{"id":3409,"date":"2022-03-25T10:55:53","date_gmt":"2022-03-25T08:55:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.tomayac.com\/2022\/03\/25\/ios-browser-engine-choice\/"},"modified":"2022-03-25T10:55:53","modified_gmt":"2022-03-25T08:55:53","slug":"ios-browser-engine-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomayac.com\/wordpress\/2022\/03\/25\/ios-browser-engine-choice\/","title":{"rendered":"iOS Browser Engine Choice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t\t

I'm following the\n(Twitter) conversation<\/a>\non browser engines other than WebKit to be allowed on iOS very closely. When the\nUnited Kingdom's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA)\nsolicited responses<\/a>\nfrom Web developers to their\nmobile ecosystems market study interim report<\/a>,\nI\nsent one<\/a>\nwhere I spoke as the developer of SVGcode<\/a> and told the CMA\nabout my experience with making the app performantly available on iOS Safari:<\/p>\n

\n

To whom it may concern,<\/p>\n

I'm an employee of Google Germany, but also a hobbyist Web developer.\nRecently, I have built an application, SVGcode (https:\/\/svgco.de\/<\/a>), which I\nwanted to be performing well on all browsers, so I have put a lot of time and\neffort into making it as compatible and progressively enhanced as I could.\nUnfortunately, Safari is the one browser that constantly requires the most\nhoops to get to the same baseline experience as on other browsers like\nFirefox, Edge, or Chrome.<\/p>\n

For example, it does not offer proper installation support, so rather than use\nmy built-in Install button, I need to hope my users are aware of the hidden\naway "Add to Home Screen" feature in Safari.<\/p>\n

Another missing feature is OffscreenCanvas, which would greatly improve the\napp's performance, but as is, the performance on Safari leaves to be desired.\nOn macOS, I can just tell users that I have made the maximum effort to be\ncompatible with all browsers, but if people wish to get the maximum\nperformance, they are free to switch their browser to a one with the maximum\namount of features supported.<\/p>\n

On iOS and iPadOS, however, there is nothing I could tell my users, since even\nalternative browsers have to use WebKit's rendering engine under the hood. I\ndo hope your legislation can help improve upon the situation and lift Apple's\nbrowser ban.<\/p>\n

Respectfully yours,
\nThomas Steiner<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014
\nP.S. While I am employed by Google, I am speaking in a personal capacity for my\nwork as a hobbyist developer outside of Google.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

More impactful and lawyer-approved than mine are the responses from Mozilla<\/strong>\nand Google<\/strong>, though, which I invite you to read in their entirety. Below just\ntwo significant quotes:<\/p>\n

\n

Without regulatory intervention we believe there will be no change to the\nstatus quo, harming competition in browser engines and browsers, and harming\ninnovation\nonline.\u2014Mozilla<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

Competition between browser engines\u2014and freedom of choice for developers\u2014means\nbrowser apps on Android can differentiate themselves by incorporating a range\nof features and functionalities that are not available on iOS, where all\nbrowsers are required to use Apple's WebKit browser\nengine.\u2014Google<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

(It goes without saying but restating again: While I am employed by Google, I am\nspeaking in a personal capacity for my work as a hobbyist developer outside of\nGoogle.)<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\"Thomas\n\t\t\t\tThis post appeared first on https:\/\/blog.tomayac.com\/2022\/03\/25\/ios-browser-engine-choice\/<\/a>.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\t\t\tI’m following the
\n(Twitter) conversation
\non browser engines other than WebKit to be allowed on iOS very closely. When the
\nUnited Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA)
\nsolicited responses
\nfrom Web developers to their
\nmobile ecosystems ma…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"intlwemo_wallet_address":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomayac.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomayac.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomayac.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomayac.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomayac.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3409"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomayac.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3410,"href":"https:\/\/tomayac.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3409\/revisions\/3410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomayac.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomayac.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomayac.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}