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

newdeal said:
there is only one thing I care about on a mobile browser. That I can access bookmarks with one button press. Safari does that and I have found no android browser that does for some reason
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Edge does on my OnePlus 10Pro (Android 13).
 
jwolf6589 said:
Is Android good? I have never used it and refer to it as a Virus. But…. I may be doing so I’m complete ignorance.
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Android is very good. However with all the OEM variations out there you need to do a bit of research. With Apple it is one choice allowed.
You can also make Android as private and safe as iOS if desired. Just takes a bit of time to do And not rely on default settings.
 
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noone said:
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.
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I honestly don’t really know what the difference is if my iOS browsers (I use Safari and other browsers) are built on WebKit or anything else, so obviously I have no web engine allegiance. As a consumer, all I care about is that they perform well and are very secure and convenient. Only if any of that is compromised (eg. I’m no longer able to use Keychain, can’t be as certain that I’m not being tracked, etc.) will I feel I need to get involved in this fight. Otherwise, I leave it to developers and Apple. And enthusiasts, I guess. Government only if someone is breaking the law, in letter or spirit.
 
My guess is iOS 17 will open up and Google is likely working with Apple, maybe to even feature it during keynote.
 
Marbles1 said:
Ensuring the market doesn’t become a monopoly is like whack-a-mole. If Google’s tech dominates they’ll be in the targets of global competition authorities next.
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I don’t get how Google is not already for Google Search and GMail.

I get Outlook (web) is big, but outside of enterprise it’s likely a fraction compared to GMail.

I never once thought to Bing something. Only time I use Bing is to make sure my business listing appears.
 
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555gallardo said:
Technically yes. But is anyone forcing you to actually use anything other than Safari on the iPhone? Because I never had a reason to download another browser.
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It will cause even more website to become Chrome-only.

The main reason you can use Safari on the Mac and it works pretty well on most consumer sites, is because of the iOS market share.

Look at enterprise software. A lot of it doesn't support Safari on the Mac at all and will tell you to just install Chrome because you can.
 
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So
dk001 said:
Android is very good. However with all the OEM variations out there you need to do a bit of research. With Apple it is one choice allowed.
You can also make Android as private and safe as iOS if desired. Just takes a bit of time to do And not rely on default settings.
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So it’s not a virus then? I use to call Windows a virus until I started to use it at jobs and school. I’ve never touched an Android.
 
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IMPOSSIBLEMAN said:
Clearly a sign of the coming changes probably with iOS 17.

My opinion is that this requirement by Apple was not worth it from the start, competition benefits us customers.
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I agree, competition benefits us all. However, I would like to know how we are going to get competition in the browser market. Currently, there is hardly any competition. There is only a very small market share of browsers that do not use Chromium. This means that Google can dictate what is available for web content makers. One of the last reasons they can't is WebKit on iOS and iPadOS. I would like to see some light at the end of the tunnel when WebKit is no longer required on iOS and iPadOS. Right now, I'm very concerned.
 
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Sheepish-Lord said:
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.
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Nobody is blaming the consumer. Obviously, the consumer will use what works well. The consumer cannot be required to use certain browsers to keep competition alive. But you cannot put this on developers either. They will take the easiest road possible as well. Many companies don't bother with Firefox anymore since it fell below 10% market share. I don't know the answer to keeping competition. I do know that we are close to an Internet Explorer situation soon after Apple drops the requirement to use WebKit.
 
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jmh600cbr said:
I use safari as my main iOS browser but I have no choice but to use the share sheet “open in chrome” option from time to time where something won’t load in safari. Great example is unsubscribing from k-mail lists. Simply doesn’t work in safari on iOS. Thankfully google built the open in chrome share sheet option.
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So you are happy with an option that only exists because a web developer chooses to not support Safari? This is exactly what is going to happen more and more as Chromium based browsers will be the only working browsers soon after iOS and iPadOS open up to other browser engines. Not that I don't want them to open up. But I would like to know that Chromium keeps some form of competition.
 
