Since the beginning of the iPhone, Apple has resisted opening up it’s operating system in many ways. The App Store being the biggest walled garden, but the lesser known and perhaps more arcane is the browser on your iPhone.
As of writing, you can install an alternative browser on your iOS device: Google Chrome, Edge, DuckDuckGo etc. But really, under the hood… it’s actually powered by a Safari webview. Which means, it’s running webkit. The real Google Chrome on the other hand runs a Blink-based version of Chromium. Browser vendors render HTML and CSS differently. We’ve known this for a while. Surely you’ve noticed you bank’s website looks different on Chrome versus visiting the same website on Firefox. Heck, some even have wholly different JavaScript Engines.
Apple, has for years successfully kept alternative browsers on iOS locked-into using Webkit to the dismay of Google and consumers. Last year in February, there was a concerted test to see how well a Blink-based browser would fair on iPhones. You see, Apple has resisted allowing apps to use alternative browser vendors for years because of several reasons.
Apple likes to keep a iron-grip control on marketshare of it’s software. It is an old war that software companies continue to fight. For good reason too. It’s part of their strategy to keep users within the flywheel of their subscription businesses and tick-tock product cycles. If Apple wants to maintain market share of it’s browser, it must remain competitive. The problem with webkit, and Safari the browser by extension is, it’s lacking in terms of feature development and popularity. There are claims that webkit can has superior power management, simple to extend, secure and less of a memory hog.
Yet, people continue to chose Chrome, even at the risk of antitrust and performance. Turns out, users like to see nice software features! Novel!
All this being said, apparently the only consumers that will get to have true alternative browser choices on their mobile Apple devices will be EU consumers. Another disappointing reason to be American.
