Safari is way ahead of Chrome on mobile, but it’s not fun

summary

• Safari offers better scaling and zooming options than Chrome for a desktop browsing experience on mobile.
• Google’s iOS apps, such as Chrome, offer a better user experience than their Android counterparts.
• Despite the superiority of Apple’s Safari on iOS, Google’s Chrome for Android remains in the past.

Google is an internet giant. Chrome is the world’s largest search engine, the world’s most popular video platform, and the world’s most used web browser. But as much as Chrome is on the desktop, controlling Android’s direction and keeping mobile at the core of its business, Chrome on mobile has somehow remained in the past.

In searching for the lowest common denominator to satisfy thousands of different variations of screen sizes, hardware profiles, and internet speeds, Google has left power users with more to offer. There are plenty of alternative browsers for Android, but Google doesn’t have to look far for a great browsing experience. Look at the experience Apple offers with Safari.

Google makes better apps for iOS than Android

Comparing the experience of both apps on iOS, Safari is much better than Chrome. It’s not that Chrome for Android is better. Google Chrome for iOS is ostensibly better than Chrome for Android, and Safari is better overall. It’s not just Chrome. Many of Google’s apps have a better user experience than their Android counterparts.

Safari vs. Chrome: Two peas in a pod

The biggest difference between the two browsers is the underlying rendering engine. Chrome uses the Blink rendering engine (forked from WebKit in 2013), while Safari uses WebKit. The exception to the above is Apple devices. Apple requires all browsers to use his WebKit (although this has changed in the EU as a result of DMA). As a result, you’ll need two different Chrome experiences depending on your device.

The underlying rendering engine also approaches things differently, resulting in a different browsing experience. Blink uses a multi-process architecture that separates rendering from the browser process, while WebKit uses a single process that combines the two. Both browsers use WebCore at their core, so the difference lies in each company’s implementation.

Why Safari is better than Chrome on mobile

The screen got bigger, but the experience didn’t get better.

Now that we’ve covered the differences and key similarities, why is Safari better than Chrome? Many of them are separate browsers and instead depend on the features you want from each browser. .

I love flip phones, but more on that later, but even though I have a much larger screen in my pocket, I still pull out my iPhone to browse websites. I am. why? In one word: scaling.

Safari’s biggest feature is that you can zoom in and out on websites just like you would on your computer. Whether you’re looking to zoom out (or in) for a better visual experience or you’re tired of the mobile experience most websites offer, Safari’s scalability gives you the perfect mobile experience.

The gallery above shows the same website in Safari on iOS with four zoom-out options: 100%, 85%, 75%, and 50%.

By comparison, Chrome offers one option to accomplish the same thing. That is to request a desktop website. This is a holdover from his web days past, when mobile development often relied on entirely different mobile websites, as opposed to the current approach of using the same website with responsive design.

With responsive design, your visual experience is based on the width of your viewfinder. This means that Chrome’s desktop website requests feature has no effect, but changing the zoom level in Safari will change the viewfinder width. result? Safari provides a desktop browsing experience on mobile, while Chrome only provides a mobile experience.

Looking to a foldable future

For most people, the Chrome mobile experience is perfectly fine. But when you consider the price of foldable smartphones like the OnePlus Open and Galaxy Z Fold 5, both of which cost more than $1,500 with the value proposition of a large display for viewing and working on the go, Chrome for Android is not enough.

If that’s not enough, consider the best Android tablet status as well. Compete with the iPad and deliver a better Safari experience. Chrome on Android tablets has the same features as Chrome on Android phones. The Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra has a 14.6-inch display and is powerful enough to offer a full desktop experience with DeX, but is limited to the mobile version of Chrome.

A few days ago, Apple reportedly delayed its foldable plans until early 2027. I’ve written in the past that the foldables market needs Apple, and this delay means Google will have less momentum to improve Android’s browsing experience.

Should Apple make Safari for Android?

The only exception to the above statement is if Apple chooses to develop Safari for Android. Safari was available on Windows PCs from 2008 until it was silently discontinued in 2012 (less than two years after the launch of the original iPad), but Apple never brought the browser to Android.

why? There are probably a myriad of reasons, but Google and Apple’s commercial relationship could very well be a factor. Google pays Apple billions of dollars a year to be his iOS default search engine. Last year, Google CEO Sundar Pichai admitted that Google pays Apple 36% of the revenue it earns from Safari, which equates to about $18 billion.

It has not been confirmed (or even reported) that Apple has considered starting development on Safari for Android. Still, even if there had been an internal debate about doing so, the commercial value of the relationship with Google probably would have prevented this from turning into a serious incident.

The conundrum remains between using the iPhone 15 Pro Max, which has a larger display and advanced browser, or an even larger display, which in my eyes seems to offer inferior browsing. For me, the choice is clear. Until Google makes a better Chrome for Android, I’ll be using my iPhone.

The only question that remains is which one comes first. Apple’s Foldable, or the better Chrome for Android. I know which way my money is.

Nirave is the creator, evangelist, and founder of House of Tech, which focuses on covering the best health and technology products. Since suffering a heart attack at the age of 33, I have focused on how data can be used to improve our health and ultimately help us live longer, more rewarding lives.please follow him Instagram, threadand YouTube Check out the latest updates on his sleep and health journey.He can also be found at hot tech.