Credit: Microsoft
Microsoft is providing testers on the Canary Channel on Android with a version of its new Edge browser – one that has the same core as the new Edge on PCs.
When Microsoft launched the new Edge browser for PCs, it also changed the Edge logo on iOS and Android to make it look like a new and happy Edge family. The reality, however, was that the Edge browser on iOS and Android was not the same as the one on PCs. In iOS, the Edge browser currently uses the WebKit playback engine, and on Android it uses Blink. (I don’t know if Microsoft’s plans include replacing the playback engine on Android. I don’t think Apple has permission to replace it on iOS.)
Microsoft officials said their goal is to make the new Edge a cross-platform browser based on the same basic code base. At Ignite in March, Microsoft unveiled plans for Edge to run on the same code base so that it could improve its own engineering processes. Microsoft’s plan is not to reproduce every desktop feature on a mobile (which would be bad), but to share the features with the “thinking” Edge desktop, according to an Ignite presentation slide that my Windows Weekly cohost Paul Thurrott posted.
Android users interested in testing the new Edge in Canary (i.e. updated daily) can download it from the Google Play Store here.
Edge is not the only Microsoft product in which teams of engineers are working to unify code bases. Microsoft does something similar to email and “One Outlook.”