WebKit has met its match, as the prototype Blink schools Apple's well-worn browser engine and hints at the future of web browsing on iOS.
WebKit, Apple's well-used browser rendering engine, has not had to deal with alternatives for quite some time. Even after the EU's Digital Markets Act changed the game and forced Apple to allow others to be used on iOS, via BrowserEngineKit.
However, a LinkedIn post from Microsoft Edge Web Platform Group Product Manager Kyle Pflug on June 15 indicates that a change is in progress. All based on a Chromium project using the Blink browser engine that dates back to February 2023.
In the post, Pflug explains that the Edge web platform team has helped contribute to Chromium to create the Blink-based prototype. It's the same rendering engine that the Edge browser uses on other platforms.
A development build of the prototype browser was tried out against a number of browser benchmarks, and put against Safari. All were based on an average of three runs, all on an iPhone 17 Pro Max running iOS 26.5.1.
In Speedometer 3.1's Web Responsiveness test, Blink managed a score of 49.27 versus 38.3 for WebKit, a 28.6% difference. For Jetstream 3's JavaScript and Wasm throughput testing, the gap was narrower at 306.35 for Blink and 270.9 for WebKit.
Results of testing prototype Blink vs WebKit on an iPhone 17 Pro Max - Image Credit: Kyle Pflug/Microsoft Edge
Lastly, Motionmark 1.3.1's graphics rendering test of canvas graphics saw a score of 4,773.52 for Blink, 4,673.68 for WebKit. This, too, was a very narrow victory for the Chromium project.
Curious to see how fast it was, Pflug went to an Apple Store to try Speedometer on an M5 iPad Pro running Safari. On that hardware, he still saw a slower score of 45.7.
Beyond speed, but also not public
While the benchmarks are a good way to check the prototype, other tests were carried out to check against so-called pain points. This list, on a "Top Developer Needs dashboard, includes elements such as corner-shape, handling squircles and notches properly in CSS.
Interpolate-size() and calc-size() is the automatic animating to height in CSS, while Temporal is referred to as "sane data & time handling" in JavaScript.
Pflug concludes the post by pointing out that this is still a research prototype and tests based on his personal device, not lab results. It's also not a product announcement, with no hint as to when a browser using Blink would ever emerge from development.
He goes on to say that the tests do at least show the prototype offers some real competition to the established WebKit when it comes to performance.
This is not the only Chromium-related drumbeat to have occurred this month. On June 4, a Chromium blog post declared that it had set new records in browser benchmarks thanks to Chrome optimizations.
In both cases, they are warning shots in the direction of WebKit. While Safari still dominates on iPhone, it's possible for Chrome or even Microsoft's Edge browser to take some of the mobile browser market by providing a faster and better browsing experience.
It would require a lot more than just that to pull away brand-loyal consumers from Safari. But at the very least, it would show that browser makers have options, instead of just using WebKit like everybody else.
