[shifuimam]

Apparently four alternatives to Safari have appeared on the iPhone App Store...

http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009/01/...arty-browsers/

This could mean interesting things if it's true.

[JKT]

I doubt it - there have actually been alternative WebKit-based browsers available since day one of the App store, but built-in to apps with other functionality. E.g. NetNewsWire and 1password are two examples on my own iPhone. What is new here is that they are permitting stand alone versions of WebKit browsers.

If it's anything at all, it is only a slight change of stance by Apple rather than anything dramatic. I seriously doubt we are going to see Opera, Firefox and IE available for iPhones any time soon, if ever... unless they use WebKit as their rendering engines.

[slugslugslug]

Is that an official part of the developer agreement, that you can't build a browser based on any other rendering engine? I don't remember the details from when the App Store was first announced, but I keep hearing that condition repeated.

Anyway, while it's pretty cool that people are allowed to build browsers qua browsers, their usefulness seems hamstrung by the fact that you can't set a default browser for the whole iPhone OS in your prefs. So in the occasional app or not-so-occasional e-mail that has an http:// link, you'll always be sent to Mobile Safari, even if you prefer to do your browsing in some new app.