If the web didn't require so many scripts to run pages, the minor speed differences would not matter.
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Apple's WebKit Rules Reportedly Cost iOS Users Almost 30% Browser Performance
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zarmanto
macrumors 65816
Personally, I wholeheartedly concur with Apple's decision on this point. Consider:
Suppose a very popular browser vendor were to abruptly decide to swap out Webkit in favor of the theoretical "maximal-ad-injection-and-invasive-tracking-and-covert-bitcoin-mining-engine-dujour!" but they only put a very small and vague indicator in their app update log about the change when pushing it out to their existing userbase. Suddenly, tens of thousands* of new bitcoin miners (et al) just came online overnight, and it all happened in the background automatically, thanks to Apple's default auto-update features.
There would of course be an immense uproar among technically savvy users, who would jump into forums like this one to air their grievance, and likely many of those users would stop using that browser... but the people who don't read MacRumors and the like? That change could completely fly under the radar for a large number of those users.
Apple obviously doesn't want that; they want the users who download these alternate browsers with potentially significant differences in behavior to know full well what they're getting into when they click the download button, and -- perhaps more importantly -- to still have a fallback position in the form of the original Webkit version of that browser, in case the new engine turns to be a bad move for some reason. It's a wise move on Apple's part.
* I won't say "millions of users" because... it is, after all, just the EU users.
improbability
macrumors newbie
Seconding this. Just because I can setup Cisco networks or even spin up my own router and firewall on a linux box, doesn't mean I want to spend my expertise or time futzing with my phone or desktop, or hell, even my home network hardware.
My home network is pretty silly, but at the core I use Unifi gear because I don't want to waste time on that part of it. I use iOS over android for the consistency. I use mac/windows/linux desktop OS's and spend most of it on macOS save for gaming.
the iPod/iPhone got the marketshare they got because people who are tech-phobic (in my experience, thats people born before 1975 then gently decreasing as we get to 1990) had the money and it "just worked". Time is money, and unless I am doing something to get new skills or for my own edification, spending my limited time on the planet futzing with my phone is less and less of a priority.
Man that is one hell of a mental gymnastics to spin it in Apple's favor. Webkit is trash and it doesn't promote competition it lets their trash ass safari remain on par with every other browser on IOS so they don't actually have to compete and make safari better.
p96
macrumors member
Thank you for explaining it better than I did. I'm glad to see that at least some MacRumors readers understand security.
p96
macrumors member
Similar for me. My full time job is working with virtualization, servers, clusters, Fibre Channel storage, and networking. The last thing I need is a phone or laptop issue getting in the way when I need to be addressing a work issue.
"Most of the population don't even know what javascript is."... but there are still too many who do, and they write server-side code in it instead of a type-safe compiled language.
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Hajj.david
macrumors 6502a
The speed is not relevant to the specific point I made which is Webkit is the ONLY competition on the market. Everything else is Google. Look up the browser stats yourself if you think I am "throwing out some random percentage"
That’s one hell of mental gymnastics you just applied to your argument. If you want a single browser engine in Blink with a bunch of wrappers around it, just say you support monopolies. Don’t go pretending you support competition while contributing to its demise.
Without any disrespect, "mental gymnastics" were exactly the words on my mind regarding your argument and it was funny to see another user (@Premium1) writing exactly that.
You are defending that you don't want A to happen, otherwise B will happen.
A = there is competition on the browser market for iPhone
B = browser competition will be over
But you are not acknowledging that A really means what I wrote above (free competition of browsers in the iPhone market) probably because it would make it more obvious to see the contradiction in your argument (prohibiting competition promotes more competition).
Also, it's not correct to conclude that if there was browser competition on the iPhone, then everyone would be using Chromium AND web developers would only make websites for that engine AND overall browser competition would be over.
This sounds like fear mongering, speculation and oversimplification. You just don't know.
I agree with you that it's also not good to live in a world where everyone is making websites working for a specific browser engine.
But prohibiting competition on the iPhone browser market is not the right thing to do, in hope to prevent that hypothetical scenario.
Also, despite what I'm defending, Safari is my most used browser.
I believe that Safari users would benefit from more browsers in the iPhone, because Apple would have more incentives to make Safari better.
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Without any disrespect - go download any browser you want. They exist on iPhone. 99.9% of users will never know what’s powering it. But if you would rather take a stand on “the engine! The engine!” Be my guest… you’re wildly wrong to do so and you’ll walk into that “no competition” you seem to fear, a self-fulfilling prophecy. And that engine that will be all that’s left standing? Notorious for a lack of privacy.
