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Microsoft Brings Edge To Android and IOS (venturebeat.com)
An anonymous reader writes: If you want more proof that Microsoft is embracing Android and iOS, boy, do we have it for you today. The company has launched Edge for iOS in preview, promised Edge for Android is coming soon, and launched Microsoft Launcher for Android in public preview. Edge for iOS preview is available via Apple's TestFlight and is limited, per Apple's rules, to 10,000 users. Microsoft is inviting Windows Insiders in the U.S. to sign up here. Android users can also sign up at that same link -- the preview will hit the Google Play Store in the coming weeks. Microsoft is hoping to release Edge for Android and iOS out of preview "later this year." The Microsoft Launcher is available in preview for English users in the United States on Google Play. Microsoft promises to bring it to other markets "over time" and launch it out of preview "later this year," as well.
Any average user most likely just sticks with the browser that comes with the phone. Most "power" users won't use Edge anyway. I can't see a large base of installs on iOS or Android for this.
Sent from my TARDIS
What is the point of using Edge instead of Firefox or phone's built in browser? If Edge does not even provide compatibility with the crappy corporate intranet pages, why would one use it?
I don't see anyone rushing out to use a browser on Android that nobody want to use on the desktop
I don't know anyone who uses Edge on Windows, why would anyone willingly choose to download and install it on a different OS?
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Nobody likes our browser? Let's make it available for more platforms that we've never really supported. That's the ticket!
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
The way Micro$oft usually works isn't embrace usually followed by extinguish?
Whatever browser comes out for iOS means it's rendered internally via WebKit.
#DeleteFacebook
I'm sorry Microsoft, what did I do to deserve this?
Nothing wrong with releasing software, but it needs a reason for existence. When Chrome was released for Windows, the point was speed, minimalistic UI and automatic, hassle free updates. Will Edge automatically reformat desktop pages for mobile? Will Microsoft launcher automatically synchronize apps and widgets across devices? If not, they are wasting a lot of time for user base that will not be significant enough for business.
I'm not up to speed, but isn't every browser on iOS just a wrapper around UIWebView/WKWebView? The only reason for Microsoft to release "Edge" is for exposure.
But... all is not lost. There's an up side as for a user: having several Safaris around to group tabs by interest is actually useful.
"Everybody's naked underneath" -- The Doctor
I am not going to get it. It has nothing over any other web browsers. The launcher I do like though. It is the only one I ever found to be very customizable. On a different note, I broke Edge so it doesnt work on my work system. I wish I knew how I killed it.
The millennial that doesn't like most of the stuff designed for millennials.
If they want Edge usage to grow and it ever being popular they had to do this since their mobile OS totally floundered.
I wish they also had hard competition on the desktop, maybe then they would have to reverse course on some of the stupid things they did with Windows 10.
Why? Are there really people who are going to use it?
they expect at least 80% of their current Zune-on-Android and Zune-on-iOS users to switch {...}
What ? At least 4 of them ?
That's some optimism !
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Chrome has never been fast and UI is almost non existed, not minimum.
The millennial that doesn't like most of the stuff designed for millennials.
One good thing is that Google lists number of downloads for an app. It will be interesting to compare results on a platform where the use of a browser is not forced and it is uninstallable. Once there is a number posted, and after a few months you can subtract out the number of MS employees, you should get an idea of how many hundred people are masochists with no regard for security. I am betting less than 10K.
I've found Firefox for Android to be awful. It has been slow and bloated any time I've used it. It also uses up the battery very quickly. I'm probably not alone in finding this. That's why I'm looking forward to using Edge on Android. It can't be any worse than Firefox for Android is, and at least it's not Chrome.
A limit of 10,000 users for all the Edge users on Android should be plenty.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Will we have to start using it to install Chrome on those platforms too?
I see the notifications coming "Microsoft Edge runs faster with Windows Phone"
At face value, I agree it looks silly; but knowing MS, it's probably part of some plot to control more on the other platforms. I suspect they plan some kind of tie-in or forced bundling with some other product or service they plan to release. For example, maybe MS-Office for Android/iOS will intentionally run faster or better on Edge. The current Edge releases for portables is probably just a way to get a handful users to beta-test it for them.
Table-ized A.I.
they will corrupt them and rot them from the inside,
microsoft is going to have to keep and hold a nice long track record of benevolence and goodwill rather than the corporate bullying & greed they have had for the last 20 years before i change my mind about them,
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Right when I was starting to finally feel confident in MSFT they screw up again. And again. And again. How are they so far removed from reality?
Can anyone recommend an inexpensive Android tablet to check out Edge and maybe get into Android development?
