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The service may be available on Edge, Chrome, and Firefox.
Apple Pay, Apple’s digital wallet service that allows you to store and quickly utilize a linked credit or debit card on your phone, only works with the Safari browser. This isn’t surprising, as Safari is also an Apple product, and Apple has a tendency to keep their software internal. However, according to a new rumor, the next iteration iOS, iOS 16, may put an end to this.
According to MacRumors contributor Steve Moser, the beta version of iOS 16 has added compatible for the Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome browsers, with Mozilla Firefox likely to follow.
“On the latest iOS 16 beta Apple Pay works in Edge, Chrome and I assume any third party browser,” Moser wrote on his Twitter. “On iOS 15 Apple Pay only works in Safari.”
Apple Pay web support added to third-party browsers in iOS 16; likely antitrust response https://t.co/B2q1XZje6T by @benlovejoy
— 9to5Mac (@9to5mac) August 1, 2022
Analysts suspect that, rather for any purposes of user-friendliness, Apple is making this change as a preemptive defense against Europe’s Digital Markets Act, an upcoming draft of which has already put Apple on its toes for several of their exclusivity habits. Apple has previously suffered major fees and lawsuits due to app exclusivities, so adding more browser compatibilities to Apple Pay is likely a means of getting ahead of the Digital Markets Act before it goes into effect and gets them in trouble.
