Will real alternatives to Safari soon see the light of day on iOS? Mozilla and Google are said to be developing browsers for Apple’s operating system without relying on WebKit. The two organizations would anticipate the supposed end of the exclusivity of the rendering engine of the firm, affirms The Register.
An arrival with iOS 17?
So far, Apple only allows web browsers developed using WebKit, Safari’s web page rendering engine, on the App Store. As a reminder, an HTML rendering engine designates the software component allowing the translation of the source code of web pages into a visual representation. It is the very brain of navigators. For the moment, developers have no choice but to use Apple’s for their applications. But the rule could change with the release of iOS 17.
Under pressure from the European regulator and legislation on digital markets, Apple will allow third-party application stores in the next version of iOS. The App Store no longer having exclusivity, the Cupertino company could immediately authorize the development of applications using a rendering engine different from WebKit.
First signs
A potential breach for Google and Mozilla, which would develop WebKit-free versions of their browser for iOS. At Mozilla, a direct reference to the GeckoView engine, used by Firefox on mobile, was spotted in the GitHub repositories for a potential version of the app for iOS. Asked about the subject by another user, Laurie Marceau, senior developer at Mozilla, evokes a “secondary project” organisation.
On the Google side, Chromium developers have reportedly started working on a prototype web browser using the Blink engine. “This is an experimental prototype that we are developing as part of an open source project with the goal of understanding certain aspects of performance on iOS“, however assured a spokesperson for the firm to The Register.
The potential arrival on iOS of web browsers not based on WebKit would allow a major technical advance. By freeing itself from Apple’s engine, the software could offer a different browsing experience and increased performance.