What Are Experimental WebKit Features on iPhone?

Mobile browsing has become essential to our daily routine in the digital age. To stay current with the constantly evolving internet landscape, new and inventive features are required in mobile browsers. 

Safari, which uses the WebKit engine, is one such browser. Use the private browsing feature of the iPhone Safari browser to avoid leaving digital traces that can be used to follow your online movements.

Although it appears to be a primary browser, Safari’s WebKit engine has many experimental WebKit features that bring novel and intriguing functionalities to iPhone users.

This article seeks to provide readers with a complete overview of their iPhone’s browsing capabilities by examining the exciting new possibilities given by experimental WebKit features. 

This article examines the experimental WebKit features and how they could improve your mobile surfing experience. Whether an iPhone user or a web developer, you will learn about the features’ uses and capabilities. 

Are you ready to take the plunge? Let’s get started!

A Brief Introduction to WebKit

experimental webkit featuresApple developed WebKit, it is an internet browser engine that is used by Safari, Mail, the App Store, and many more macOS, iOS, and Linux apps. 

Acting as a layout engine, it manages the processing and rendering of web content, encompassing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, that allows web browsers to render web pages without any trouble.

In addition with it, you can inspect elements on iPhone if you want to edit any of your websites. You can edit them with CSS, JavaScript, HTML, and other media files.

Useful Safari’s Experimental Webkit Features

As web development rapidly evolves, new technologies and features are continually introduced in every new version of Safari, Apple’s web browser. 

This can create complexity for developers who want to ensure compatibility with the latest features and incorporate new technologies into their web applications. 

Fortunately, the Safari experimental WebKit features provide a valuable tool for developers to test upcoming features and lesser-known technologies. 

During their testing process, developers can enable or disable each of these WebKit features to assess their potential benefits.

Before further elaborating on WebKit Experimental Features, the Safari browser allows you to download videos on iPhone with Safari without copyright issues.

Complete List of WebKit Experimental Features

This section implies what are experimental WebKit features you can enjoy on your iOS for a seamless experience.

Here’s a quick rundown of the WebKit Experimental Features.

1. API for Payment Requests

The Payment Request API has been enhanced by including granular failures, compatibility with default locations and connections provided in Wallet, Apple Pay preferences, and specific field capability for Japan. 

These updates bring the feature up to the same level as Apple Pay JS while offering web technology compliance benefits. 

As a result, Payment Request is now the recommended approach for integrating Apple Pay into web-based applications.

2. Preventing Intelligent Tracking

Intelligent Tracking Prevention has introduced new limitations on cookies, significantly curtailing the ability of covert third parties to track users as they move across different websites. 

Specifically, the feature removes support for partitioned cookies on domains. Intelligent Tracking Prevention is known for its capability to perform cross-site tracking. 

At the same time, Intelligent Monitoring Prevention takes this a step further by restricting the long-term tracking of JavaScript first-party cookies.

3. WebRTC Enhancements

WebRTC Enhancements now include the ability for video multicast and support for the VP8 video codec.

However, to ensure a better user experience on Apple hardware and optimize power usage, WebKit still uses H.264 as its primary codec in WebRTC. 

Although WebKit is the only browser engine that supports VP8 in WebRTC, this codec can enhance webpage compliance by enabling video to be transmitted to a broader range of WebRTC destinations.

4. Modern Encrypted Media Extensions API

Webkit’s Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) API has been improved to support encrypted audio and video content without requiring the Webkit prefix. 

This updated version includes various features and conveniences for web developers not present in the previous prefixed API

To maintain compatibility with older versions, developers must use feature detection to determine whether the API’s prefixed or non-prefixed version is available.

5. Intersection Observer

The design team may use the Intersection Observer API to determine when a site component becomes available. 

This enables developers to avoid utilizing battery-draining querying methods frequently to compute the placement of an item relative to another element or the window.

6. Change Codes and Containers in MSE

WebKit has assisted the adoption of Media Source Extensions on macOS, which allows audio and video media assets to be sent online. 

Developers may create and control media streams within MSE by using JavaScript. Additionally, the most recent version of WebKit adds a new “change type” function to SourceBuffer. 

It allows users to swap between codecs or byte stream containers within a single SourceBuffer rather than between numerous MediaSource instances. This helps avoid severe delays during the transition process.

Should I Turn Off Experimental Webkit Features?

The simple answer is no; you should only modify something in this menu if you understand what the feature means.

Several of these features are enabled by default, either because Apple encourages web developers to experiment with what happens when they deactivate them or because the experimental WebKit feature was enabled in one of the most recent versions of Safari.

Disabling experimental WebKit features may cause Safari to behave differently and introduce issues you may not understand. The practical WebKit features in this menu are tailored toward web development and generally do not require manual adjustments.

However, a faulty update could introduce bugs that may affect the device’s battery health, in which case manual intervention may be necessary until Apple issues a fix. 

Nevertheless, such situations are rare. If the menu settings have been changed and you need to adequately understand their implications, resetting them to their default values is advisable.

How Do We Reset Experimental Webkit Features?

  • Go to Settings on your iPad or iPhone.
  • Go to the Safari settings page.
  • Scroll down to the bottom and select Advanced.
  • Go down and choose Experimental Features.
  • Scroll to the bottom and click Reset Everything to Defaults.

The screenshot below shows the steps mentioned above.

experimental webkit featuresThat’s all; the iPhone experimental WebKit features values have all been reverted to their default levels.

Final Remarks

Here we have done the experimental WebKit features, readers! We hope you have found our practical WebKit features guide resourceful. 

As a regular iOS user, you should become acquainted with some of these capabilities to have a seamless surfing experience on your iPhone. 

Do you like our study results? Please take a moment to deliver us your meaningful feedback. We would appreciate hearing from you.

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