Upcoming European Union regulations could force Apple to abandon its long-standing requirement that all iPhone and iPad browsers use the same WebKit engine as Safari, Mozilla Chairman and CEO Mitchell Baker recently spoke with The Verge in an interview with The Verge to discuss this issue.
Apple is now requiring all third-party browsers to use the same WebKit engine as Safari. This means that all iPhone and iPad browsers, such as Chrome and Firefox, are effectively the same as Safari from a performance standpoint.
However, Europe’s Digital Marketplace Act may force Apple to compromise on this issue. It’s possible that Apple will drop the mandatory WebKit requirement in iOS 17 this fall. In fact it was reported last week that both Google and Mozilla are working on browsers for the iOS / iPadOS platform that use a non-WebKit engine.
When asked about these reports, Mitchell Baker explained that a non-WebKit-based browser for iPhone and iPad is something Mozilla has been working on: “We’ve been looking at what we could do if we had the ability to deliver the product we wanted. So we’ve been focusing on that.”
Mitchell Baker didn’t say anything very specific, however, but Mitchell Baker also noted that people are “at least more willing” to consider switching browsers on cell phones than on other platforms.
