Following the European Union’s mandatory requirement for mobile phones and other products to use USB-C as a charging interface, its “Digital Market Law” may also force Apple to relax restrictions on third-party software stores to log in to the iPhone, and browsers can only use the WebKit engine. The above restrictions may be forced to be lifted as soon as 2024, and Google is said to also plan to launch a new iOS browser using its own engine.
Forced to use WebKit
Google’s Chromium developers are preparing an experimental browser for iOS that uses Google’s Blink engine, according to a report from The Register. Due to the restrictions of the App Store program review, all iOS browsers must use the WebKit engine, and Google is currently unable to submit and put it on the shelves. Therefore, whether it is Google’s Chrome or Microsoft’s Edge, although both Windows and macOS versions use Chromium, their iOS versions inevitably use WebKit, making performance similar to Safari.
Wait for Apple to remove the restriction
Once Apple decides to remove the restriction that the browser must use the WebKit engine due to new EU regulations or other reasons, Google can seize the opportunity to launch a new version of the browser with its own engine.
Source: macrumors
