Google Working on Browser for iOS That Would Break Apple's App Store Rules

[strongy]

No you don't have to use the default search engine but if you use web results from Spotlight or Siri they come from Google and that can't be changed.

EDIT: Apple accepts a fee from Google for default search status and siri and spotlight search provider to dress this up as anything other than Apple selling their users to Google is laughable.

Siri Data and your requests are not used to build a marketing profile, and are never sold to anyone.

Apple also reminds users that as much as possible is done on the device, Siri uses as little data as possible to deliver an accurate result, and contents of Siri queries are not returned to Apple.

Source: https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/ask-siri-dictation/

 

[Curry119]

Not me, Safari fails for me on a number of sites including banking and investing sites. It fails in development when I have to access a http site instead of https. I would say that Safari fails for me about 25% of the time and I am forced to another browser. Safari has silly limits to redirects and other network stuff that may be fine in Apple's pristine labs, but fails in the real world. Safari could be so much better.

No major website is still using HTTP for serving up pages, the early 2000s are behind us. I work in IT and sometimes old servers/network gear I need to access have this issue, but that's far from a common problem for the average Safari user. I'm surprised to hear banking is a problem for you. I use a handful of banking websites such as Chase, Amex, Fidelity, etc and none of them see any issues in Safari.

 

[ian87w]

You're confusing Chrome (the browser app) and Chromium (the engine that runs the browser). Different browser apps written around the same engine can have different features. Personally, I dislike having 4 different browsers on my system as "backup browsers" when Chrome doesn't work but Firefox does, for example. Having all websites tested under one engine sounds like a win-win for me.

I just don’t want to see the internet being mostly only “chromium” compatible. That’s not good for actual web standards, and it harkens back the dark days where the internet was mostly IE6 only, compatibility wise.

 

[jwolf6589]

I just don’t want to see the internet being mostly only “chromium” compatible. That’s not good for actual web standards, and it harkens back the dark days where the internet was mostly IE6 only, compatibility wise.

Yes I remember those days. Applied for jobs and could not because I had a Mac.

 

[boyarka]

Good. Good that the kindergarten that is iOS, good that is the monopoly called AppStore, good that is the jail of "approved code" that saw previously competing apps (read: those that are "redundant" because IQ over 9000 Apple will decide what you need - or not) are now along with anti-monopoly legislation tearing down this ... biggest in the world barbed wire fence-enclosed walled garden. Good for consumers - good for software developers - good for customer choice.
And just to highlight this specific issue: ever since way back when "different browsers" were re-skinned Safari.

You wouldn't copy a car. You wouldn't steal a movie. You wouldn't use... anything besides Safari.

 

[erikkfi]

The same governmental eye that is looking at ending Apple's on-platform monopoly should also look at forcing Google to divest Chrome.

 

[Sasparilla]

Personally I've always thought having only Safari engine being allowed was not a good decision and would love true Firefox on iOS with regular plugins (uBlock Origin thank you very much), but I don't think that is worth giving Google complete control of mobile browser marketshare. They have a monompoly position even with Safari in iOS and iPadOS, just not nearly as complete as they do in non mobile browser marketshare and that will change with this and won't be good.

Important to note Google achieved this browser monopoly marketshare over the years both by making a good browser but also making things in (monopoly markeshare) Google Search and their other services only work correctly (or just work better) when using only their Chrome browser - this includes not working in other browsers using the same web engine that Chrome uses (Vivaldi for example)...as I remember there multiple instances where things wouldn't work for Vivaldi and you had to run Chrome for it run correctly (but, if you had Vivaldi identify itself as Chrome the Google functionality would work fine in Vivaldi - i.e. Google programmed to artificially fail on everything but Chrome to nudge users to use Chrome). Guessing this was a strat Google used from beginning (long before Vivaldi) to relentlessly nudge users over to Chrome (leveraging monopoly control of one market (Search) to ensure monopoly control of another market (Browser) - which is illegal in the U.S., but not really enforced for decades now).

The same governmental eye that is looking at ending Apple's on-platform monopoly should also look at forcing Google to divest Chrome.

