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BrowserEngineKit – Apple Developer Documentation
- matt3210 3y agoAbout time! I wanna see msEdge running in iPad and visionOS with vertical grouped tabs and workspaces
- Almondsetat 3y agoWhat does that have to do with the browser's engine?
- thejsa 3y agoUnfortunately, from what I can tell, Apple is only being forced to open up iOS (iPhone), not any other platforms like iPadOS, and they’re not doing a jot more than they have to here.
- Hamuko 3y agoBased on what? Because so far Apple has tried to argue to the EU that Safari on macOS is different from Safari on iOS, which in turn is different from Safari on iPadOS. End result? EU didn't buy it. >Citing six different issues with Apple's claims, the commission concluded: "Safari qualifies as a single web browser, irrespective of the device through which that service is accessed." https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/02/apple_safari_browser/ https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/02/apple_safari_browser/
- thejsa 3y agoI don’t remember where I read it, admittedly, but apparently the iPad didn’t cross the market share thresholds or something like that; would be happy to be wrong. Suppose we’ll see in due course whether the European Commission takes them to task on it…
- Departed7405 3y agoIpadOS in it self isn't impacted by DMA.
- threeseed 3y agoEdge is already available on iPad in all countries. And nothing is preventing them adding vertically grouped tabs/workspaces.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- M3L0NM4N 3y agoWill this allow Firefox to have extensions now that they’re not limited by WebKit? Or will Apple still axe that as a “third party App Store” or some bullshit?
- mcny 3y agoLooks like this is in the EU only --- Requirements To qualify for the entitlement, your app must: Be available on iOS in the European Union only Be a separate binary from any app that uses the system-provided web browser engine Not have the default browser entitlement [...] --- https://developer.apple.com/support/alternative-browser-engines https://developer.apple.com/support/alternative-browser-engi... Given that Congress is in a stalemate, I don't see this coming to the US anytime soon.
- olliebrkr 3y ago"only", so we'll likely start seeing multiple listings of the same app?
- saagarjha 3y agoYes.
- emayljames 3y agoCould California not maybe act sooner?
- charcircuit 3y agoOrion supports Firefox extensions on iOS while using webkit, so there is an existence proof that it's possible to at least have limited support for them.
- loadsas 3y agoThey do. But for example the ublock extensions shows always zero blocked ads. Maybe it's a misconfigurarion on my side? Looking forward to a real firefox on ios.
- nolok 3y agoFinally firefox + extensions will be able to reach ios. I find it a bit puzzling and amusing how so many people in the other threads are acting like this is the end of safety on apple and yada yada, while 1 - you're free to stay well within the walled garden if you so desire, stepping out is a personal choice (but now is a choice for the user, instead of banning him from doing something apple doesn't like), 2 - we have the example of android to know apps won't each flock to their own little store, 3 - the whole pretense of "the curating of the store allows them to ensure high quality safety" is frankly not in line with reality, the app store being full of crap and spam while blocking updates to apps that apple don't like (spotify for example). I'm flabbergasted at "tech oriented users" ability to forget what they know when it come to certain brands they like.
- jonbell 3y ago1) More spam on Android by far 2) Spotify not blocked There’s a bit of religion happening in both directions. iOS has, objectively, fewer problems than Android in these regards and part of that are the policies.
- repox 3y ago> There’s a bit of religion happening in both directions. iOS has, objectively, fewer problems than Android in these regards and part of that are the policies. When you say "objectively" I assume that this is something that has been measured and that there are reliable sources for this statement?
- ruszki 3y agoI would be really surprised. Anytime when I’ve searched for a feature (like DLNA sharing), and not for a specific app, I’ve got only very shitty spam apps in both stores. Even when I search for specific app, like GTA, the results deteriorate very quickly, in both stores.
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- skibz 3y agoI wonder whether this will allow changing the browser iOS uses for captive portal interactions if a different default browser is selected?
- madeofpalk 3y agoApart from the EU-only carveout, this is surprisingly more capable than I expected. I thought Apple would have done the bare minimum and continue to disallow JIT and multiple processes, but they have paths to allow other engines to do that. It doesn't seem anywhere near as petty as the rest of Apple's DMA compliance.
- oldpersonintx 3y ago[dead]
- emayljames 3y agoI sense that a lot of iOS users are going to suddenly have their location set as being in the EU. Not sure if they can police this the way they would want.
- Hamuko 3y agoYou're going to need to do a lot of changes to be identified as EU resident, such as your device's physical location (don't know if it's by GPS, Wi-Fi and/or cell tower data). https://9to5mac.com/2024/01/25/apple-check-iphone-eligible-sideloading/ https://9to5mac.com/2024/01/25/apple-check-iphone-eligible-s...
- toyg 3y agoYeah, because Apple is totally privacy-focused, they don't track you at all, until you try to do something they don't like and suddenly you find that things are somewhat different...
