Relax, it's iPhone

07/05/2023

Joining the party is our first working iDevice. Previous entries were already outdated on acquisition; two original iPads and a 3GS did not cut it for the early-to-mid 2010s. Today, thanks to strange circumstances, we have the top-of-the-line flagship of 2021, having skipped eleven generations and nine iOS versions. With this (secondhand) jewel, evaluations on Apple hardware is finally possible.

However, Apple's WebKit is one of if not the worst browser engine. Many macOS users use Chrome in place of Safari. How? Steve Jobs's original intention for iPhone OS in 2007 was for third-parties to make web applications for Safari, but we later got the App Store instead for distribution of native, third-party applications. Later, Apple became conservative towards WebKit's development allegedly to pull developers into their platform. So Google forked WebKit as Blink and became king, leaving WebKit in the janitor's.

But before installing Chrome into your iPhone, we would like to remind you that WebKit is currently the only engine allowed in App Store applications. This means that those browsing the web, full or embedded, must be equally dumbed down. If PWAs become mainstream while WebKit remains immature, iPhone sales may plummet. However, thanks to antitrust pressure, Apple may be reversing their anti-competitive web engine policy while readying for the resulting competition.

In the meantime, testing J-Card Template and NET-Viewer with Safari (iOS 16.5.1) revealed issues with CSS flexbox direction changes that can be resolved by rotating the screen. You can reproduce this by toggling Reverse Panels while in landscape. Everything else worked okay.

We will not be pursuing for presence in the App Store; PWAs work fine, just as Jobs originally intended.

Sadly, the aforementioned iPads and 3GS turned swollen due to internal gaseous release inside their batteries, thus are no longer safe, so they had to be let go. Thankfully, our original iPhone still lives, albeit behind an activation wall.