Earlier this year, under pressure from the European Union, Apple was finally forced to open up iOS and allow alternative browser engines, at least in the EU. Up until then, Apple only allowed its own WebKit engine to run on iOS, meaning that even what seemed like third-party browsers – Chrome, Firefox, and so on – were all just Safari skins, running Apple’s WebKit underneath (with additional restrictions to make them perform worse than Safari). Even with other browser engines now being allowed on iOS in the EU, there’s still hurdles, as Apple requires browser makers to maintain two different browsers, one for the EU, and another one for the rest of the world.
It seems the Chromium community is already working on bringing the Chromium Blink browser engine to iOS, but there’s still a lot of work to be done. A blog post by the open source consultancy company Igalia digs into the details, since they are contributing to the effort. While they’ve got the basics covered, it’s far from completed or ready for release.
We’ve briefly looked at the current status of the project so far, but many functionalities still need to be supported. For example, regarding UI features, functionalities such as printing preview, download, text selection, request desktop site, zoom text, translate, find in page, and touch events are not yet implemented or are not functioning correctly.
Moreover, there are numerous failing or skipped tests in unit tests, browser tests, and web tests. Ensuring that these tests are enabled and passing the test should also be a key focus moving forward.
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I don’t use iOS, nor do I intend to any time soon, but the coming availability of browser engines that compete with WebKit is going to be great for the web. I’ve heard from so many web developers that Safari on iOS is a bit of a nightmare to support, since without any competition on iOS it often stagnates and lags behind in supporting features other browsers already implemented. With WebKit on iOS facing competition, that might change.
Now, there’s a line of thought that all this will do is make Chrome even more dominant, but I don’t think that’s going to be an issue. Safari is still the default for most people, and changing defaults is not something most people will do, especially not the average iOS user. On top of that, this is only available in the EU, so I honestly don’t think we have to worry about this any time soon, but obviously, we do have to remain vigilant.
‘Google Is a Monopolist,’ Judge Rules in Landmark Antitrust Case
EU: here is access to the only bit of the mobile market your browser doesn’t dominate.
Adurbe,
Some people are naturally going to want to take sides based on personal preferences. They will do so pointing out many (legitimate) concerns over on the other side. But for the sake of healthy markets, I think we should acknowledge that both google and apple have dominant positions in their respective markets and it’s about time regulators make sure that neither are allowed to use their market power to interfere with competition.
Obviously we all have our bias.
But in this area, Apple holds about 25% of the mobile market and overall as a browser (across all divices) holds about 18%. In the area of browsers, Apple isn’t a monopoly, Google is. So this feels like a move in the wrong direction. Is it opening competition, yes, but when you open the floodgates to a single viable alternative that is the existing monopoly on other platforms? Even Microsoft with their dominance of the Windows platform couldn’t hold back the Google browser domination. I fear we’ll look back at this as the moment when Google won.
Adurbe,
That’s true. I don’t hold either company in high esteem though, haha.
I concede this is US-centric and does not apply to everyone. Still though, apple’s dominance is extremely concerning in the markets where they are dominant. More so given just how aggressive their anti-competitive strategies to the block competition are.
https://explodingtopics.com/blog/iphone-android-users
The flip side to Apple not being so bleeding edge when it comes to updating its browser is that it forces sites to maintain compatibility with older devices. If we lose Safari as a standalone browser on mobile, we will end up with the Google monoculture and older devices being left behind.
mkone,
That’s an interesting take, although it makes me wonder if compatibility with safari correlates to higher compatibility with other browsers too.
Years ago I had a customer call saying something was broken on safari. A javascript interface that worked in FF IE and chrome didn’t work in safari for some reason and I had to fix it. I actually used to test compatibility with safari when it was available for windows. Now I can’t do that since I don’t own apple products.
>I’ve heard from so many web developers that Safari on iOS is a bit of a nightmare to support, since without any competition on iOS it often stagnates and lags behind in supporting features other browsers already implemented.
It’s actually the opposite though. For example, WebKit is the only engine that supports the JPEG XL image format.
It’s just an excuse for lazy webdevs to only test in one browser.