Overview
- Japan’s Mobile Software Competition Act guidelines, released in early August, set a December 2025 deadline for Apple to lift its WebKit-only requirement on iOS browsers.
- The rules forbid Apple from imposing unreasonable technical or financial obstacles on developers seeking to deploy alternative engines like Blink or Gecko.
- Under Article 7, Item 2, third-party browsers must be granted access to the same OS APIs and performance levels that Apple reserves for WebKit.
- Apple is required to display a default browser choice screen promptly after first activating an iPhone or at the initial launch of any browser.
- Despite similar mandates in the EU and UK, no significant non-WebKit browsers have yet appeared on iOS, underscoring potential enforcement challenges.