BrowserEngineKit; Perplexity Everywhere All At Once

Twas $SPOUSE’s 🎂 weekend, hence the tardiness of this Drop (and, it’s going to all readers, as I’m still fighting with Substack over how to actually get refunds into paid subscriber’s hands…it’s been a bear).

Today’s Bonus Drop is all about some major, new “alternate choices” that have the potential to seriously disrupt numerous technology fronts.

I’m also testing out a new read-time estimator thingy.

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes.

TL;DR

This is an AI-generated summary of today’s Drop.

• The blog post discusses Apple’s new BrowserEngineKit, a toolkit that allows developers to create browsers using alternative browser engines, breaking away from the long-standing requirement to use Apple’s WebKit engine. This change is due to the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), which has pushed Apple to open up its platform to third-party browser engines. The introduction of BrowserEngineKit could potentially disrupt the browser market and drive innovation in web standards and performance.
• The post also highlights the integration of Perplexity AI into Arc’s search engine and Rabbit’s new device, the Rabbit R1. These partnerships could potentially enhance search capabilities, provide real-time information, and create a more intuitive user experience. However, the author also raises concerns about privacy, data security, and the reliability of AI-generated information. The author concludes by expressing skepticism about the hype surrounding AI and its integration into our daily tools.

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BrowserEngineKit

Apple’s new BrowserEngineKit is a major new addition to the iOS (et al.) ecosystem. It’s a toolkit that lets developers create browsers that render content using alternative browser engines, breaking away from the long-standing requirement to use Apple’s WebKit engine. This is a significant shift in Apple’s policy, and it’s due to the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), which has pushed Apple to open up its platform to third-party browser engines.

From a technical perspective, BrowserEngineKit has a robust and granular architecture. It forces developers to design their secure browser infrastructure to separate different components into extensions, which limits the impact of security vulnerabilities in any one process. This means that developers will have to navigate a bonkers number of APIs and architecture specifics, but the payoff could be substantial. For instance, Google’s Chrome and Mozilla’s Firefox, which use the Blink and Gecko engines respectively, could potentially offer a browsing experience on iOS and iPadOS that’s more in line with their desktop versions.

Apple’s allowing other browser engines could also have a significant impact on web development. Presently, Chrome dominates the browser market with a share of ~64%, followed by Safari at ~18%. With the introduction of BrowserEngineKit, we could see a shift in these numbers as other browsers gain a stronger foothold on iOS and iPadOS devices. This could lead to a more diverse and competitive browser market, which in turn could drive innovation and improvements in web standards and performance.

However, it’s not all smooth sailing. Mozilla has expressed disappointment with Apple’s implementation of the DMA, stating that it would force them to maintain two separate browser implementations – one for iPhone and another for iPad. This could potentially slow down the adoption of alternative browser engines on iOS and iPadOS.

As for when Apple will roll out the same policy to non-EU countries, it’s hard to say. Apple has stated that it believes its own policies are best for users globally and has cited concerns about malware, fraud, and scams as reasons for not offering these changes outside of the EU. However, if regulatory pressure increases in other regions, or if the changes in the EU prove to be successful and popular with users, Apple may be compelled to extend this policy globally. Given the pace of regulatory and technological change, I’d estimate this could happen within the next 5-10 years.

I’m hoping some intrepid developer takes a stab at a port of either engine and open sources it to see if it’s possible to install self-built alternative browsers on non-EU Apple kit. I’ll be keeping my eyes open and report back if that is possible.

Perplexity Everywhere All At Once

Long time readers of the Drop know I’m a yuge fan of Perplexity. I use it to summarise every non-WPE Drop, and make great use of it throughout pretty much every day.

Recently, another Drop fac — Arc‘s decision to include Perplexity AI as a default search engine option and Rabbit‘s choice to power its new device (more on that in a sec) with Perplexity are significant moves that give Perplexity access to even more humans. That led me to ponder a bit about the implications.

My 💙 for Arc is due to its commitment to, and execution of, user-centric design. The Perplexity integration (and, I guess, partnership) is either a nod to the perceived growing demand for AI-powered search tools — that potentially offer more than just links to websites — or yet-another tech overlord team-up to force unproven “solutions” on to the masses for profit. Perplexity does do a phenom job at providing real-time, accurate answers — hugely do to its ability to surf the web, including multimedia content, to augment the training data built-into its core LLMs. The rollout did not happen smoothly (Arc’s first update last Thursday did not have the Perplexity integration enabled). But, I disabled the Kagi extension I’ve been using and switched over to Perplexity when it was availble, and the initial experience has been very positive.

Rabbit’s decision to incorporate Perplexity into its new device, the Rabbit R1, answered a few questions I’ve had about this asolutely unnecessary device. Teenage Engineering (the maker of the R1) promises to “revolutionize user interactions with technology”. They did not mention “how” at the outset, and also had (have?) no monthly subscription fee. IMO that was a recipe for disaster (there’s no way the local device would have enough compute power for all the AI tasks and running your own AI cloud costs real moeny). However, by leveraging Perplexity to help augment Rabbit’s Large Action Model (LAM), the R1 can perform a variety of tasks, from booking rides to identifying objects, all powered by voice commands. This integration either signifies a possible leap towards a future where AI is seamlessly woven into the fabric of our daily lives — ostensibly offering convenience and efficiency at our fingertips — or, is just some more tech bro partnership hype machine to sell us more silicon, plastic, at $200 USD/year (after one free year of Perplexity Pro).

The potential benefits of both these partnerships are: enhanced search capabilities, real-time information, and a more intuitive user experience. However, there are also potential detractions to consider. As AI becomes more integrated into our tools, concerns about privacy, data security, and the reliability of AI-generated information come to the top of my head. Many humans may also worry about over-reliance on AI, which could impact our critical thinking and research skills.

Despite these concerns, I will confess to finding some allure in these AI-powered devices and search engines. However, AI hype pops up every decade, or so, and there is a very real likelihood of this latest fad to fizzle out like other bits of “web3” have (i.e., NFTs/crypto).

I’ll keep using Perplexity as the default search in Arc for a while and report back. If it does do a good job, I’ll likely ditch Kagi’s paid plan, too. (It seems my “daily drivers” are disintegrating on a weekly basis).

FIN

There had better not be some gobsmacking new programming language rolling out this year that totally upends that section of my “daily drivers”.

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