The iPad is impossible to use for everything, IMO. I use a MacBook Air as my home server because the iPad doesn’t have a real backup system or a chromium browser.
I can use an iPad for most things because Google Workspace seems to run normally in Webkit. I’ve never had a single problem running it in Safari or Chrome on my iPads or Mac. I keep GW open in Chrome on my iPad so I’m not logged into Safari when using that browser.
Yes. I only use GW apps to add and review data in Sheets and Docs. I normally create my documents in Safari or Chrome. The EU is now forcing Apple to allow Chromium and Firefox browsers so maybe the US will do the same at some point.
“WebKit is the web browser engine used by Safari, Mail, App Store, and many other apps on macOS, iOS, and Linux.”
I wonder if one reason Apple refuses to allow Chromium on iOS/iPadOS is they don’t want something else to maintain. Webkit is a favorite target of hackers, etc. and Apple is constantly having to patch it.
Seeing that you are heading toward teaching, remember this incident in the future when a student gives you an after-the-fact report that they could not get their browser to work in order to submit the assignment on time. This is the new “the dog ate my homework” standard.
Nothing wrong with your choice. But many of us here don’t have that luxury.
I feel like this is a bit harsh. Someone wanting the iPad to have the ability for browsers with other rendering engines? We’ve seen that request from multiple on this board alone.
I certainly would love that feature, as stated earlier. And it’s pretty common for folks to want things from Apple to make their work/lives better. If there is a way for someone to download a browser and use it, while folks who just want Safari can use that, I don’t see the harm.
Just today their testing software bugged out. I am certainly empathetic to them with it.
One thing I hate about Chromebooks is how much they hold their hands (iPads are also guilty of this). So reliant on technology and yet cannot function on a “Real” computer.
Why would Apple have to maintain the Chromium and Firefox engines? Isn’t that up to the developers of those browsers and engines? They’re allowed on macOS and afaik Apple doesn’t do anything to maintain them there.
Most modern Chromebooks can run Linux apps (even Firefox!) from the Debian repositories. But institutional Chromebooks are typically locked down to prevent that and/or have very low-end processors and limited RAM and storage.
I have to say, I’m all for interoperability of messaging apps. I remember when email could only be exchanged with others on the same service, it was a nightmare.
WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app in the world and, it appears, in the US. I think it’s time we all started working together.
I don’t think Framework makes a Chromebook. Afaik they all run Linux or Windows.
I really liked Linux and found it much better than Windows, but it didn’t run all the software I needed, especially MS Office. That’s how I ended up using Macs.
Yeah, I switched to MacOS in the Vista era so I am far more familiar with macOS over both Linux and modern windows. But ive been playing with Raspberry Pi’s and am intrigued at using Linux in a full laptop or desktop.
I make websites, so I feel like I have a little bit more inside knowledge on how browsers end up getting more support than others, and it’s usually about what developers like to use while they work. Chrome is much nicer for developing with than Safari is.
Beyond that, though, I’d say Apple’s strategy of “we don’t allow Chromium on iOS and that will force people to build for WebKit” just hasn’t panned out. They’ve kept this strategy going from iPhone 1 to iOS/iPadOS 18. In that time, they successfully killed Flash. Everybody transitioned to HTML5. If the same were going to be true for Chromium and WebKit, it would have happened already.
I have the same concerns as many about Google building moats around the entire infrastructure of the internet with Chrome, but I don’t see a way to change culture on that. It just is what it is, and as recent internet drama proves (what with YouTube shutting down web wrapper apps and Mullenweg claiming he “owns” Wordpress.org), what we nerds assume is true about the open web is not going to be true much longer. If it’s true at all anymore.