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3rd party browsers are forced to use a webkit engine instead of their own. By any definition, this adds a severe limitation => crippled. I also think (I could

3rd party browsers are forced to use a webkit engine instead of their own. By any definition, this adds a severe limitation => crippled. I also think (I could be wrong) safari has access to a slightly different webkit engine than third party browsers.

Retric 7y ago
A forced choice is only a severe limitation if it’s significantly worse. That’s currently a guess as there are no iOS comparable options to consider at this point in time. Further, Google has a competitive interest in eventually crippling their iOS rendering engine.Then again I don’t use desktop Crome so that could be my bias talking.
- AstralStorm 7y ago
  No, they wouldn't ever do that. That would be like making an anti-demo. Google has an interest in getting as big a market share for their browser as they can. In as much as disabling their web application functionality of you do not use chrome. Android is much less relevant than the browser. And this does not even begin to touch on Firefox. The problem is a policy one, with Apple really liking their walled garden and veto rights to any design.
  - Retric 7y ago
    Edit: I don’t think Crome has a better engine. For sake of argument lets’s suppose Android Crome was a 90 and iOS Crome is currently a 70 due to the rendering engine. In theory they could replace the engine and hit say 85 given enough resources. But, they could also replace the engine hit 75 and blame iOS. Their still demonstrating an improvement and intentionally crippling it at the same time. That said any such measurement is arbitrary. I personally like having a unified rendering engine because it’s less testing when developing mobile websites. There is no way to improve that situation by introducing a new engine.
    - panpanna 7y ago
      Technically they are not introducing a new engine. Chrome is well established with a 60-70% market share. Not saying thats a good thing either... But you have a very pro-apple and anti-google way of thinking here which I think misguided and does not actually benefit you. Even with those made up numbers chrome would improve from 70 to 75 which is by all means a win for the consumer (you!) but you are ready to dismiss it as it might be bad for Apple. (For the record, I don't use chrome)
      - Retric 7y ago
        I edited the post to make it clear I don’t think Crome has a better engine having seen many issues on android phones. I was simply saying if they had advantages on other platforms you can’t assume they will carry over. Anyway, I still test and find different issues with Crome on Android tablets, phones, and desktop due to significant market share and I would do that for iOS Crome. Sure, Chromes developer tools helps fixing some of these but I have had various CSS issues not replicate. However, most companies don’t do this so adding more rendering engines with slight bugs seems to make things worse for consumers. There may be short term benefits, but long term it’s a net loss as many developers would only support a subset of iOS users.
atonse 7y ago
This hasn’t been true for years. Yes in the past, the embedded safari engine (used by apps) didn’t have JIT capabilities. But since webkit2’s multi process model, and WKwebView in iOS which is now the only way to embed WebKit, it’s the exact same as native.
giancarlostoro 7y ago
> 3rd party browsers are forced to use a webkit engine instead of their own. By any definition, this adds a severe limitation => crippled. Not only that but if WebKit has an exploit, all browsers have an exploit. > I also think (I could be wrong) safari has access to a slightly different engine than third party browsers. Correct, Chrome used to be based off WebKit's HTML rendering engine, which Google forked and created Blink instead. Firefox has their own engine (Gecko?) which is all being redone in Rust.
- windexh8er 7y ago
  Isn't WebKit still native to IOS with regard to requiring a system update vs being able to update WebKit OOB like a normal App Store app as well?
acdha 7y ago
That doesn't feel like the right word: it's mandatory but you're still talking about a very competitive browser engine and the security rationale for blocking third-party JIT is not without merit even if I wish they'd relax it[1]. This feels similar to the IE 5-6 era: it got really bad by the end after Microsoft removed most of the team but there was an earlier period where they were forcing it on users but most developers would have acknowledged it having good performance and features relative to the competition. In this case, it's especially complicated by the fact that iOS is the primary check on web standards meaning whatever Google chooses to implement. Mozilla isn't without influence but there's no incremental way to chip away at Apple's market-share the way they have with Google/Youtube.com pushing Chrome at Firefox users short of making Android phones far more competitive. 1. Say by requiring strong commitments to code quality and response time, which would allow e.g. Firefox and Chrome but not Adobe-level security commitments.
alwillis 7y ago
According to html5test.com, the latest Safari on iOS is rated at 463 while Firefox Mobile 48 is 466—not much of a difference. However, Safari is faster, especially when it comes to JavaScript. It’s hard to believe that if Firefox ran natively on iOS, it would be more memory and energy efficient than WebKit: https://webkit.org/blog/8970/how-web-content-can-affect-power-usage/ https://webkit.org/blog/8970/how-web-content-can-affect-powe...

