Since Apple implemented a browser choice screen for iPhones earlier this month to comply with Europe’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), Brave Software, Mozilla, and Vivaldi have seen a surge in the number of people installing their web browsers.
It’s an early sign that Europe’s competition rules may actually … get this … enhance competition – an outcome that skeptics deemed unlikely.
It’s good news but the true test will be on if those users are retained. It’s possible the uptick is just a case of iPhone users seeing a new screen they’ve never seen before and trying the browsers out of curiosity.
Which would definitely be a good thing. Anything that gets the average user to even consider the wild notion of trying something other than the default would be a monumental improvement to the entire tech market.
But I still think the actual numbers on new active users will probably not be as high. Higher, yes, but not a monumental shift. Anything is an improvement, though.
I think it’s also possible this is more likely to happen in EU countries than the US. It really feels like European users are generally more willing to use alternative things.
I bet, assuming users are never shown the browser selection screen again, they’ll only go back to Safari if there’s something they hate about their new browser.
I hope autofill, iCloud keychain, Apple Pay, and automatic confirmation code insertion from text messages are all supported. Apple is a professional degraded experience implementer.
On macbooks Safari is excellent for battery life. Absolutely blows every other browser out the water. If the same optimisation has been done on mobile, then people will go back for that alone. Safari has less add-ons and a less intuitive interface (if your not accustomed to Mac) but the longer battery life makes up for the inadequacy.
I’d wager that the battery life comparison would be essentially negligible in day to day use.
It’s night and day on macos. I wouldn’t be surprised if we start to hear people complain about chrome on iOS in the EU if they implement the chrome engine.
Apple doesn’t have much of a reason to force it’s own browser on iOS. They aren’t involved in selling adverts like Google and Microsoft. They also aren’t players in web technology in the same way as Google and MS. I suspect their big motivation in keeping chrome, edge and Firefox off the iPhone is to control the user experience an aspect of that being the battery life. The WebKit approach lets them have the browser and features like password managers, without sacrificing power consumption. If it want to keep Safaris user share they wouldn’t have allowed them at all in the iOS store.
Google doesn’t bother with optimising chrome performance on any platforms. Even their pixels and Chromebooks. It’s just not a factor for them.
I use a Motorola Edge+ 2023 with a 5100 mAh battery. The iPhone 15 Plus has a 4383 mAh battery which is about as close as I can get in comparisons. I run Firefox as my preferred browser AND for YouTube playback with uBlock Origin for a couple hours a day and it still lasts me a whole day. I normally only need to charge it to full in the morning while I eat breakfast and will normally get a low battery alert at 20% around 8pm. That’s about 12 hours with pretty heavy use.
The iPhone 15 plus was given an active use score of 16.5 hours by gsm arena. So regardless, you’re charging about once a day.
What?? Apple has a huge vested interest in keeping their browser the only option. That’s why it took regulation to force them to do otherwise
If their web browser is too good, they risk losing out on app store money because people will just use web apps when they can. So they intentionally hold back the web, directly for profit reasons. Fuck apple.
Many apps are just web app packaged up in an app. Even on iOS. This wouldn’t work for apple.
It not like people on Android are using web apps significantly more than iOS. Often on android websites are artificially limiting what you can do on the web app to push you to download their app (many of which are this packaging).
The biggest hold on web apps is websites.
Apple had to be forced to allow other browsers to be default because they get billions from Google each year. All because safari defaults to Google search. This is what would motivate apple to restrict the default web browser.
Changing the web engine isn’t rely a factor in web apps. Safari is very capable. Websites generally work on safari, many that don’t work right on firefox. This isn’t because Firefox or safari is bad, but because Devs develop solely for chrome.
I couldn’t even begin to correct every misunderstanding you have. Even if I could it would take minimum of an hour. You shouldn’t be so confident.
I just read your comment again. I don’t think you said one thing that is true. Wow…
Yes I fully agree. Even if other browsers used 5x the battery, most would never notice
… So in your mind people are using web browsers for hours and hours on their phones, enough to notice battery life issues? I question that. Maybe 2% of people would. But my guess is many of those would value features that Safari doesn’t have. As a web developer, that browser is beyond trash. Maybe it doesn’t drain batteries as quickly because it flat out doesn’t support huge swathes of w3c approved features.
Many apps are just a web page packaged into an app. So safaris engine is being used their as well. So it’s impact is bigger than just browsing.
And you think this somehow prevents apple from taking a 30% cut?