Apple warns millions of iPhone users: Stop using Google Chrome

Updated 7/18 with a rehash of Apple’s criticism of Chrome in the new version of Webkit.

We all know relationships can be complicated, but few are as complicated as the one between Apple and Google. Such is the case with Apple’s scary new ad against Google, with a clear message to its 1.4 billion users: Stop using Chrome on your iPhone.

So why now? Google is on a mission to convert Safari users to Chrome. The company currently relies on Safari to drive most search queries on iPhones, thanks to a financial deal between it and Apple that makes Google Search the default on Safari. But that deal could soon be undermined by antitrust investigations in the US and Europe. So Google is putting a Plan B in place.

Chrome only has 30% of iPhone users installed on its site. Google aims to increase that to 50%, which would allow it to welcome an additional 300 million iPhone users. Apple obviously wants to prevent that from happening. Those 300 million pairs of eyes generate significant online revenue, and as search evolves with the introduction of on-device AI, it will become a battleground between retention and conversion.

That’s why you may have seen billboards about Apple’s Safari privacy popping up in the city where you live. What started as a local campaign in San Francisco has now gone global. And even if the ads don’t mention Chrome, they don’t need to. Nothing else matters. Between them, Safari and Chrome have a market share of over 90% on mobile devices. And on iPhone, it’s a real battle between the two.

Privacy is Chrome’s Achilles heel. Tracking cookies are still here, and plans to phase them out are already being delayed as Google navigates an ongoing regulatory minefield. Chrome’s quasi-privacy mode is a lot less private than users thought. And in recent days, we’ve seen warnings that Google is capturing data from Chrome users’ devices with a hidden setting that can’t be turned off.

Apple has just raised the stakes in this privacy battle with a new video ad that applies Hitchcock’s “The Birds” to smartphone privacy. It’s powerful and memorable, and its message is clear. If you don’t want to be surveilled online, use Safari. Which means, very, very simply, if you don’t want to be surveilled online, don’t use Google Chrome. I’ve reached out to Google for comment on the new ad.

When The Birds came out in the 1960s, it was shocking, scary, and thought-provoking. Its message was that there was a threat we don’t really see, but it’s everywhere. As one character in the film says, “Who are you? What are you? Where did you come from? I think you’re the cause of all this. I think you’re evil.”

While the video suggests that this campaign might be targeting Android users to get them to switch to iPhones, that’s not the point. No user is going to abandon Android just to switch to another browser, no matter how compelling the ad. The point is to keep iPhone users within Apple’s walled garden. But even so, it may not be that simple.

The harsh reality for Apple is that its users prefer Google Search. And Apple itself reportedly found it better than other alternatives. This echoes Apple’s abandonment of Google Maps a few years ago and then its reversal. Presumably, even if Google is no longer the default search on Safari, users will be able to set it manually.

The question then becomes whether Google will bring advanced AI search features to Chrome that aren’t available elsewhere. We know that such initiatives have been considered, if not rejected for now, but such AI browser integrations are still in their infancy. And in this regard, Apple has other critical anti-Chrome messages that come into play.

In addition to the bird-inspired video and social media ads, Apple also released a “Private Browsing 2.0” update to highlight its recent innovations aimed at improving security and privacy for Safari users. “We’ve dramatically improved privacy on the web,” Apple says, “and hope to set a new industry standard for what private browsing should be.”

This video didn’t get much attention when it was released due to its impact, but it’s now being picked up on social media and has very significant implications with its “big punch” on Google Chrome, as described in an article on X.

This is a major issue in the increasingly fierce browser war between Chrome and Safari, which extends beyond the iPhone. Google is pushing its Topics API to break the current impasse over cookie deletion. Regulators won’t allow it to simply delete tracking cookies, given the damage it would do to the marketing industry without an alternative.

The Topics API is meant to present this alternative, to strike a balance between stopping individual cross-site fingerprinting and targeted marketing, with users grouped into like-minded but anonymous cohorts to present to advertisers.

But as Apple points out, “Imagine what advanced machine learning and artificial intelligence can infer about you based on various combinations of signals of interest. What patterns will emerge when data brokers and trackers can compare and contrast large swaths of the population? Remember, they can combine the Topics API results with all the other data points they have, and it’s the analysis of all of that data that powers the algorithms that try to draw conclusions about you.”

Simply put, Apple is saying that fingerprinting and cross-site tracking are here to stay. And no half-measures in Chrome can match the purist approach to privacy it claims. Google is caught between the current tracking cookies we all love to hate and a new set of technologies that have so far failed to come to fruition. Apple is looking to undermine its Privacy Sandbox before it’s even fully released.

The browser battle is just beginning, and Apple has deployed serious weapons to attack Chrome before any changes are implemented. But while those 300 million Safari users remain Apple’s property for now, keep an eye on this article…