You said it so well here. Alphabet should be forced to spin off everything except Search, when looking at things from a monopoly standpoint. And Search needs to have its advertising marketshare control spun out as well. Can't see it happening of course, but when looking at things from a monopoly standpoint, it should.

 

[aforty]

Good for them and others who actively prefer giving all their data to google I guess.

 

[nt5672]

Some people purchase and use an iPhone for simplicity and/or privacy which I understand. I scratch my head when some of these people cry aloud that Apple is not doing enough to protect their privacy and then cry louder for apps like Chrome that don’t care about said privacy as it’s the parents companies bread and butter to harvest and profit from said users data. Some of these people also want a locked in ecosystem and some want choice. Some complain that they need at least 16GB of RAM to run Chrome on a Mac but want that same resource hungry browser tech on an iPhone just to complain that their iPhone runs slow, hot and has the battery life of a 90’s Sat Phone.

These people are all over the place in what they want it’s like a child in a candy store who is overwhelmed at the idea of being intoxicated by a sugar overdose.

Google has not even made Chrome to use little resources such as RAM and battery on a laptop with a larger battery and we expect them to suddenly rewrite and focus on an iPhone app, if this was the case why not do it for many years with AndroidOS. Has anyone even used Chrome on Android devices with little RAM the device and OS crawls and the battery life is anything to be desired other than to include more RAM and a larger battery. This is counter productive and an excuse to poorly written software and reminds me of the exclusion of FlashPlayer support on iPhone which I am pleased that the late Steve Jobs was correct in his reasoning.

All the same, if that is what people want they should be able to choose it. After all they did buy the device.

 

[LV426]

Why does Apple even have this "webkit-only" restriction?

Because it's more secure for the masses and guaranteed not to kill the device's performance. And webkit is used throughout iOS, not just in browsers. If there's a bug in webkit, Apple fixes it for all applications in one hit.

 

[now i see it]

iOS Safari always seems to suck in one way or another with every iOS release. It’s as if they do it on purpose.
It will be good riddance to Safari I say if laws pass to break the WebKit monopoly.

 

[CarAnalogy]

No you don't have to use the default search engine but if you use web results from Spotlight or Siri they come from Google and that can't be changed.

EDIT: Apple accepts a fee from Google for default search status and siri and spotlight search provider to dress this up as anything other than Apple selling their users to Google is laughable.

Pretty sure if you change your default search engine, those suggestions only appear if the engine you switched it to supports that. You can also turn that off in settings.

As much as I dislike Google, I have tried changing the default search. But Google is still too good.

 

[Robert.Walter]

I won’t be keen to use it.

 

[jwolf6589]

iOS Safari always seems to suck in one way or another with every iOS release. It’s as if they do it on purpose.
It will be good riddance to Safari I say if laws pass to break the WebKit monopoly.

I have no problems at all with IOS Safari. My problems are with the Mac version.

 

[dwaite]

Based on the visible code commits, the app purportedly looks like the start of an alternate browser build and is still missing some key features at this early stage. Google claims that the app is merely "an experimental prototype [...] with the goal to understand certain aspects of performance on iOS," and "it will not be available to users and we'll continue to abide by Apple's policies."

Evidence of what many of us already expected - it wasn't just an App Store policy that prevented alternate browser engines, but that the browsers themselves were nowhere near ready to go for the platform.

Part of Google's fork of Webkit to Blink was wanting a very specific multi-process and security sandboxing model, while Apple wanted their own. We can guess which one is more closely aligned to the capabilities of iOS.

Clearly a sign of the coming changes probably with iOS 17.

Maybe Apple told their browser partners they were evaluating changes, and Google is being secretive to protect the relationship.

Or maybe Google management realized it would be man-years of effort to fully support iOS should a policy change happen, and they are trying to get ahead of that. Remember when they were blindsided by Apple not renewing their contract to use Google Maps data, and Google had no Maps app of their own even started to stay on the platform?

My opinion is that this requirement by Apple was not worth it from the start, competition benefits us customers.