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Seems like developers don't target safari on Mac, though they almost do on mobile. Personally, I think this will lead to a ******** long-term experience unless Apple wants to give up Safari altogether. Hopefully not. Good to have a better privacy choice.
 
iBluetooth said:
Edge is using the Chrome engine. So, basically Google makes Edge and Microsoft adapts it to their usage.
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The Chromium engine is open source. Google Chrome is Google's take on the Chromium engine while Edge is Microsoft's take on Chromium. Google has nothing to do with Edge.I have both installed on a Windows laptop and Edge has far superior scrolling, uses less battery and memory than Chrome.
 
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sdz said:
Finally a proper Adblock on iPad. (Ublock origin on firefox)
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I use the Orion browser on iPad and iPhone, it can use certain Firefox extensions such as uBlock Origin.

Though I'm still looking forward to a real Firefox. Mozilla haven't committed to anything publicly at this point but they've expressed they wanted this in the past.
 
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Artemis70 said:
So you are happy with an option that only exists because a web developer chooses to not support Safari? This is exactly what is going to happen more and more as Chromium based browsers will be the only working browsers soon after iOS and iPadOS open up to other browser engines. Not that I don't want them to open up. But I would like to know that Chromium keeps some form of competition.
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What needs to happen is for Apple to step up and make a better browser, they have all the money in the world & own the platform, yet they struggle to compete with 3rd party browsers which data-mine you to death. Blame consumers then?

I hate Chrome as much as the next guy, but Safari has been hot garbage for a while now. Extensions are trash & many acting like cash grabs, anemic ecosystem, no built-in adblocker, dev tools are a disgrace (outdated responsive mode, CSS properties disappear or get duplicated when live editing for years, freezes), UI glitches all over (specially compact view), they tried to "improve" the UX and ended up moving back to tabs because of how poorly implemented compact view was, etc, etc, etc. (not even mentioning websites not supporting it)
 
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nvmls said:
What needs to happen is for Apple to step up and make a better browser, they have all the money in the world & own the platform, yet they struggle to compete with 3rd party browsers which data-mine you to death. Blame consumers then?

I hate Chrome as much as the next guy, but Safari has been hot garbage for a while now. Extensions are trash & many acting like cash grabs, anemic ecosystem, no built-in adblocker, dev tools are a disgrace (outdated responsive mode, CSS properties disappear or get duplicated when live editing for years, freezes), UI glitches all over (specially compact view), they tried to "improve" the UX and ended up moving back to tabs because of how poorly implemented compact view was, etc, etc, etc. (not even mentioning websites not supporting it)
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Safari for IOS or Safari for Mac?
 
It is past the time for web browsers to be themselves, not a mishmash of that browser outside Safari bits.
 
I love Safari, but... my god does it crash often in iOS 16 (and 15). I'm talking about hangs, page reloads, and the address bar not always working in a new tab (this one's also true on macOS).

I will eventually have to switch if Apple doesn't address all these long-lasting issues. Between iOS 1 and 13-14, it never really crashed on my devices. What the hell is happening now?

Ironically, Safari hung and crashed when typing this message 😅
 
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noone said:
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.
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Yes they actually do care. Chrome is the most popular web browser for a reason, to the point a lot of websites are designed to work only on Chrome.
 
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Apple’s WebKit is very good but it’s by no means perfect. And it’s been largely overshadowed by Chrome and even Edge on desktop systems.

I’m saying this as a web developer and a user. Chrome used to be a massive PITA on MacOS due to power consumption issues but that’s been largely addressed.

I sill like the experience of using Apple’s native apps BUT I can’t excuse the many times in which sites completely break on WebKit where-as they work perfectly fine on Chrome and even… gasp… Microsoft Edge.

Apple needs to get their Ssss together. And they need to stop with this BS policy on iOS of only using WebKit for browser apps. It may have begun as a well intentioned firewall from potential web exploits but it’s become and anticompetitive hinderance.
 
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