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For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

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Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#501

Post by pwdisswordfish8 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #153
mrtksn wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that developers are simply angry with Apple for not letting them to fiddle with the latest stuff that Google is experimenting with. Chrome is the new IE but with better manners if you consider the non standard Chrome specific stuff that makes websites to work only in Chrome. Developers hated IE for not being standart, you had to write two versions of your CSS, you had to make your code accommodate the Box m…

> I suspect that developers are simply angry with Apple for not letting them to fiddle with the latest stuff that Google is experimenting with. That is absolute bullshit. Browser push notifications have been out for years on other browsers (INCLUDING desktop Safari), and they are the one thing that Apple is dragging their feet on the most because they know it's the most important thing that prevents a dev from just d…

A magazine article doesn't need to be able to send push notifications.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#502

Post by MiddleEndian »

mikl wrote: post #462
unethical_ban wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you say that? Firefox on Mobile exists, and I was under the impression that on Android, it uses its own rendering engine.

It exists, but its market share is negligible. According to StatCounter, Firefox has a market share of 0.5% on mobile: https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/mobile/world... Even on desktop, Firefox is sliding towards irrelevancy, with just 7% market share.

Honestly it's weird to me that more people don't use Firefox on Android. Only mobile browser that supports uBlock Origin.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#503

Post by trissylegs »

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 Because IE was seriously outdated, lacking support for cutting-edge web APIs and technologies enabling the modern websites and web apps we use today.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…

Could coin it Reductio ad IErum

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#504

Post by Jcowell »

sf_rob wrote: post #482
jchw wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as not-Google browsers go, Firefox is far, far better than Safari.

I just got an M1 Mac after years on Ubuntu, and decided to give Safari a go. I literally could not figure out how to search for an extension (the extension menu's search box searches the app store). I'm probably missing something obvious, but I'm quick to reject unintuitive consumer software so I'm typing this from Firefox. I know Firefox will inevitably decline one day, but honestly it's still a great browser and th…

The app store is the only place to get extensions. That’s why it’s directing you there to a launch page for Safari Extensions.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#505

Post by trissylegs »

thecupisblue wrote: post #263
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…

Was just fighting Safari few days ago and I completely agree. Noticed that "vw" and "vh" CSS3 units dont work in it like they do in other browsers. Upon digging, found a medium article explaining it - but as I was in safari, the article's code snippets or images wouldn't load properly. As much as I got a bit hyped to try using safari after WWDC - I just can't. It's so discombobulated regarding web standards that I wo…

> As much as I got a bit hyped to try using safari after WWDC - I just can't. It's so discombobulated regarding web standards that I wonder if it can even count as a "web browser" any more than emacs can.

With a bit of effort you can embedded chromium in Emacs so it's basically true.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#506

Post by trissylegs »

mrtksn wrote: post #368
mannerheim wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you mean to reply to the other comment? Desktop Safari still requires a Mac as far as I'm aware...

Yes it is unfortunate that requires a Mac but a Hackintosh is always an option :) Some many years ago it had a Windows version but it was discontinued.

I've installed a lot of operating systems on my machines. Installing macOS was by far the MOST painful.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#507

Post by masswerk »

jahewson wrote: post #486
masswerk wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm, Safari has done it its own way right from the beginning. (Meaning, Chrome and Safari had never the same implementation.) Edit: As I recall it, Safari was an early adapter of the standard (even before its release), which comes with its own caveats. And it's actually because of not breaking things that there are these Safari idiosyncrasies. (The alternative would have been some kind of rolling prerelease standard,…

As a user of Web Audio I can tell you that it’s broken in the latest Safari. As in, we cannot play a simple sound. Our users are not happy about it.

It requires a user initiated event to unmute the AudioContext first.

(This is a fallout of the constant struggle between advertising and browsers, compare the restrictions for auto-play videos. Regarding the latter, if you're not white-listed by Google, you're out of luck on Chrome and your entire site is broken. Safari's restrictions on audible sound are actually transparent in comparison.)

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#508

Post by cesarb »

admax88q wrote: post #465
dmitriid wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Google's are aligned with the web being useful to Google . This is not the same as "the web being useful". And these days more often than not Mozilla (which has no stakes in either apps or online advertisement) sides with Apple: https://webapicontroversy.com

I don't buy Mozilla's/Apple's concerns for those APIs. Sure if seems sketch to access USB from the web, but as a user if I'm trying to achieve something and I can't do it on the web, I'll end up installing a native app which has way more access to my system. As a developer I would much rather be able to just deploy cool things on the web instead of having to package up native apps for every platform just to do things…

> I don't buy Mozilla's/Apple's concerns for those APIs. Sure if seems sketch to access USB from the web, but as a user if I'm trying to achieve something and I can't do it on the web, I'll end up installing a native app which has way more access to my system.

There's a third possibility: that you give up achieving that something. The "activation energy" of installing an app is higher than loading a website, so if the user's desire for achieving that something is not strong enough, the native app won't be installed.

And besides, most users know (or should know) that installing apps can be risky, while a website is supposed to be sandboxed. That is, absent exploitable browser implementation bugs, going to any website should be safe.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#509

Post by vagrantJin »

jolux wrote: post #72
vagrantJin wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Chrome explicitly do not care about other browsers, and think that the world would be a better place if Chrome were the only one. They are gunning for monopoly. No shame in that. The chrome app is the biggest gateway to the internet globally and winning that war means complete dominance as the world moves towards web applications. Using the carrot rather than the stick. But therein lies the rub. Safari is betting o…

> They are gunning for monopoly. No shame in that. It is pretty shameful if you’re simultaneously claiming to be the biggest defender of the open web. > Why put in the effort It’s pretty clear why at this point: developers hate them and antitrust regulators are looking for the right opportunity to go for the throat. Apple screwed up when they killed Safari on Windows, they could have had a solid shot at being the #2…

My sarcasm was missed.

In any case, I'm the furthest from supporting Google or anything they do. But they aren't better or worse than Apple Inc.

To defend google, yes their software has the windows problem. They have to support an absurd amount of devices. So them pushing standards is just a big whale trying to get ahead of itself. No harm in that as long as devs don't go for bleeding edge features and harbour any expectations of cross browser compatibility.

In not blaming Google or the regulators. They can duke it out as long as the public benefits.

Safari wasnt all bad when IE was a thing. It's just that they took IE's spot by being obtuse and generally the rich kid who's a wierdo.

Thanks for the tweet link. Is there a site where leaks like this are common? I really liked it more than I should and how much Apple surprisingly looks at Google. I'd always thought Apple is above looking at companies serving peasants with peasant devices.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#510

Post by smoldesu »

diebeforei485 wrote: post #86
smoldesu wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That shouldn't prevent it from being an opt-in toggle for the people (like me) who rely on it.

Disagree. Things that start as "optional opt-in toggles" can eventually become quasi-mandatory, for example if you're a student, employee, or citizen, and your school, workplace, or government creates an app that needs this. In 2020, lots of universities required students to install fairly invasive stuff on their computers for remote learning, but -- thanks in large part to Apple's policies -- their phones remained p…

How do you make an app that enforces notifications? Unless such an app is running in ring 0, it has to follow the same rules as everyone else. In any case, notifications are entirely handled by the operating system, so the onus would fall on Apple to prevent this fairly simple exploit from happening (hell, Android managed to do it right).

Furthermore, Proctorio and plenty of other invasive testing software has no trouble running on a Mac. Your last sentance is about as coherent as thanking Google for stopping McGraw-Hill from spying on Android users.

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