A series of screenshots have surfaced documenting Google’s development effort to bring Chrome’s full Blink browser engine to iOS against current App Store rules.
Last month, Google quietly unveiled a new effort to port the Blink browser engine — used by Chrome and other Chromium-based browsers like Edge and Opera — to iOS. Under Apple’s current App Store policies, all web browsers for iPhones and iPads are required to use the built-in version of WebKit, essentially making all browsers act like Safari.
While these rules are still in effect, Google has made it clear that it does not have plans to launch any type of Blink-based browser onto the App Store. Even so, there’s been a recent groundswell of support for Apple to ease its restrictions on the App Store and on browsers. Google could potentially push such a shift if it ports Blink to iOS, thereby showing the benefits of Blink/Chrome versus WebKit/Safari on iOS while also making a potential switch to a full-fledged Chrome browser easier down the line.
In the weeks since the project was announced, Google and Igalia (an open source consultancy and frequent Chromium contributor) have been developing a simplified “content_shell” browser up and running in iOS and fixing issues along the way.
As part of the bug hunt process, a group of developers have released screenshots of the minimal Blink-based browser running on an iPhone 12. The images show the browser working as expected, with no obvious issues in the site’s appearance. Above the page contents, you can see a simple blue bar containing the address bar and typical browser controls like back, forward, and refresh.
From these work-in-progress screenshots, it seems clear that the Blink for iOS project is already making significant progress, but it’s clearly a prototype not meant to be used like a full web browser. The next biggest step that Google has laid out is to ensure this version of Blink/Chromium for iOS passes all of the many tests that ensure all aspects of a browser are working correctly.
For users who might want to get a headstart on figuring out what changes a website may need to get prepared for a potential Blink/Chromium browser for iOS, or if they simply want to try it out for themselves, Google offers official instructions on how to build the prototype for yourself, though they’ll need a Mac to do so.
Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.
Via 9to5Google and chromium.googlesource.com