You're missing the point: for better or worse, "Safari only" on iOS is probably the only thing causing any significant friction for "this site only works in chrome".
Sites already routinely require chrome on desktop. Remove Safari on iOS and ask yourself: will more sites support non-chrome browsers, or will fewer?
"This website works only in Chrome" or "Please download chrome to continue" might become common occurrence on Safari iOS forcing people to stick to Chrome on iOS
That’s odd. Are there standards in iOS Safari that macOS Safari doesn’t support, or that Firefox doesn’t support? It seems that if you have iOS in your user base, you couldn’t do Chrome only stuff anyway.
All iOS browsers have to use Safari's engine, so users who download Chrome gain nothing in this regard. The only choices available are either to ignore iOS or support Safari.
Any browser on iOS must use safari browser engine (otherwise won't be approved in app store) - the same issue will arise while using Chrome or Firefox on iPhone. Unless you can afford not support iOS/iPadOS users, devs have not choice but complain about bugs.
And yet Apple has thus bar made it impossible to use Chrome (and its clones) on iOS.
I once bemoaned Apple's insistence on WebKit; I now recognize that it's the only thing stopping the total takeover of Chrome on the Web, and a return to the dark ages of "this site works best with..."
That covers everybody on an iDevice - the only browser on iOS is Mobile Safari. Chrome, Firefox, Opera are all skins on top of the Safari Webkit renderer.
Interestingly / Ironically / Whateverally, it doesn't cover a ton of other, non-iOS users. This may be a push to Desktop Safari usage, but I am really uninterested in supporting proprietary browser tech, especially when there are competing open standards, doubly-especially when (as the OP mentioned) Safari in particular doesn't seem interested in supporting other open, interesting APIs.
You have to use Safari on iOS anyway, because the only permitted web view implementation is Safari’s. Firefox/Opera/Chrome on iOS is just Safari in a trench coat.
In terms of web traffic iOS is a large enough percentage that sites have to cater to iOS/Safari. Since Safari doesn't support all of Google's latest fingerprint/tracking friendly web APIs most sites won't hate their content behind them. As soon as a "just install Chrome" banner is viable on mobile there's no reason websites won't be flooded with Chrome-only features.
A Chrome-only web will edge out not just up to date competing browsers but any older iOS and Android devices that can't run top of tree Chrome.
Here is the twist: on iOS devices (iPhone, iPad), third-party browsers such as Firefox and Chrome must use Safari's faulty and outdated WebKit engine. Therefore, websites will experience the same bugs even if you use a different browser.
Suddenly you realise that Safari indeed effectively has a big market share - namely all Apple mobile devices browsing the web.
I just spent a whole day working around a very annoying iOS Webkit/Safari quirk (HTML button elements not receiving focus). I had to resort to user agent sniffing and working around from there. I haven't had to do such stuff for a long time.
Back in the Internet Explorer days, you could at least say "just use a better browser". With the Safari situation on iPhones and iPads there is no such choice. Installing Chrome just gives the browser a different skin with respect to the browser engine.
Apple doesn't allow any other browser engines on iOS except Webkit.
Despite the branding, "Chrome for iOS" and "Firefox for iOS" are fundamentally different products than their Android or desktop counterparts. They're both just wrappers around the same bundled version of Webkit that Safari uses.
Sites already routinely require chrome on desktop. Remove Safari on iOS and ask yourself: will more sites support non-chrome browsers, or will fewer?
reply