Safari code in the iOS 27.2 beta detects Google's Chrome promotions, 9to5Mac findsSafari code in the iOS 27.2 beta detects Google's Chrome promotions, 9to5Mac finds

Safari in the iOS 27.2 beta contains code that detects when Google promotes Chrome or the Google app on its own pages, 9to5Mac reported on 5 October.

According to 9to5Mac's reading of the code, present since iOS 27.2 beta 2, Safari injects a script into some Google home and search results pages. The script looks for visible banners or page elements that encourage the user to open or install Chrome or the Google app, identified by those apps' URL schemes and App Store IDs. When it finds one, Safari can log whether the promotion was shown, whether the user appears to be signed in to a Google account, and whether they accepted or dismissed it.

This is Evidence grade, but from one source: 9to5Mac's own analysis of Apple's beta. No other outlet had reported it by early on 6 October, and we have not been able to examine the code ourselves. Apple has not documented the feature in the iOS 27.2 beta 3 or Safari 27.2 beta release notes, and has not commented. 9to5Mac notes that code in a beta may never ship.

Why would Apple measure this?

9to5Mac says the purpose is unclear, and so do we. It points to the regulatory setting. In the UK, it reports, Google has cited its own promotion of Chrome to iPhone users as evidence that it competes with Safari, and the Competition and Markets Authority's mobile browsers investigation looked at whether the search deal between the two companies weakens their incentive to compete. In the EU, the Digital Markets Act governs browser choice and defaults on iPhone.

Our take

If the code ships as described, it gives Apple something no regulator currently has: a count, from Apple's side, of how often Google tells Safari users to leave Safari, and how often they do. That number cuts both ways. A high acceptance rate supports the argument that iPhone users switch browsers freely when asked. A large number of impressions with few acceptances supports the opposite reading, that defaults are sticky however hard a rival pushes. Either way, a company preparing for regulators would want the figure before the other side produced its own.

The privacy side deserves a plain statement. Apple's description of Safari leans heavily on not watching what people do on websites. Detecting whether a user appears signed in to Google is a reading of a third-party page that Apple would rightly object to if another browser did it to apple.com. 9to5Mac describes event logging, not the collection of search terms, and Apple's analytics are normally governed by the device analytics opt-in, but none of that is documented for this feature. Until Apple says what is collected and where it goes, users cannot judge it.

This is not the first undocumented change in the 27.2 cycle. We reported a Restrict Motion Data setting in the iOS 27.2 beta that appears only in China, which also arrived without release notes. APPDOOK's reading is that this one is aimed at a hearing room, not at users, and that the right time to judge it is if it reaches a public release. If it does, Apple should document it.