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For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

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Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#381

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

tarsinge wrote: post #319
LAC-Tech wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes zero business sense for small-medium companies to make separate android and IOS apps. That's man hours that will be spent on a specific platform and its app store, instead of on improving the core product. PWAs are here to stay.

It absolutely make sense to make a state of the art app on a platform if it's key to the business. Also resources is not the problem, even big companies (like banks) make low cost web apps instead of native ones if they can. I don't see why Apple should facilitate compromised user experiences instead of setting the bar higher.

But from your own example, why on earth would you need a "state of the art app" for something like banking? You're displaying transactions, maybe getting push notifications about transactions, etc. Even the feature that you may argue requires a native app, mobile deposit where you take a picture of a check, can definitely be done with a browser. Stripe's new identity service where you take a picture of an ID does on-device, real-time image analysis and it works beautifully and simply, no app needed.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#382

Post by blacktriangle »

leppr wrote: post #336
BoxOfRain wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a personal opinion, but I'm actually really glad Apple are dragging their feet on this. I absolutely despise presumptious software that feels entitled to my attention as and when it chooses. I have my browser set up to wholesale reject all push notifications, I don't let the vast majority of my apps send me push notifications, and any application that feels entitled to pollute my inbox (email already has an a…

Push notifications allow me to spend less time on my phone/PC. Without them, I would have to regularly check the app of interest for any important updates, losing both time and mental space with another thing to keep in the back of my mind. Thanks to push notifications, I can defer interacting with the app to when it's actually relevant. Also as I argued in another comment [1], web notifications are simply better tha…

You're not wrong, there's real upsides to push notifications. For example the thing I love about the iWatch is how it lets me never check my phone because anything relevent is pushed to the watch.

But I think you are really underselling the downsides of push notifications. They are easily the most heavily abused feature of the modern web anywhere they exist. If every single app responsibly used push notifications then sure, it would be great. Here in reality push notifications aren't some personal majordomo making sure only important issues are brought to our attention, push notifications feel more like walking down the Vegas strip having leaflets constantly shoved in your face.

I think its premature to say that we have the answer and just maybe Apple dragging their feet on this will help us find a solution that is better than the advertiser friendly free for all that Google is pushing.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#383

Post by notsureaboutpg »

mrtksn wrote: post #182
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the exact opposite view. I have tons of apps on my phone that really have no business being apps, they should just be websites but with push notifications. For example, I'm not a huge traveler (obviously not in the past year), but even before the pandemic I'd use AirBnB like once a year maybe. I don't want to download an app for something I use once a year. But before and during my trip push notifications are…

I agree that many Apps don't have business being apps and they are just low effort attempts, however I still don't want to have websites asking me if I want to receive notifications on mobile. Website installation process is very annoying already. I don't want more. Do I want you to track me? No. Do I want to sign up to your newsletter? No. Do I want to create account to see the links? Please no. Do I want to receive…

Apps don't ask if you want to be tracked they just do it in the background. They don't ask if you want to sign up they force you to sign up to use the app.

I can't believe the HN crowd likes spyware-loaded apps which take up expensive phone storage space and don't respect user choice over websites which ask you for everything they want to do.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#384

Post by codemusings »

jolux wrote: post #22

Apple has its own opinions about what web standards it should implement. It’s as simple as that. Google has been extremely successful in convincing developers that browsers that don’t behave like Chrome are behaving wrong. Don’t get me wrong, I wish Safari had more features, fewer bugs, and an evergreen release cycle. It’s clear Apple do not see themselves as competing with Chrome, largely because of iOS, and I do wa…

Why would you lump PWAs and AMP pages together? They're hardly the same problem. PWAs are a threat to the App Store model. It's obvious that it would spawn a new category of apps that effectively enable sideloading. You've got access to all the native functions too (sensors, camera, storage). Apple doesn't want that. So they drag their feet when it comes to support.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#385

Post by tartoran »

BoxOfRain wrote: post #364
leppr wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Push notifications allow me to spend less time on my phone/PC. Without them, I would have to regularly check the app of interest for any important updates, losing both time and mental space with another thing to keep in the back of my mind. Thanks to push notifications, I can defer interacting with the app to when it's actually relevant. Also as I argued in another comment [1], web notifications are simply better tha…

What updates are actually important though? A good 80% of notifications I'd get before I started systematically disabling them by default weren't important at all, they were just pointless nagware trying to get me to engage with the software more frequently so some analytics manager can justify why they shouldn't be sacked that quarter. It doesn't matter to these people that most of the extra clicks and presses are p…

I agree and am of the same opinion, i’m glad Safari is playing by a slower tune and it definitely it isn’t google’s tune.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#386

Post by blacktriangle »

FractalHQ wrote: post #177
rubyn00bie wrote: post #18

> Because IE was seriously outdated, lacking support for cutting-edge web APIs and technologies enabling the modern websites and web apps we use today. This is just false, or at best only half of the story to make a false equivalence. IE was cutting edge until Firefox. The biggest problem with IE was all the insanely weird shit it did, not missing features. It would “fix” missing tags, that would then be broken on ev…

== != === If every analogy was held up to this level of scrutiny, we wouldn’t have analogies. Something can be similar in nature without being an exact equivalence. Like many others have started- it’s common these days for devs to create modern apps that work on modern browsers but break in weird ways on Safari. That’s enough of a similarity for the analogy to convey the idea. Web-P / WebGL support aside- Safari ofte…

Yes, modern apps will randomly break on Safari. They'll also randomly break on Chrome and Firefox in other fun ways.