As far as that all goes, all these developers could release anything they want in Europe. And after 2 years there’s a grand total of zero other engines. And the largest market for safari? It’s Europe.
Mainly because of Apple's malicious "compliance" as I described here.
There’s no malicious compliance. There’s boogeymen under the bed and you’re looking to try and explain to people are there, but they aren’t. I mean… it’s right there. They can achieve a 30% boost by using a different engine. But they won’t.
I shared a link to my comment explaining the reasons why browser vendors are not releasing their browsers with their engines, and instead of replying objectively, you write about boogeyman under the bed and then just repeat that browser vendors could use different engines.
Not point continuing the conversation like this, since you're ignoring what's convenient to you.
Not point continuing the conversation like this, since you're ignoring what's convenient to you.
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huge_apple_fangirl
macrumors 6502a
The issue is that what web devs want by incentivizing Apple to make Safari "better" via competition, is just to support all the "standards" that Google/Chromium made up. The standards that aim to replace native apps with web browsers and deprioritize features like low power use and memory sparing. And even if allowing Chromium on iOS did force to Safari/WebKit to become better in some absolute sense, this doesn't address the issue of Electron. If Chromium is allowed in the App Store then Electron and other Chromium-based "write once, deploy everywhere" technologies are finally allowed to come to iOS. If Chromium is allowed on iOS, our choice of outcomes is either a Google browser monopoly and Electron garbage replacing our apps, or in the "good" scenario, Safari staying dominant by adopting all of Chrome's "features" while Electron garbage (or some WebKit-based Electron alternative that is still trash) replaces our apps. The only winning move is not to play, as Apple has chosen.
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So please enlighten me your high and mightyness of how webkit promotes competition when you are stuck using the same terrible underlying core for the browser? Apple could still stick with their webkit, but not allowing other browsers to use their own does more to inhibit competition than it does to provide more competition. And no I do not want it to just be Google running the show, but go off.
surferfb
macrumors 68030
It’s not malicious compliance. The ban on alternate browser engines is not some sort of Apple plan to hinder competition by forcing everyone to use WebKit.
The fact of the matter is 99.999% of users do not care about browser engines. Practically speaking, literally no one cares what engine their browser uses. I honestly would be shocked if more than 1% of users even know what a browser engine is or that they even exist, let alone have a preference for which one their browser uses.
Given the fact that no one cares, the fact that Apple thinks WebKit is the best solution, and the fact allowing third party browser engines does meaningfully increase security risks by adding additional attack vectors that get used all the time, from Apple’s point of view, there is literally no rational reason to support alternate browser engines. It significantly increases security risk for something customers don’t care about and Apple doesn’t think they need.
Just because browser companies who want to track users get it into some idiot regulators’ heads that big bad Apple is restricting third-party browser engines for nefarious “thwarting competition” purposes does not make it so. Apple had perfectly valid (and I’d argue, correct) arguments why they shouldn’t be forced to do so.
If these regulators (who we should remember, literally admitted in a press statement that “nobody told them” forcing Microsoft to give kernel access to third parties might not be safe - so probably aren’t who should be the ones making these sorts of decisions) are going to force Apple to offer third party browser engines anyway, Apple absolutely should do everything it can to minimize the risk to users said idiot regulators are exposing users too.
Everything Apple has done is inherently reasonable given the demands of regulators.
Above anything else, it uses Chromium: anything and anyone who uses Chromium is harming the open web, and there is no possible good browser feature that can outweigh that: it would have done less harm to the world if MS had just said "that's it, no support for any standards changes in any MS browser after IE8" instead of helping to entrench Google's control of the web.
Really want a Linux phone so can be done with all these shenanigans about what I’m allowed to do with the device I own.
They did offer it on Windows. Very little used it in the end before they shut it down because Chrome took over.
chucker23n1
macrumors G3
Mostly because there's no business model in that.
Do you want them to offer it for $29?
No other operating system wants to run Webkit because it's the most frequently hacked environment around. That's why Apple puts out a million security updates every OS release.
I always find it interesting when forum people forget that there is nothing wrong with being critical. 😂
I use Edge on Linux, MacOS and iOS. It’s tab workspaces is the GOAT. I’ve tried every other browser and nothing else comes close in functionality or is anywhere near as stable when running multiple workspaces with dozens of tabs each, and be able to sync them across desktop devices. I have tried the same workload in others and they just can’t do it.
💯
I've been a lifelong Windows user, but It wasn't until I started using Linux these past couple years that I realized the true value of what Apple offers in their approach. By controlling the whole stack (as best they can), they can deliver a secure and predicable experience. Precisely why I switched to Mac a few months ago.