Forget Safari, now all iOS users can live life on the Edge

After initially only making the Microsoft Edge browser for iOS beta available to members of the Windows Insider programme, Joe Belfiore, Corporate Vice President of the Operating Systems Group at Microsoft, has announced that the beta programme is now open to all interested iOS users. It isn’t clear if this means that Apple’s user limit of 10 thousand has been removed, or if this open invitation will close when that limit is reached.

Edge Browser was released with Windows 10 as a modernized replacement for the maligned Internet Explorer. While Edge is a relatively lightweight browser and is optimised well for touch, it has failed to gain much of the market and sits a little over five percent in most browser market share comparisons. Over time the feature list is improving such as the introduction of a [small] plugin market and the ability to “set aside tabs” to save and reopen sessions of projects etc., but the browser is still less feature rich than competitors such as Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Vivaldi.

Since Apple has a policy of forcing all browsers on iOS to use Apple’s web rendering engine, Edge for iOS won’t be using the EdgeHTML engine. However, users will get Edge features such as hub view, reading view, and easy syncing of favorites, passwords, and websites between devices (Windows 10 relies on having the Fall Creators Update).

Also recently announced was a version of Edge for Android, but this isn’t available yet for download.