Retric 7y ago

A forced choice is only a severe limitation if it’s significantly worse. That’s currently a guess as there are no iOS comparable options to consider at this point in time. Further, Google has a competitive interest in eventually crippling their iOS rendering engine.Then again I don’t use desktop Crome so that could be my bias talking.

AstralStorm 7y ago
No, they wouldn't ever do that. That would be like making an anti-demo. Google has an interest in getting as big a market share for their browser as they can. In as much as disabling their web application functionality of you do not use chrome. Android is much less relevant than the browser. And this does not even begin to touch on Firefox. The problem is a policy one, with Apple really liking their walled garden and veto rights to any design.
- Retric 7y ago
  Edit: I don’t think Crome has a better engine. For sake of argument lets’s suppose Android Crome was a 90 and iOS Crome is currently a 70 due to the rendering engine. In theory they could replace the engine and hit say 85 given enough resources. But, they could also replace the engine hit 75 and blame iOS. Their still demonstrating an improvement and intentionally crippling it at the same time. That said any such measurement is arbitrary. I personally like having a unified rendering engine because it’s less testing when developing mobile websites. There is no way to improve that situation by introducing a new engine.
  - panpanna 7y ago
    Technically they are not introducing a new engine. Chrome is well established with a 60-70% market share. Not saying thats a good thing either... But you have a very pro-apple and anti-google way of thinking here which I think misguided and does not actually benefit you. Even with those made up numbers chrome would improve from 70 to 75 which is by all means a win for the consumer (you!) but you are ready to dismiss it as it might be bad for Apple. (For the record, I don't use chrome)
    - Retric 7y ago
      I edited the post to make it clear I don’t think Crome has a better engine having seen many issues on android phones. I was simply saying if they had advantages on other platforms you can’t assume they will carry over. Anyway, I still test and find different issues with Crome on Android tablets, phones, and desktop due to significant market share and I would do that for iOS Crome. Sure, Chromes developer tools helps fixing some of these but I have had various CSS issues not replicate. However, most companies don’t do this so adding more rendering engines with slight bugs seems to make things worse for consumers. There may be short term benefits, but long term it’s a net loss as many developers would only support a subset of iOS users.

atonse 7y ago

This hasn’t been true for years. Yes in the past, the embedded safari engine (used by apps) didn’t have JIT capabilities. But since webkit2’s multi process model, and WKwebView in iOS which is now the only way to embed WebKit, it’s the exact same as native.

giancarlostoro 7y ago

> 3rd party browsers are forced to use a webkit engine instead of their own. By any definition, this adds a severe limitation => crippled. Not only that but if WebKit has an exploit, all browsers have an exploit. > I also think (I could be wrong) safari has access to a slightly different engine than third party browsers. Correct, Chrome used to be based off WebKit's HTML rendering engine, which Google forked and created Blink instead. Firefox has their own engine (Gecko?) which is all being redone in Rust.

windexh8er 7y ago
Isn't WebKit still native to IOS with regard to requiring a system update vs being able to update WebKit OOB like a normal App Store app as well?

acdha 7y ago

That doesn't feel like the right word: it's mandatory but you're still talking about a very competitive browser engine and the security rationale for blocking third-party JIT is not without merit even if I wish they'd relax it[1]. This feels similar to the IE 5-6 era: it got really bad by the end after Microsoft removed most of the team but there was an earlier period where they were forcing it on users but most developers would have acknowledged it having good performance and features relative to the competition. In this case, it's especially complicated by the fact that iOS is the primary check on web standards meaning whatever Google chooses to implement. Mozilla isn't without influence but there's no incremental way to chip away at Apple's market-share the way they have with Google/Youtube.com pushing Chrome at Firefox users short of making Android phones far more competitive. 1. Say by requiring strong commitments to code quality and response time, which would allow e.g. Firefox and Chrome but not Adobe-level security commitments.

alwillis 7y ago

According to html5test.com, the latest Safari on iOS is rated at 463 while Firefox Mobile 48 is 466—not much of a difference. However, Safari is faster, especially when it comes to JavaScript. It’s hard to believe that if Firefox ran natively on iOS, it would be more memory and energy efficient than WebKit: https://webkit.org/blog/8970/how-web-content-can-affect-power-usage/ https://webkit.org/blog/8970/how-web-content-can-affect-powe...