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Even if the WebKit requirement is lifted, it is likely that it will take months if not years for any Blink/Gecko browsers to show up on iOS/iPadOS after the lif

Even if the WebKit requirement is lifted, it is likely that it will take months if not years for any Blink/Gecko browsers to show up on iOS/iPadOS after the lift. The reason is the sheer complexity of building for a mobile OS with very deep native integrations, that was out of their reach for a decade. More likely scenario is that we will see browsers using forked versions of WebKit running to enable more features (yes that would make uBlock Origin possible on iOS for example).

jeroenhd 4y ago
Is there really such a big difference between iOS and macOS? Sure, there are APIs that the browser can't access (or, rather, shouldn't access according to Apple) that are usable on macOS, but my understanding is that large swathes of the API is kept relatively compatible. Also remember that Chromium was WebKit based way back when, the Android API for the chromium web view still uses WebKit terminology as a result. If Google were to open a Google Play Store for iOS and put Chrome in there, I'd expect building the basic browser to take less than a month. The UI framework and designs are all there from their current Webkit version. Same with Firefox, though Mozilla has significantly fewer resources available.
- freediver 4y ago
  I'd say yes there is especially if you are trying to optimize for low-level, close to hardware features, like rendering performance and battery life, both crucial on a phone. No browsing engine comes close to WebKit for those even on macOS. My best guess is that it would take a few years on iOS (at least) to get to the current difference that Blink/Geck have to WebKit on macOS, which is already considerable in favor to WebKit to begin with, despite being able to develop for this platform for decades.
clownabsuer 4y ago
"it is likely that it will take months if not years for any Blink/Gecko browsers to show up on iOS/iPadOS after the lift." Mozilla demoed a Gecko browser on a jailbroken iPhone. They've done the work once. The combined heft of Google, Samsung and Microsoft could surely get Chrome running on iOS, given that Chrome was originally a fork of WebKit.
yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
Er, I thought someone had already (like, years ago) written a version of Firefox for iOS that used Gecko, and the only problem was that they couldn't publish it in the app store?

jeroenhd 4y ago

Is there really such a big difference between iOS and macOS? Sure, there are APIs that the browser can't access (or, rather, shouldn't access according to Apple) that are usable on macOS, but my understanding is that large swathes of the API is kept relatively compatible. Also remember that Chromium was WebKit based way back when, the Android API for the chromium web view still uses WebKit terminology as a result. If Google were to open a Google Play Store for iOS and put Chrome in there, I'd expect building the basic browser to take less than a month. The UI framework and designs are all there from their current Webkit version. Same with Firefox, though Mozilla has significantly fewer resources available.

freediver 4y ago
I'd say yes there is especially if you are trying to optimize for low-level, close to hardware features, like rendering performance and battery life, both crucial on a phone. No browsing engine comes close to WebKit for those even on macOS. My best guess is that it would take a few years on iOS (at least) to get to the current difference that Blink/Geck have to WebKit on macOS, which is already considerable in favor to WebKit to begin with, despite being able to develop for this platform for decades.

clownabsuer 4y ago

"it is likely that it will take months if not years for any Blink/Gecko browsers to show up on iOS/iPadOS after the lift." Mozilla demoed a Gecko browser on a jailbroken iPhone. They've done the work once. The combined heft of Google, Samsung and Microsoft could surely get Chrome running on iOS, given that Chrome was originally a fork of WebKit.

yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago

Er, I thought someone had already (like, years ago) written a version of Firefox for iOS that used Gecko, and the only problem was that they couldn't publish it in the app store?