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> It seems like if things keep going this way, Safari also would inevitably end up rebasing Safari onto Blink too (with their strategic changes). I'm not sure
by The_Colonel 6y ago
> It seems like if things keep going this way, Safari also would inevitably end up rebasing Safari onto Blink too (with their strategic changes).
I'm not sure about that. WebKit is lagging slightly behind Blink (and Gecko to lesser degree), but I don't think it bothers Apple. Budget to develop WebKit is for Apple hardly a problem as well.
Having independent browser engine gives them quite a lot of strategic power given their exclusive market share. Look no further than how they managed to single-handedly kill PWAs few months ago since it does not fit into their strategic goals (all apps must go through app store).
- pjmlp 6y agoThey did not managed to kill anything, there are plenty of markets where iOS is not a presence we care about and keep doing mobile Web applications, business as usual.
- The_Colonel 6y agoOk, maybe I should have said "relegated to niche applications" instead.
- pjmlp 6y agoiOS is only relevant in 30% of the world, if we are talking about niches here.
- esrauch 6y agoI think it depends if a lot of pages start breaking. Right now it's not happening at scale, but I don't see them having any reason not to refork Blink if more "only tested on Chrome" sites start breaking on Safari. I'd expect them to maintain all strategic decisions if they did refork, including disabling PWA features; there's nothing that says they have to enable PWAs just because they fork from Blink.