iOS 8 Grants New Power to Rival Browsers
iOS 8 gives third-party software access to several Safari advantages
Apple has decided to stop hogging some of the performance it once reserved for Safari on iOS. The company for years has built software called WebKit that's used to display Web pages and run Web apps. WebKit is at the heart of Safari, but Apple also supplies a separate version that other apps on iOS 7 can use. That's handy for developers who want to create user interfaces based on Web technology such as JavaScript and HTML, and it's essential for Google Chrome and Opera Coast, because Apple prohibits anyone from bringing their own browser engines to iOS.
There's been a bit of a sore spot for those third-party developers, though: Safari gets extra privileges that mean it can run JavaScript faster than the WebKit that third-party software uses. But at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference, WebKit engineer Anders Carlsson said that's no longer the case in iOS 8.
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