Why we are suing Apple for better HTML5 support in iOS • Hacker News Board

Re: Why we are suing Apple for better HTML5 support in iOS

#141

Post by sidlls » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 1:41 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #129

coldtea wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From ordinary users, nobody cares about the web platform on mobile. Native apps are faster, with better integration to platform APIs and features, lighter on battery, and consistent (even if a large part of an app is just a webview in a native app shell). And for developers, they can actually be monetized and attract paying users, unlike mobile browser-based apps. Safari on mobile is pretty up to date as mobile techn…

> From ordinary users, nobody cares about the web platform on mobile. Native apps are faster Well, that's a problem right there. Instead of helping the web forward, Apple is keeping the web and web-apps second-class citizens. And of course this helps their own app platform and app store to be successful, and as a bonus it keeps developers within the walls of their garden.

At some point the browser becomes an OS, eh? I can't stand Apple, and their reasons for poor treatment of web-apps are surely from pure greed as you note, but I can't help but not care in this case.

The web-app development paradigm is terrible and can't die fast enough.

Re: Why we are suing Apple for better HTML5 support in iOS

#142

Post by madeofpalk » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 1:41 PM UTC

keyle wrote: post #86

Remember when Apple was bashing Adobe for Flash and how they were about standards? (I'm going to get downvoted for this) Anyways you were a fool for believing it.

Blackberry CEO back in 2010[0]:

    For those of us who live outside of Apple’s distortion field, we know that
    7-inch tablets will actually be a big portion of the market and we know
    that Adobe Flash support actually matters to customers who want a real web
    experience. We also know that while Apple’s attempt to control the
    ecosystem and maintain a closed platform may be good for Apple, developers
    want more options and customers want to fully access the overwhelming
    majority of web sites that use Flash.

Adobe, 12 months ago[1]:

    Adobe said that it will now "encourage content creators to build with ne
    web standards," such as HTML5, rather than Flash.

[0]: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2016/09/30/balsillie-2010

[1]: https://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2015/11/flash-html5-an...

Re: Why we are suing Apple for better HTML5 support in iOS

#143

Post by publicfig » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 1:41 PM UTC

keyle wrote: post #86

Remember when Apple was bashing Adobe for Flash and how they were about standards? (I'm going to get downvoted for this) Anyways you were a fool for believing it.

Apple bashing Adobe was for much more than standards, but for keeping aspects out of their mobile browser that they felt caused either security or performance issues. I feel that their stance on this is honestly fairly consistant with that.

Re: Why we are suing Apple for better HTML5 support in iOS

#144

Post by gtirloni » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 1:41 PM UTC

FussyZeus wrote: post #95

amluto wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a strange claim you're making. Squeezing out competition is bad, but banning competition in the first place is okay? Would it have been okay if Microsoft had charged a 30% tax on all sales of anything (software and content) consumable on the Windows platform on day one? Or what if the very first iPhone had a provision that for the rest of your life you were not permitted to buy a competing smartphone or parti…

> banning competition in the first place is okay? Yes. Anti-market behavior is the usage of monopoly (or near monopoly) to destroy competing companies after the fact with underhanded tactics and is generally agreed to be a Bad Thing. Apple's behavior when setting up iOS could be construed as anti-market, but the fact is that market never existed. Ergo if you setup a company to make a web browser for iOS, you can't cl…

Anti-competitive practices do not apply solely to monopolies.

If it's proven there isn't a technical reason why iOS can't support other browser engine (like there wasn't in the Windows vs. Netscape case), a judge could rule the artificial ToS terms should be lifted.

This happens every time a platform becomes too important/powerful. If Apple smartphones were niche devices with a very small user base, nobody would care. But they now have millions of users and are clearly a general purpose computer, so they will go under increased scrutiny. It's the price of success and they will sooner or later have to play by the (EU) rules. That or they improve Safari so few people have a reason to engage in lawsuits with them.

Re: Why we are suing Apple for better HTML5 support in iOS

#145

Post by amelius » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 1:41 PM UTC

madeofpalk wrote: post #130

amelius wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From ordinary users, nobody cares about the web platform on mobile. Native apps are faster Well, that's a problem right there. Instead of helping the web forward, Apple is keeping the web and web-apps second-class citizens. And of course this helps their own app platform and app store to be successful, and as a bonus it keeps developers within the walls of their garden.

I don't understand how they can ever have parity though. Whatever a html/javascript web app can do is always going to work better in a native browser, regardless of your platform.

True, but the question is really how much better. Phone hardware is nowadays sufficiently advanced to draw DOM trees and handle mouse clicks in reasonable time and with reasonable energy.

Re: Why we are suing Apple for better HTML5 support in iOS

#146

Post by ionciobanu » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 1:42 PM UTC

sarreph wrote: post #111

When I see someone suing a company for not innovating fast enough and opening with sexist terminology[0] I just close the tab and move on. [0] - "Anyone running html5test ( http://html5test.com/ ) on his iPhone"

omg, get a life

Re: Why we are suing Apple for better HTML5 support in iOS

#147

Post by namaemuta » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 1:44 PM UTC

gcp wrote: post #101

namaemuta wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the Chrome version of the apple store also restricted in its html5 features?

If you mean the Android store, then no. You can for example find the "real" Firefox on the Google Play store. (The one on the Apple store is a Safari skin which has the problems the article points out)

Sorry, I didn't express myself correctly. I meant this chrome app[1] in the apple store. I was wondering if people with iPhones can at least install a different browser to take advantage of those features. But if you say that it's just a skin they are pretty much trapped there.

[1] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-chrome-fast-secure/id...

Re: Why we are suing Apple for better HTML5 support in iOS

#148

Post by madeofpalk » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 1:45 PM UTC

zajd wrote: post #128

madeofpalk wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. (Front end) web developer by trade. What I say I say from experience - I've never had a client ask for a feature that Safari doesn't support. However, clients do ask for things like a carousel, which Chrome doesn't support natively. iOS is a significantly easier support target compared to Android due to how much of a stable target it is. Android is a bit of a 'which Android?' when it comes to browser support.

I could be swayed that iOS is easier to target than some other browsers but Chrome? You can definitely build a slider natively... Maybe the confusion is that Chrome =/= Android Browser

> You can definitely build a slider natively...

Nope http://caniuse.com/#search=snap

Re: Why we are suing Apple for better HTML5 support in iOS

#149

Post by gok » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 1:45 PM UTC

Well this should be easy. Their metric (html5test.com) gives points for things utterly unrelated to HTML or web standards like WebP support. Apple just needs to convince them to start giving out points for wide color gamuts and proper tail calls in JavaScript. Hell, those two even are standards, which makes them nearly as relevant to what most web developers care about as Google's fiat.

Re: Why we are suing Apple for better HTML5 support in iOS

#150

Post by barumrho » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 1:45 PM UTC

Looking through the list of features that iOS Safari doesn't support, I am happy that Apple doesn't blindly implement these features. I think a lot of these present tricky user experience issues (fullscreen support, notifications, background, file system api) and can be abused by websites. (I am also noticing a lot of these are still proposals and experimental features.)