App Store welcomes third-party browsers… for now
Well, well, well. Looks like Apple might be getting a bit less draconian with its App Store approval process as four third-party web browsers went up for sale as of last night. Running from free to $1.99, the most promising of the lot looks to be the $0 Edge Browser which allows you to use up all 3.5″ inches of your iPhone or iPod Touch’s screen by ridding that screen hog of a nav bar. In the past Apple has pulled quite a few promising apps because they “violated the terms of the SDK” but often times it seemed like a plain case of “please don’t make us look bad because you improved upon our designs/are trying to add a feature we clearly don’t care about.” Because of this we imagine that quite a lot of anxious people will rush to grab the new browsers out of fear that Apple will pull them, but perhaps the fact that four were released at once can be taken as a sign that positive change is coming to the App Store in terms of the application approval process. That or Apple is just eager to show off what people can do with its SDK to those young punks that hang with the WebOS SDK crowd.
this is nice
hopefully they do this with every worthy app
Could it be competition from WebOS?
Gizmodo has already reported that these browsers have to be based off Safari, and pretty much states that they all are Safari at heart.
these are all crAPPS (couldn’t help myself) flash would be nice though
No they don’t, they are based on Webkit which is not even a freggin browser it’s a rendering engine, Almost all new browsers are based on Webkit even the upcoming Palm browser uses it.
I guess the new palm pre browser is gaining steam, no wonder apple is bending backward now.
I guess this is their way to try to keep up and try to stay ahead of the compition with other os based on webkit. Android had two other browsers availalbe free of charge in the market for a while now. I really hope that the new palm can gain the needed respect from the wireless customers and becomes a top seller. Apple was the first ones out and the gap between the phones seems to get smaller with each new phone that gets released
I just did a search for browser and while Edge Browser shows in the initial text list, it doesn’t appear in the actual app list. Anyone else finding this to be the case?
Same here, maybe we jumped the gun, apple’s already removing them as we speak?
Anyone have some screenshots of these in action, cuz my iphone is at the house not being used, but this might make me take it out the box!
they arent based on safari dummy safari is based on webkit… and so are these.. webkit is open source, free, and not made by apple.. opera is the only true browser thats good and doesnt use webkit right now..
Only webmate tabbed browsing is available in the app store for the iPod touch generation 1. Hopefully they will add the rest later as there is no reason why they shouldn’t work.
I’ve been checking and I don’t think it works if you are in region outside of the US
Hopefully Opera Software are reading this, then we might see a REAL browser on the Apple iPhone range (complete with Opera Link bookmark synchronization!
)…
Not that it’d actually convince me to buy an iPhone or anything, I’m holding out for a REAL smartphone – a webOS-powered device (if they ever decide to release it Down Under that it!)…