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Comment by ajross | Hacker News Reader

Can someone clarify? I thought replacing the browser (actually even stronger: rendering web content using anything but the browser) was one of the items forbidden by the app store guidelines?

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While Chrome for iOS will include a number of key features, including incognito mode and tab syncing across devices, the browser will still use Apple's WebKit-based engine required by the App Store developer guidelines. It also will lack the Nitro JavaScript engine that Apple uses to speed Safari's performance.

Which is why I still like Android as a mobile platform. Google gives users a choice, Apple makes you live within their walled garden.

V8 requires just-in-time compilation, which is not allowed on iOS for security-related reasons.

So, no V8 or Nitro, but Chrome/Chromium uses Webkit, so renders should be the same (just slower) right?

Well, Mobile Safari's webkit version will usually be somewhat behind the latest six-weekly Chrome release cycle.

The WebKit on iOS is rather different from all other WebKit ports in various ways (e.g. there are various -webkit CSS properties that are only supported by WebKit on iOS and not WebKit anywhere else). And of course there are lots of Chrome features.

So the renders may or may not be the same, depending. And various DOM features that are part of UIWebView won't be the same (e.g. any DOM or HTML feature that Chrome has but Mobile Safari does not will be missing).

  still use Apple's WebKit-based engine required by the App Store developer guidelines

This is pretty retarded, and should really be looked at by the DoJ. To hobble all web browsers like this is something that even Microsoft, at the height of their dominance, didn't even attempt.

Apple isn't dominant like Microsoft was, though (though I'll be honest that it looked for a year or two like they would be -- I'm still wiping the sweat from my brow over that). It's not enough to be anticompetetive under antitrust law, you have to be a monopoly too. Apple's hobbled third party browser environment isn't hindering android adoption, basically.

> I thought replacing the browser (actually even stronger: rendering web content using anything but the browser) was one of the items forbidden by the app store guidelines?

The real case is somewhat more complex:

1. It is not possible to replace the built-in browser (there are no hooks to have an other application handle e.g. `http` links), but it is perfectly possible to release (and sell) a "browser" application through which websites can be accessed

2. It is allowed to render any content, but it is not allowed to execute downloaded code save through the built-in interpreter, so a browser can't run javascript code locally. On the other hand, it's perfectly possible to have a "thin-client" browser and do all rendering on a remote server, that's what Opera Mini does.

It's still the system rendering and JavaScript engines.

Edit: Which, from the vast majority of users' perspectives, are functionally identical.

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