Microsoft just announced that it will bring its Edge browser to iOS and Android, starting with new preview apps on both platforms.
The software giant, which hasn't had the best track record with its own mobile projects, is finally introducing Edge to the two dominant smartphone ecosystems after launching for Windows PCs back in 2015. The main appeal of an Edge mobile browser is giving Windows 10 users the same experience on their phone that they have on their computer.
The Edge app can be synced to an Edge account on a PC so you can access saved Favorites and Reading List pages, like how Chrome allows you to sign in with the same Google account across multiple platforms. Most importantly, you'll be able to jump between mobile and desktop browsing on the same page automatically with the Continue on PC, which looks similar to Apple's Handoff feature.
The cross platform Edge support could be handy, but there's a major problem for Microsoft: Barely anyone actually uses the browser on their PCs anyway.
Chrome dominates the browser wars, currently accounting for almost 60 percent of PC web traffic according to NetMarketShare. Edge can only claim about five percent of the total, trailing even the browser it replaced as the default on Windows computers, Internet Explorer, which is still used by about 14 percent of PC owners.
Current mobile browsing stats aren't very promising for Edge, either. NetMarketShare data tabs Chrome as the leader on smartphones, too, accounting for 57 percent of mobile web browsing. Apple's Safari browser comes in second at about 33 percent, most likely because it's integrated with iOS on iPhones. Edge doesn't have the benefits of widespread PC usage or deep integration in a mobile OS, so there might not be much space for it on smartphones.
Microsoft has to at least give mobile browsing a shot, though. Most of the world's web traffic comes from mobile devices, according to data from StatCounter, and Android eclipsed Windows as the dominant OS people use to get online for the first time back in April. Bringing Edge to the platforms smartphones run on could actually encourage some user growth — if anyone can be bothered to actually check it out.
If you're one of the few people using Edge or you're just curious about the browser, the new preview Edge app is available starting today for Windows Insiders on iOS as part of Apple's TestFlight program. An Android version in the works for release on the Google Play store in the coming weeks. The final versions of the browser are slated to launch by the end of the year.
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