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

#201

Post by briandear » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 3:33 PM UTC

lucaspiller wrote: post #80

pflats wrote: post #32

A few years ago, France passed a Law to protect small companies such as Nexedi against large companies that try to impose unbalanced contracts. [...] Not allowing the publication in Apple's AppStore of web browsers that are not based on Apple's own Webkit raises in our opinion the same issues as if Carrefour (a company similar to Walmart) was not selling any beans but those based on Carrefour's seeds. This may be leg…

I feel that it's fair (at least the bean argument): Say I ran a couple of farms which grew beans and employed 250 people to work on my farms. What would happen if my main customer Carrefour, one of the biggest supermarkets in France, decided to stop selling my beans and sold only theirs (grown and packed in a foreign country)? I could try and sell to local shops, but it's unlikely they would buy the same volume as Ca…

That would be your fault for basing your business on the support from another. Carrafour has no obligation to you. You're the one that built a business ignoring the real distribution risk of relying upon one company. That's on you.

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

#202

Post by cageface » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 3:39 PM UTC

st3fan wrote: post #181

cageface wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Web apps are cheaper and faster to develop. This makes it possible to try more new ideas and serve more niche markets that might not justify the upfront cost of full-blown native development. Why not let developers and users have a choice here? Fancy graphics are not really the issue. It's things like service workers and shadow dom that are really crucial.

"Web apps are cheaper and faster to develop." - Depends who you ask. This is a very grey area and it heavily depends on the type of app.

Yeah it does depend on the app but a lot of things can be prototyped and iterated on a lot faster on the web. Building a real native app can come later, if necessary, once the idea has been validated.

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

#203

Post by redial » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 4:08 PM UTC

In a civil case, this has no merit. What they should do is "sue" them using a W3C "court", and if there is no such thing (as I'm pretty sure there is none) it should be created. If members of W3C don't adhere by the standards set after a lengthy and tiresome process of review, they should be "liable" to the standards body.

This of course is not going to happen because members are the ones funding W3C, and they would just take their money elsewhere and the W3C would be sad.

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

#204

Post by redial » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 4:28 PM UTC

gtirloni wrote: post #91

thealistra wrote: post #84

The point is that feature compatibility is not everything. Apple may say that they develop webkit in a more power saving/secure/better manner than other browsers and this is the reason they lag on html5 features.

If a user wants to use a different browser because of $reasons and is happy with it draining the battery, the user should be allowed to. There is no technical reason for not allowing other browsers to work on iOS, it's purely a ToS/market/profits issue.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think most of the jailbrake exploits use some form of safari or webkit bug to modify the system. Apple is very aware that the browser is the most targeted point in the OS. By the nature of modern JS interpreters they would need some kind of low (or lower) level access to the CPU to be competitive and that will open a new vector, maybe multiple, for attack that Apple would not be able to control.

I think their decision is about a lot of things including the App Store, but security is certainly one.

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

#205

Post by DougWebb » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 4:34 PM UTC

saryant wrote: post #90

DougWebb wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, that's the point of the standards process. Apple made their argument as a full member of the W3C and other standards committees. If they weren't convincing enough and the committee choose to go another way with the standard, then it's Apple's responsibility to accept that decision. After all, if the decision had gone their way, they'd expect the other vendors to adhere to it.

A standards body is not a suicide pact. If the standard in insecure, Apple should absolutely refuse to implement it.

If a standard is insecure, all of the members of the standards body should be able to recognize that and change the standard. If that hasn't happened, then the other members must not agree that the standard has a security problem. Maybe it's something else Apple wanted to do that's conflicting with the standard and causing the security problem, just for them.

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

#206

Post by coldtea » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 5:01 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #191

coldtea wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, that's a problem right there. Instead of helping the web forward, Apple is keeping the web and web-apps second-class citizens. The are de-facto second class citizens. The are apps that run on a second platform (the browser). If someone wants first-class support, build for the OS. Apple already spends tons of money to make an OS and a dev SDK for it.

> If someone wants first-class support, build for the OS. Yes, that was my argument: Apple is favoring native apps. Developing native apps helps Apple further build and exploit its ecosystem, and pushes us further down the rabbit hole.

>Yes, that was my argument: Apple is favoring native apps.

Yes, but one can make it sound like a conspiracy, when it's in fact a DUH!

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

#207

Post by stephenr » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 5:26 PM UTC

Normal_gaussian wrote: post #40

daenney wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly? How so? I'm also very curious about the monopoly. iOS has an estimated 13% market share.

It really depends how you define the market. If we look countrywide [0] France has ~20% iOS, here in the UK we have ~40%. But the product my company is selling (in the UK) is currently faced with a OS distribution of ~80% iOS and ~20% Android (some small number of web only clients). Why? We hypothesise that our customers have greater cashflow than the average Brit and as such the iPhone is much more popular choice. I…

By your logic I could release an iOS only app and then claim iOS has a 100% monopoly because no one uses my app on android.

As for the background processes: that's by design. Only specific types of apps that have legitimate broad-appeal use cases for background processes (eg voip apps) are allowed.

There is a reason Apple products have high customer satisfaction survey results: a product is not just whatever shit you can throw together.

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

#208

Post by stephenr » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 5:32 PM UTC

redial wrote: post #203

In a civil case, this has no merit. What they should do is "sue" them using a W3C "court", and if there is no such thing (as I'm pretty sure there is none) it should be created. If members of W3C don't adhere by the standards set after a lengthy and tiresome process of review, they should be "liable" to the standards body. This of course is not going to happen because members are the ones funding W3C, and they would…

> If members of W3C don't adhere by the standards set after a lengthy and tiresome process of review

Which standard would that be?

Web workers and Webrtc are not standardised.

Html5 makes no specification about video codecs.

So, what standards exactly are not being adhered to?

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

#209

Post by stephenr » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 5:41 PM UTC

DougWebb wrote: post #205

saryant wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A standards body is not a suicide pact. If the standard in insecure, Apple should absolutely refuse to implement it.

If a standard is insecure, all of the members of the standards body should be able to recognize that and change the standard. If that hasn't happened, then the other members must not agree that the standard has a security problem. Maybe it's something else Apple wanted to do that's conflicting with the standard and causing the security problem, just for them.

You're not considering the obvious: different parties put different importance on security, performance, etc.

Webrtc absolutely has a security/privacy issue whereby local network information is exposed to the JavaScript environment of the page.

So, if Google don't think that's a problem, maybe you should ask them why not.

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

#210

Post by stephenr » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 5:42 PM UTC

cageface wrote: post #102

simonh wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but I know Apple has argued at W3C against certain web standards and for others on the basis of security in a mobile context, power efficiency and functional alignment with touch UI behaviours. We don't know why Apple has chosen to implement some features (so far) and not others. Do you really want French courts deciding those kinds of technical decisions or taking those decisions away from mobile platform ven…

Apple can make those arguments all they want but then they should allow third party browsers on iOS and let users have a choice. I don't buy the argument that browser engines somehow pose a unique security risk and have to be completely banned from the platform.

Web browsers are among the most compromised software targets of anything ever.