On iPhone and iPad, third-party browser developers have no choice but to rely on Apple's engineWebKitfor their app. This is not the case on macOS, where third-party WebKit browsers are quite rare. There's Orion and iCab, and… that's about it. On the other hand, there are many browsers using other engines, Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Opera, Vivaldi, among many others…
This rule restricts WebKit on iOS and iPadcould change in the future, and this, from iOS 17. We learned last month that Apple would consider opening third-party browsers on iPhone and iPad to the use of other web engines. Even more recently, another piece of news came to drive home the point: Google is currently working on anon-WebKit iPhone browser. The app would benefit from the in-house engineBlink.
A Google Chrome 2.0 for iOS?
If for the moment, the parent company of YouTube gives apurely experimental purposefor this project, we cannot help but see it as the first stone of a much more important building, that of a Google iPhone browser, with its own engine.
The Mountain View company being intop positionin terms of number of users on macOS and Windows with Chrome, it is the ideal candidate to compete with Safari on iPhone and iPad as soon as the WebKit restriction potentially disappears. On the other hand, even if Europe is pushing for this opening to competition, for the moment, nothing is official or guaranteed yet. Especially since the project for a new third-party Google browser may well never arrive in the Apple App Store, and therefore never see the light of day on iPhone or iPad. It's all speculation at this point.
But that was all it took to raise hopes of seeing, in the years to come, on iOS and iPadOS, fierce new competition for web browsing.
Tell us what your favorite web browser is on iPhone or iPad in the comments! Is it Safari? Chromium? Firefox? Or another solution?
i-nfo.fr - Official iPhon.fr app
By : Keleops AG
Editor-in-chief for iPhon.fr. Pierre is like Indiana Jones, looking for the lost iOS trick. Also a long-time Mac user, Apple devices hold no secrets for him. Contact: pierre[a]iphon.fr.
