Last week Microsoft surprised everyone when they announced a preview program for their Microsoft Edge browser that will be built for iOS and Android mobile devices.
Microsoft Edge first arrived with Windows 10 back in July of 2015 and has been updated with each new feature update for the young operating system. Many felt that tying the development of Microsoft Edge to the feature updates, which will be released twice per year, would slow down the process down too much for such a young product that had some catching up to do with its competitors like Chrome and Firefox.
The revelation that Edge will be shipped as an app on iOS and Android might be an indicator that the company is looking to do the same thing with the Windows 10 version of the browser.
Whether they ultimately do that will not change the fact that Edge will be available to iOS and Android users and the Redmond company wants developers to be aware of a few details about the new apps.
Engines and Platforms
iOS - will use the Webkit Engine for rendering.
Android - will use the Chromium browser project for its rendering engine.
User Strings
Microsoft Edge for iOS user agent string
Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 10_3_2 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/603.2.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/14F89 Safari/603.2.4 EdgiOS/41.1.35.1
Microsoft Edge for Android 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
Access to Preview Apps
The iOS version of Edge is offered through Apple's TestFlight however, the 10,000 user limit has currently been reached. You can still sign up and be notified when the app becomes more widely available.
Over on Android the preview has not yet been released but you can sign up with your email address to be notified when it becomes available.
The apps are likely to be released for general availability later this year.
The signup page for both apps is available here.
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