You can use one of a number of browsers on you phone. The browser developers are the ones who are constrained, having to use the WebKit rendering engine—but then, it’s not their phone.
It's silly to cast the mobile browser wars in abstract terms, as if JoesOwnWebBrowser is going to be a thing tomorrow. It's Google and Apple, full stop. Google is leveraging their titanic web properties and mobile ecosystem control to push Chrome. Apple is using their control over the iOS ecosystem to retain Safari. The choice is whether the mobile web has two relevant players, or one.
That's an important distinction. Apple's monopolistic practices prevent better software from succeeding on phones, and I'm disappointed that Apple's anti competitive behavior is excused.
Note: UC Browser is a huge privacy threat and please ask friends and family to uninstall it. But the point still stands.
And here's a real world example: even if v8 was a better runtime for React Native it still wouldn't be allowed into iOS.
I think so, yeah. Or at least, the idea that the rendering engine is all that matters for a browser is not something I’d just accept without explanation.
Perpetually missing web features (PN) so that you are forced to make an app, for obvious reasons.
And apparently it's not your phone either.