I use Edge on Win10. I do also have Chrome, Firefox, and Opera installed. With Opera being my fallback browser on the super rare occasion Edge fails me. The only time Edge failed me was actually the website checking for the browser type and just displaying a "not supported" message instead. I wonder if Edge would have done fine or not with that site. On mobile, the articles say that mobile Edge is a wrapper around the native browser SDKs with Microsoft services added. That's fine to me. That means it'll work just as well as Chrome/iOS mobile and as a bonus, I can start reading a site on the mobile and then continuing from where I left on my desktop (or visa versa). One thing to note: Win10 Mobile's Edge running on a Nokia 616 phone (1gb ram and 4 slow cores) runs giga-circles around Chrome on Android 7.1.2 on my Nexus 5x with 2 gbs of RAM and 6(?) cores. Competition is good. It made MS create a good browser. In my opinion a *very* good browser.
The first step in changing the internet back to the dark ages of "only works with browser X" is insuring that "browser X" is available on all platforms. Expect all of MS online services to start adding more proprietary "only works with Edge" extensions in the coming years.
They really have no interest in embracing anything.
Nobody uses Edge on Windows, so why would anyone use it on Android or IOS? I can back up my claim: I work at a Microsoft shop, and everyone here uses IE (for corporate stuff that doesn't work in Edge, Chrome, or FF) or they use Chrome. Our Microsoft Premier support rep doesn't use Edge. My parents got a new Windows 10 computer, and after complaining about the browser I told them to install Chrome.
Edge has all the problems that Windows 8 had. It is a desktop browser, but it works like a tablet browser. The menus are hard to find and hard to navigate. Things like "favorites" are buried. It's also unresponsive: Try visiting a slow site, then typing a new URL in while the page loads. The browser will lock-up until the slow page loads, then it will either navigate successfully to the new URL, or ignore what you typed in. It's just plain buggy. Which is a shame because it is, technologically, better than IE. It has better support for web standards and is much faster. But if Microsoft employees don't use it, then it won't improve.
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Why?
Hahahhaha Ha Ha Ha Haaahahahahahaah! Hahahhaha Ha Ha Ha Haaahahahahahaah! Hahahhaha Ha Ha Ha Haaahahahahahaah!
Really why?
Hahahhaha Ha Ha Ha Haaahahahahahaah!
I guess someone had some spare budget for programmers and they had to give them something to do for busywork...
[The Universe] has gone offline.
No thank you. My primary browser is Ghostery. Other browsers that get occasional use on my phone are Dolphin, Chrome. My android tablet has those and also has Firefox, Chrome Beta, Opera, and Samsungs Internet browser.
I have enough browsers. Never used Edge, never want to.
Sometimes I think I'm on a different planet than everyone else. You think your subject line is a rhetorical question with no answer, and I think it's easy to answer (but no, I don't think Microsoft is able to address the situation).
So why does Android need another browser/launcher? Because the existing ones are lameass! They are ad-company-centric instead of user-centric. Firefox is the only one of 'em that blocks bullshit worth a damn, and we don't even know how long that one will be around and after every update it seems like a lose an extension or two.
Android users need a good browser, because they don't have one yet.
And if you think this is a not-so-veiled cry for help ("hey, anyone heard of a good web browser for Android?") I'll totally admit that, but I'm pretty sure mine is the true rhetorical question. I've tried many. They suck.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
This is by far the best browser I have ever used on any platform, period. Microsoft is on top of the software world again.
So why do you think users installed it when they already had IE? Back in the day unified address/search bar was new and handy for one thing.
Hmm, nothing to your liking here?? Supporting small developers is the way to get things fixed.
If they want Android adoption, put it first.
"Forget the engineers." -Carly Fiorina, briber of MIT Technology Review.
Since Microsoft has all but abandoned Windows mobile I think the obvious move is to save Windows on the desktop. Edge is obviously going nowhere on just Windows alone. So Microsoft had no choice but to port Edge to IOS and Android. Although we all know in reality Edge will have to use Safari engine on IOS and Chrome (WebKit) on Android. Which kinds of begs, why would you switch when Chrome runs on all these devices now? I guess Microsoft has really no choice but to go for broke.
Because it was better than Firefox. Being less awful isn't a big accomplishment. Opera used to be my go to back in the day since it ran on Windows, Mac, and Linux well and Seamonkey was pretty much awful.
I have not looked into it recently but for loooong time Apple would not allow anything in the app store that rendered web pages with something other than their own APIs.
So you could install another browser but it was essentially just a different UI on IOS-Webkit. Has something changed?
Is Apple going to allow Microsoft to actually release this in the app store, or is this really just and "Edge UI" wrapped around the native web view APIs?
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Even better, it will mine data for Microsoft.
So, Americans in the US won't have access to it?
Why would you want a Microsoft skin around the Safari browser widget rather than an Apple or Google or Firefox skin?
What will Edge give you that the others dont when they are all using the same browser engine?
SLASHCREIMER
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