Safari isn't perfect but neither are the other browsers. And as far as not supporting every little thing Google decides to shove in the browser, good! I'm glad Google is working to push out new ideas for the web, but I'm also glad Safari is keeping them honest by not providing wide support of those ideas until they go through a standardization process.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#387

Post by pankajdoharey »

ArchOversight wrote: post #260
soperj wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're saying it like Webkit wasn't also a fork.

That's not at all what I was saying. WebKit was a fork of KHTML, but implying that Safari has shared origin with Chrome was a little farfetched.

Webkit is far off from KHTML, just a simple code statistics will show you the number of hours by Apple Engineers on Webkit, at this point Webkit is a complete rewrite and has zero semblance with KHTML. Apple Engineers have more contributions in the repo than Google Engineers ever did. At the End Google strategy to build plugins and track users doesnt gel with the WebKit Strategy. For everyday use Safari is very energy Efficient compared to Chrome which is a Battery Hog.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#388

Post by Silhouette »

lucideer wrote: post #255
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The analogy is simple: back in the day devs got sick of IE because it was the one thing holding them back. You can make a site, easily, that looked beautiful on all the other major browsers, but because IE was outdated when it came to standards support, you had to basically spent all your time fighting with it. Safari serves that role today. There are tons of things I'd love to do but can't because they're not suppor…

But that isn't the case. At all. IE wasn't difficult because it was behind the times; it was difficult because it was deliberately different. The 2nd pillar of Microsoft's infamous Embrace, Extend, Extinguish strategy ensured incompatibility, which doubled developer efforts. The idea of IE being purely an "outdated" browser seems to be one perpetuated by young devs reading & misunderstanding old blogposts. The narrat…

Safari is compliant. It's behind but compliant.

Well, kind of. There are all sorts of minor glitches that only happen on Apple devices. A common complaint is iOS Safari's interpretation of vh units. It might be technically correct (because the spec is sufficiently ambiguous to argue that Apple's choice meets it) but it's still obviously broken for common practical applications that work everywhere else such as attaching content to the bottom of the visible area. The handling of the "notch" on devices that have one is likewise arguably technically correct but obviously broken.

So the objections to Safari aren't just about not supporting Google-style PWAs features. Some of them are about other big features too. Support for HTML5 media elements and the backing technologies has been very lacking by modern standards and numerous special cases have been needed over the years only to support Apple clients.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#389

Post by The-Bus »

blacktriangle wrote: post #382
leppr wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Push notifications allow me to spend less time on my phone/PC. Without them, I would have to regularly check the app of interest for any important updates, losing both time and mental space with another thing to keep in the back of my mind. Thanks to push notifications, I can defer interacting with the app to when it's actually relevant. Also as I argued in another comment [1], web notifications are simply better tha…

You're not wrong, there's real upsides to push notifications. For example the thing I love about the iWatch is how it lets me never check my phone because anything relevent is pushed to the watch. But I think you are really underselling the downsides of push notifications. They are easily the most heavily abused feature of the modern web anywhere they exist. If every single app responsibly used push notifications the…

> push notifications feel more like walking down the Vegas strip having leaflets constantly shoved in your face.

Strong agreement here.

There's a significant (single digit %) of sites I run into that ask me to accept push notifications or ask for my email before any of the content loads. I usually close the tab when that happens.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#390

Post by tartoran »

blacktriangle wrote: post #382
leppr wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Push notifications allow me to spend less time on my phone/PC. Without them, I would have to regularly check the app of interest for any important updates, losing both time and mental space with another thing to keep in the back of my mind. Thanks to push notifications, I can defer interacting with the app to when it's actually relevant. Also as I argued in another comment [1], web notifications are simply better tha…

You're not wrong, there's real upsides to push notifications. For example the thing I love about the iWatch is how it lets me never check my phone because anything relevent is pushed to the watch. But I think you are really underselling the downsides of push notifications. They are easily the most heavily abused feature of the modern web anywhere they exist. If every single app responsibly used push notifications the…

I guess there’s a benefit of not having to take out your phone to check notifications but in the end they do compete for your attention and microdisrupt you anyway. And how many notifications on average are you willing to take in? I personally want as little as possible, the most important contacts and critical alerts are enough for me, the rest can wait till I check for them myself.
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