It's really a stretch to call something that's literally the only option "popular". But I agree, rendering engine is not enough to move any real needle. New browsers need to be able to integrate features that ios doesn't support currently that require hooking into the operating system like PWAs.

> It's really a stretch to call something that's literally the only option "popular".

It’s not a stretch; it’s silly to say otherwise. Regardless of the rendering engine and the ability to make a 3rd-party browser the default on iOS which has been a thing for a few years now, Safari is the most popular browser on iOS and iOS runs on something like 1.5+ billion devices worldwide.

Normies don’t know and don’t care about the rendering engine when they use Firefox, Brave, Chrome, etc. on iOS and yet those browsers probably have single digit installed base on iOS.

And nothing would meaningfully change even if Firefox and Chrome ran natively on iOS.

I agree that rendering engine alone won't move the needle. Users may care about features though: PWAs and extensions that don't need to go through the app store review process are the big ones.

Example: "Firefox has an extension that allows you to download videos from youtube -- it's way better than Safari."

Sure, but these alternate browsers are already innovating on UI/UX on iOS.

I use Brave on iOS often because it makes doing certain things easier than Safari and it’s UI is quite good.

So you agree that browsers can increase marketshare by adding features?

Missing from this conversation:

- other browsers exist for iOS, and users seem not to care that much for the alternatives, but…

- if other engines are permitted, then user-facing differentiators like extensions will make their way to competing browsers on iOS.

Outside of PWAs, I can’t think of many other features other than maybe arbitrary file upload that requires more hooks into the OS (as opposed to greater control of the browser engine). Genuinely interested in hearing/thinking of more, if you have any.

Other browsers exist but those are apps using the same WebKit rendering engine, which means web developers have to support that. If Blink could run natively, you’d see more promotion on Google properties to change that.

> Most iPhone users just use the stock browser and don't know or care what rendering engine it is.

Google will likely turn on the popups with "BETTER ON CHROME! TRY CHROME NOW!" for ios users once it's possible

How'd that work for Microsoft Edge? Firefox usage tanked when Google started heavily promoting Chrome on search, Gmail, Youtube, Docs, etc. and I would be shocked if this went through and every Google app didn't start telling people that they should install Chrome or certain features were being held back for Chrome users.

Iirc on macOS Safari is still the most popular, with over 50% using it. It's no where near as dominant as Safari is on iOS but significantly more than Edge is on Windows.

I like Safari too, so even with this change I'll keep using it on my Apple devices.

I'm confused, how does this move affect Google's ability to promote their own iOS Chrome app to Safari iOS users? They already have that ability.

Chrome on iOS uses the same WebKit engine as Safari. Right now, if someone at Google wants to ship a web API they need to work with Apple and, to a lesser extent, Mozilla to implement it. If they could tell people to use Blink on iOS, they'd have the ability to ship the update and blow off attempts to change the code in the standardization process or even standardize at all because 95% of their users would be running code which they can arbitrarily update.

Literally no difference is a wildly wrong and simplistic statement to make. There are vast differences.

They're both LGPL so they're not truly Free.

That’s a religious debate. Most open source developers do not agree so if you want to be provocative about it, accept the downvotes with grace.