do you solve it?

This was a problem — same with the ubiquity of Flash, Silverlight, and other buggy, insecure, power hungry, etc. browser technologies, — until Apple put their foot down in 2008 and said nope. Use the standards (html5, etc.) if you want your site to work on an iPhone.

Now “only works on IE” isn’t an issue any more.

Lift the “restriction” that Steve introduced and I guarantee you we will soon have a lot of “only works on Chrome”. My choice to use Safari for all those sites will have been taken away in the interests of all those companies saving money on development resources. Corporate friendly. Not consumer friendly.

So. How do you solve it then?

 

[mcic1984]

A lot of the (original) iOS decisions "locked down" the platform, forcing developers to use standardised development tools which meant native apps that worked consistently across the platform. Over the decade that has been substantially weakened, so for instance, I cannot tap on text in Instagram for iOS to read it out to me; and if browsers were able to implement their own browser engines I fear this would further deteriorate quite substantially.

iOS and iPadOS is a platform in the same way that the European Union's Single Market is a platform -- by making consistent rules that all developers, or how all companies must play by the same, single set of rules across the entire marketplace.

The EU is getting this wrong, because what's happening here is that they're failing to see that their move here is not a consumer-friendly move to reduce 'barriers', but a sop to developers (or businesses) asking for laxity in regulation as a way to cut corners and cut costs in how they interact with a market - in this case - Apple's single market.

 

[Detnator]

it

it's not a problem , if it works fine for you it still will

No. It won’t.

“This site only works on Chrome” will become frustratingly common.

 

[geartau]

This sounds great. Would be nice to have a web Bowser that is not rebranded Safari.

you visit a site
site says "i see you're using Safari based browser. site was only tested against Google Chrome. please download Chrome for best results"

sounds great? nah

 

[theinsaneworld]

Let the people decide. Forcing is never the answer.

People rarely know the consequences of those decisions. It’s why senior citizens are so easily scammed by overseas call centers. The assumptions techie folks are making is that the general population understands this stuff.

 

[Detnator]

Hopefully it does! That's the best possible outcome for everyone involved. The web needs to work.

Omg please no.

 

[theinsaneworld]

It made sense in the iPhone 4 days where chromium would probably have tanked the battery and performance. The limitation doesn’t make much sense in 2022

Chrome/Edge constantly tank my battery…in 2022.

 

[webkit]

When words have no meaning.
"Dominant" means a 30% share in the EU and less than 20% globally.
"Open market" means government regulated.

"Dominant" as in one, two or few players in a market, in this case mobile OS. This potential plan could very easily also occur in the U.S. where iOS has the largest share of the mobile OS market at around 55%.

"Open market" as in one that can give consumers a greater choice of browser engines they want to use on a dominant OS.

 

[webkit]

Webkit IS competitive ... its using open source as a standard.

Man I swear nobody knows nor recalls nor even took the time to look at mobile browsing on phones or smartphones prior to 2007?!!!

1. J2ME browsers ruled the day on feature phones
Feature phones: SonyEricsson (SE), Nokia S40 phones, Java phones and anything from LG, Samsung, etc under $200 prior to 2010.
Browsers: native to Nokia or SE while others used J2ME-based browsers like Opera Mini, etc.

2. WebKit Browsers on devices:
The very FIRST implementation was created by engineers at Google and Apple (very hard now to find the source of this as the internet keeps overwriting facts). The first use in a smartphone was indeed on the Nokia S60 (Symbian OS based) smartphone model called the N80/N80 Golf Edition. The next model was featured on the Nokia E61 ... which you ALL say during Steve Jobs original iPhone presentation. Guess what?

Apple worked with Nokia to create that browser that had a feature called Mini-Map which showed a zoomed-in section within a 1/3RD box on the small 2.3" screen that made it easier to view the full web-page versus showing a full screened zoomed in web-page, which was also an option. Jobs incorrectly and falsely stated that Nokia's S60 Browser's MiniMap was the 'baby internet' ... (babyinternet = wap2.0) ... this was FALSE. Nokia's S60 browser rendered pages exactly as the iPhone's webkit browser - as each used the same Webkit engine. Just Nokia had a VERY small screen.

This has been a standard over a decade and still is.

What is NOT being questioned or looked into here is:

what customizations are the Chrome/Edge and FireFox browsers' are using native only to each that should be considered as non-standard and proprietary to lead to other restrictions against them?

I wasn't really talking about forks of WebKit as the context of my reply was over the concern that Chromium (or Blink) would become more dominant on mobile OS. As I said, Apple could try to expand WebKit’s usage by making Safari more desirable and competitive as well as offering it on other platforms like Android and Windows.

 

[Detnator]

This is a non-topic and a hollow meaningless discussion. Users get choices! And everyone will be free to choose browsers and their associated rendering agents. Nobody is taking Safari away from people who like using it.

This is just plain wrong.

This doesn’t give users more choices. It gives corporations more choices to be lazy with their development efforts.

When half the services in use stop working on Safari because the developers are no longer forced to give me that choice then my choice to use safari has been taken away.

How can you people not understand how giving more choice to developers and corporations, takes the choice away from the end users???

 

[Detnator]

What will be really interesting is how far the "rabbit hole" would go with apps and OS in general. How much people would be able to do with apps. A proper file manager maybe and access to all files? Proper dynamic on-screen widgets? Maybe be able to design apps to make Watch usable with non-apple phones? It's literally pick-and-choose with any other android/linux phone on how and what you can match together between apps and devices, because remember that the walled garden narcissistic kindergarten extends way beyond iPhone and sideloading. It's TV, Watch, arm-based computers etc.

So choose Android and leave the garden alone please.

 

[webkit]

It’s already a great browser. Adding to to windows is not going to help when chromium already had almost 80% market share.

If it's such a "great" browser, Apple promoting it more in part by exposing it to or making it available to more people (on Windows and Android) should help increase usage.