
Microsoft Edge for iOS and Android: What developers need to know - robin_reala
https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2017/10/05/microsoft-edge-ios-android-developer/
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wvenable
Look at that user-agent string:

    
    
        Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 8.0; Pixel XL Build/OPP3.170518.006) 
        AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/58.0.3029.0 Mobile Safari/537.36 EdgA/41.1.35.1

~~~
chainsaw10
I'm curious as to what good reason there is to have the Android user-agent
string contain "Mobile Safari"...

The rest of it looks like fairly standard user-agent string antics.

~~~
smorks
chrome on android also has Mobile Safari in their UA

~~~
chainsaw10
Ah, okay, that makes more sense.

I guess maybe it was to enable touch on some websites?

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yvoschaap
Tldr; Edge on iOS is a WebKit engine wrapper and on Android it’s the Blink
engine.

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ewzimm
The most interesting part is that they're redefining what "Edge" means. I
appreciate the coherent philosophy of working with the OS rather than against
it. Edge isn't a particular browser anymore, it's the edge between the OS and
Microsoft's vision of web services.

~~~
201709User
Edge means offloading cloud computation to thick clients.

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dafrankenstein2
"The app/OS identifier is chosen so that it does not contain the string
“Edge.” This is to avoid triggering any existing UA detection logic that might
accidentally decide that these browsers are Microsoft Edge for Windows 10,
resulting in a desktop site or something equally confusing."

So this is the reason behind "EdgiOS" and "EdgA"

~~~
Navarr
When will this hell end

~~~
kyriakos
when web developers stop relying on user agent strings and start doing feature
detection instead.

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zihotki
tldr: > On iOS, we are using the WebKit engine, as provided by iOS in the
WKWebView control.

> On Android, we are using the Blink rendering engine from the Chromium
> browser project.

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OrwellianChild
What on earth could possibly be the point to this? Bookmark sharing between
mobile and desktop Edge? Is that what we have to thank for more fragmentation?

~~~
NiveaGeForce
I use desktop Edge and welcome bookmark and reading list sharing, since Google
refuses to adopt modern Windows standards and integration with their Windows
products such as Chrome, resulting in a sub-par Windows experience on modern
touch & pen enabled Windows devices and many frustrated users, not to mention
worse battery life than needed.

[https://np.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/6hozrf/new_surface_...](https://np.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/6hozrf/new_surface_pro_chrome_beyond_frustrating/)

[https://np.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/6o8t9m/what_interne...](https://np.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/6o8t9m/what_internet_browsers_do_you_guys_use/)

Google is notorious for their half-baked Windows support

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14835776](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14835776)

Chrome has nothing that's on par with the Edge's built-in "Set Tabs Aside"
session manager (even retaining tab history)

[https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2017/01/31/micro...](https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2017/01/31/microsoft-
edge-helps-organize-web/)

among a few other things [https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/microsoft-
edge](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/microsoft-edge)

and more coming in the Fall Creators Update

And since Edge is a modern UI UWP app, it has better fullscreen multi-tasking

[https://np.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/65t3tg/so_edge_ha...](https://np.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/65t3tg/so_edge_has_fullscreen/dgd496f/)

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sxates
I'm not clear what the benefit of using Edge is on these devices if the
underlying engine is just Webkit and Blink?

~~~
ben174
> Microsoft Edge for iOS and Android brings familiar features like your
> Favorites, Reading List, New Tab Page and Reading View across your PC and
> phone, so, no matter the device, your browsing goes with you. But what makes
> Microsoft Edge really stand out is the ability to continue on your PC, which
> enables you to immediately open the page you’re looking at right on your
> PC—or save it to work on later.

If you use Edge on your desktop, this would be a good companion app. Similar
to Chrome on iOS.

