Safari Mobile to Support Extensions while Chrome Does Not Yet

Apple outruns Google in this battle of the browser war

One of the loudest new features of iOS 15, scheduled to be out this fall, is support of extensions in Safari. Yes, in the mobile Safari. It’s a bigger breakthrough for Apple than it might seem, otherwise Opera, Mozilla, or even Google might do it sooner. Especially Google who originated the very idea.

When Google Chrome for PC introduced extensions, it revolutionized the concept of a browser. From that moment, you could access services in background mode, receive news from select sources in real time, store passwords, block ads, even download files and save pictures and videos you’re not supposed to. This even led to ChromeOS and Chromebooks, and Apple had nothing to accept the challenge… until WWDC 2021.

The breakthrough may owe a lot to the new ARM-based M1 chipsets by Apple. Introducing this architecture to laptops and desktops made apps for it way more compatible with mobile devices. What these extensions will definitely need is redesign for smaller screens, especially for iPhone, given how closer iPadOS gets to desktop view.

So far, there are just three extensions that have been tested to some extent, to prove the very idea fruitful. They are Grammar.ly, a grammar checker, Honey, a coupon aggregator, and Momentum, a better tab manager. But we can expect hundreds of them before 2021 ends.