- joshstrange 3y agoYou vastly overestimate how much iOS users care about this kind of thing. HN is a bubble and not even all of HN is gung-ho on the changes. Also it’s not as simple as “set your location to the EU”. I’m not even sure if Apple provides the ability to convert an Apple ID to a different region. I vaguely remember reading an article about that resulting in loss of some/all purchases and other oddities. No regular iOS user cares about Firefox (or Chrome) enough to go through that. Not to mention mobile FF/Chrome (less so Chrome) will be not well supported if the website is made outside the EU (even inside the EU is questionable). Developers barely test on FF for desktop which is easily available, they won’t be able to test FF mobile unless they have a device configured to be “in” the EU and that’s just not going to happen widely. Lastly is FF’s iOS Safari wrapper is any indication of the quality that FF can provide then I don’t have high hopes for their native engine. Even on Android FF _just_ started opening up extensions after years of having a small whitelist unless you jumped through hoops. Based on that and the direction of FF as a whole on the desktop my expectations are incredibly low.
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- threeseed 3y agoHuge win for Meta, Google and the overall advertising industry. Fewer Safari browsers equals less ITP and significantly improved user tracking e.g. first-party cookies last only a week on Safari versus a year on Chrome.
- kmlx 3y agoyes, this is huge news for advertising, fingerprinting, and tracking. i think we'll see a boom in those markets in the following years (contingent on some factors, but still).
- TheLoafOfBread 3y agoAlso it equals better PWA experience, so Apple might actually do something about it on Safari. Like implementing WebBLE.
- TheAceOfHearts 3y agoAny guess for how long it'll take for Chrome and Firefox to get ported? Would love to hear what Firefox developers think.
- daveoc64 3y agoIt's been reported that Google has been preparing an iOS version of Chrome using the Blink browser engine for a while - as they had assumed this would eventually be allowed.
- mcny 3y agoHad to look it up. They've been doing this publicly for a year now. > Bug to track creating a content_shell application that compiles in the necessary parts of blink, content, and components on iOS. This experimental application will be used to measure graphics and input latencies by providing traces for analysis. > Experimental only, not a launch bug for a shippable product. https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1411704 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=141170... Things like this reinforce my suspicion that Chrome (including Chromium, advertising, yada yada) is a billion if not multi billion dollar per year effort.
- kevingadd 3y agoThere were full working iOS ports of Firefox 2-3 different times in the past, but it's unclear whether they have one ready to go for this ruling, especially given how poorly Mozilla has been run lately and how much they've cut back in their browser development investment.
- anileated 3y agoIf I were a hostile of any sort—a criminal, a someone with a shady business model preying on PII and fingerprinting, a totalitarian dictatorship, etc.—I would be out there on the frontlines, day and night, urging Apple to open up of iOS to alternative browsers and app stores. Attack surface increasing so dramatically, in an ecosystem blindly trusted by millions, is a godsend.
- pprotas 3y agoIf I were a friendly of any sort - a user that doesn't want to use Safari, etc. - I would be doing the same
- anileated 3y agoOrion and Firefox have been installed on my iPhone for what seems like years, and I didn’t even need to jailbreak it.
- zilti 3y agoNo, they have not been installed on your device - all you got is simple branded GUIs on top of the Safari engine.
- anileated 3y agoThat is a meaningless distinction to someone who claims to be “a friendly of any sort”. It could be of interest to 1) a very small group of friendlies with orthodox higher goals that are not aligned with the daily interests of 99% other friendlies, 2) a hostile, or 3) an even smaller group of friendlies who intend to use increased attack surface against hostiles. I really suspect that group 2 is the most common out there, but that’d be impossible to ascertain. If I were in it, I would sure as hell not self-identify. (Edited to add group 3.)
- madeofpalk 3y agoIt's worth noting, for better or wose, that not just anyone can ship browser engines on iOS. You must apply for an entitlement from Apple, and they must approve you. A part of that approval process seems to require that you stick to similar privacy protections as safari (e.g. third party cookies disabled by default).
- nottorp 3y agoThe problem is, with the Mozilla CEO trying to reduce their involvement in Firefox for some reason, will they put the effort into having a mobile iOS browser that only works for the EU? Chrome is irrelevant because ... privacy. All I actually want is to be able to run uBlock Origin on my phone.
- spdif899 3y agoHave you tried Orion? From the Kagi search team, it allows you to install both chrome and Firefox extensions including uBlock Origin. Still uses WebKit for rendering of course.
- nottorp 3y agoOh I didn't know. My lattes are still cheaper than a Kagi subscription though. Edit: interesting, they don't even show what the "Orion+ subscription" costs if you don't make a Kagi account.
- elashri 3y agoInformation about orion+ is available on their FAQ page [1]. It does not need an account. [1] https://help.kagi.com/orion/orion-plus/orion-plus.html https://help.kagi.com/orion/orion-plus/orion-plus.html
- nottorp 3y agoHowever, the pricing is nowhere here (except a 'lifetime' thing pricing): https://kagi.com/orion/orionplus.html https://kagi.com/orion/orionplus.html I'm not going to read all the material when I'm not interested in subscription based software anyway.
- freediver 3y agoYou do not need to create an account to see it: https://kagi.com/onboarding?p=orion_plan https://kagi.com/onboarding?p=orion_plan Lifetime plan allows you to own your browser, without subscriptions.
- sarbanharble 3y agoDoes this mean web Bluetooth is coming to iOS?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- andrewmcwatters 3y agoIt's so funny to me that to create an alternative browser, you still have to use a blessed framework by Apple to do so, instead of, you know, just using standard UI components, writing your own compositor, etc.