The iPad Pro needs a full Browser

And why it will probably never get one.

One of the recent announcements from Apple for the iPadOS15 release are the changes to Safari.  I am all in favor of changes to Safari.  Now don't get me wrong here; I use Safari, and I use it for a couple of reasons.  The browser works ok as mobile browsers go but its integration with the password manager is very good.

I have tried using Firefox and Edge on the iPad, and while both worked well as browsers, their integration with the password manager was clunky at best.

So what changes have been made to Safari? Well mostly cosmetic changes and the addition of tab groups. This makes me sad as what they should have done is put the full browser on the iPad.  It certainly has enough processing horse power to run a full browser.  Or if it is not possible to port the full browser over, how about adding some of the full browser capabilities. 

There are two reasons I have for wanting a full browser:

• import and export of bookmarks
• Correct rendering of some web sites

I have a couple of suspected reasons why this has not yet and most likely never will be implemented.  Currently to import and export bookmarks, you have to do this with the full version of the browser and that means you have to do it on a Mac.  I have written about this in a previous post; in the past I have spun up an AWS server to migrate bookmarks from Edge to Firefox because you cannot do this on an iPad.

Recently when I moved from Firefox to Safari, I had to create an account on my wife's Macbook and do the migration there, and have that sync back to the iPad.  A complete waste of time of course but that is the only way to do it.  This sort of thing is how Apple ensure that you purchase a Mac of some sort to support your iOS devices (among other reasons of course).

Which leads me to why the iPad will most likely never have a full browser.  A full browser will in all likelihood eliminate the need for many of the apps in the app store.  I wonder how much revenue Apple would lose if that happened?  If I can use the web site then why do I need the apps?  In fact my iPad has very few apps on it, as I use the browser for almost all the apps I might otherwise have from the app store. In most cases the experience is much better than the apps.  My banking, investing, email, project management etc. are all done using web portals, and not iPad apps. 

Frankly putting a full browser on an iPad effectively turns in into Apples version of a Chromebook because at that point, you only really need the browser.  At that point, the only difference between the iPad and Chromebook would be some of the content creation apps, and gaming.  And as my use case features neither of those, I could use a Chromebook. 

I have reviewed Chromebooks in the past and while I like the concept, I still think the iPad is better.  But you can see the danger here for Apple.  So I am disappointed in Apple for not making Safari better on the iPad but at the same time I see the danger in them doing so and a potential loss of revenue, that they may not want to take just so that I can import and export my bookmarks.