It wasn't just a business requirement, but a set of core technical restrictions. Chrome for iOS gets accelerated Javascript support and WASM support because it is using Apple's engines. Third party software does not get to download and execute arbitrary binary code today, nor build it locally. This is why third party support for Flash and Java were infeasible as well, as both those assumed at the time that they can just-in-time compile and execute code.

Additions like Widgets underneath involve quite a bit of security inter-process communications improvements to third party code. It may be Apple actually is getting close to allowing (likely still highly limited) JIT entitlements for production apps, where so far its only really been possible to get that behavior via the debugger entitlements of local Xcode builds.

 

[The Cappy]

That falls on developers. If a product is dominating maybe there’s a reason. Same could be said about iPhones or literally anything else, don’t victim blame the consumer.

Even when it's the laziness of the consumer (only using what everybody uses) that leads to the cynicism of the developer (only testing what everybody uses)? Sometimes the consumer deserves some of the blame. I'm old enough to remember when Microsoft took advantage of that laziness to basically hijack the internet, and websites everywhere were incompatible with everything other than Explorer. Now it's becoming the same with Chrome.

 

[dk001]

Everyone here is all "Yeah! It's about time! We need other options besides Safari/Webkit."

Does anyone actually care? Never once have I thought to myself: "Gee, I wish I could use a Chromium browser on here." Safari works just fine for everything I've ever needed it to and I suspect that's true for 99.9% of others as well.

Using a number of OS’s, including Android, every time Safari fails to work I wish I could have FF or Edge or even Chrome on my iPhone/iPad. Safari is great until it isn’t. That occurs just enough to be annoying.

 

[ousboui]

The Web should be built on open source code.

It’s worth pointing out that WebKit is open source, Google’s Blink engine is not.

 

[dk001]

The uproar and angency overreach is sensationalized, ill-informed and shortsighted (one of my least favorite trifectas). None of it changes the fact that exactly zero Google anything will ever be installed on any of my devices.

In a previous life, the company I worked for partnered with Google on something. I sat in a demo where Google quite brazenly shared some of their potential and objectives and they were far more frightening than anything being thrown around today. And that was circa 2010. I walked out of that meeting and removed every G thing from my iPhone. And when I got home, ensured my devices were as G-free as possible. Been that way ever since.

A lot of people, bloggers, news outlets, etc. like to talk about Apple’s ecosystem, and they always do so in the negative. Breaking news: Google has an ecosystem and I promise you, it’s quietly doing much more harm, at our expense, than people seem to have the capacity to understand. Our infatuation with free and convenience looks to be ingredients of our dumb downfall. Choice is good. But worse choice isn’t.

This old argument. It has been played ad nauseam across these and other forums. Every viewpoint has some truth in it.

Google collects all it can and allows me to have semi-decent control over personal level information AFAIK
Apple collects all it can and allows me to have semi-decent control over personal level information I thought. That is now in doubt.

I use both and do the best I can to limit personal data collected.

 

[visualseed]

The upside for Apple will be they will sell more of their MagSafe battery packs.

 

[dk001]

Does android allow PWAs? Choice is good.

“All major browsers, including Google Chrome, Android Webview, Mozilla Firefox, Brave, Opera and Microsoft Edge, support PWA installation. Certain other browsers provided by hardware and services vendors, such as Samsung Internet, also support PWAs.”

 

[rp2011]

Take a chance, run a company your own way, consumers love it but it is not too profitable: No one cares

Take a chance, run a company your own way, consumers love it and it is way too profitable: Hey! That's ant-consumer! And what about me getting in on that action!

There is nothing anti-competitive about Apple. There is a lot of competition and it is not even the most popular option. But it is the most profitable and that is what people want a cut of. Ride their on their back.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Good!
Hopefully Firefox will be ready to go when able also

Very excited to have full "real" browser alternatives, including their extensions.

 

[t0rqx]

and drain my device even faster? Nope.

 

[iBluetooth]

I wouldn't say that. Edge has been slowly clawing back at it and the MNC I work for uses Edge for work purposes. In fact, Edge is what Chrome should be. Far lighter on resources and much smoother scrolling with built in adblock on Android

Edge is using the Chrome engine. So, basically Google makes Edge and Microsoft adapts it to their usage.