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The Mobile Web should just work for everyone

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Re: The Mobile Web should just work for everyone

#51

Post by mikelat »

ntakasaki wrote: post #14

Edit: The previous title was "Windows Phone's IE starts masquerading as mobile Safari to render pages properly" Looks like the webkit prefix tags are creating the new IE6. As usual, it's the web developers fault for not updating their CSS prefixes. http://css.dzone.com/articles/why-webkit-new-ie6-trap-vendor Mozilla, Opera and Microsoft have been complaining about this and Opera had already implemented support for th…

> Looks like the webkit prefix tags are creating the new IE6.

This bothers me. Webkit isn't some ancient browser that is has remained stagnant for years until google/apple decided to do something about it. Nobody spends hours debugging their perfect layouts in webkit. Webkit isn't holding the entire web back. It's just a poor comparison.

I browse mobile web in mostly firefox mobile, and I don't think I've ever seen a mobile site broken on FF but working on Chrome.

In fact at least Google has taken some steps to recitfy it, and they've stated they're putting experimental CSS properties behind developer flags. If we're talking about the fact that old people don't update old browsers then Microsoft is one to talk with IE7, IE8, IE9, and IE10.

Re: The Mobile Web should just work for everyone

#52

Post by masklinn »

Smudge wrote: post #48
masklinn wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately the standards commity dropped the ball on this one because they are unable to act fast enough. These are features which changed semantics and syntax multiple times over the course of their standardisation, it's not like standards guys were slow because they found it fun > If the tags had been standalized then we would be using them. Webkit browsers have all supported unprefixed box-sizing since the re…

That query means nothing. Most of those results include the non-prefixed version as well. The prefixed one is there for backwards compatibility.

> That query means nothing.

That query means developers by and large don't care and just cargo-cult through.

> The prefixed one is there for backwards compatibility.

Backwards compatibility with what, fucking Chrome 6? How many of these sites have been tested for backwards compatibility in Chrome 6? I'd bet it's somewhere around "none whatsoever".

Re: The Mobile Web should just work for everyone

#53

Post by rayiner »

The mobile web is just a disaster all around. I remember when I got my iPhone in '08, the browsing experience was amazing. Most sites were still relatively simple, and whatever highly non-standard tricks Safari played to do things like text reflow worked great on that small 3.5" screen. Half a decade later, I'm profusely disappointed with Chrome's browsing experience on my Nexus 5's massive 5" screen. Even on HN, I can't read the titles on the main page without scrolling sideways at any zoom factor where I can still make out the text. Reddit is better than most, but it still renders the "233 Comments" link text in miniscule text that's impossible to hit without zooming in. Advanced web technologies and CSS layout has turned the mobile web into a sea of too-small text, too-wide columns, pop-overs that are too easy to fat-finger, etc. /rant

Re: The Mobile Web should just work for everyone

#54

Post by chiph »

nailer wrote: post #27
droopybuns wrote: post #13

Poor Windows Phone team. This is a symptom of the ecosystem's indifference to the windows phone platform. Browser vendors implementing hacks to trick web apps into presenting the right content because web developers have learned that they can't rely on the browser to render content properly. I think there's a lesson in here about treating your ecosystem right.

I'd actually test on Windows Phone if they published images for Mac like they do with Desktop IE (and no, VMs inside VMs don't count). It's actually possible to run WP8 under Fusion on a Mac, but MS need to add mouse cursor support: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19402478/is-it-possible-t...

IIRC you can't run a HyperV image inside a Parallels VM because it doesn't have access to the Intel extensions it needs. You could do it via Bootcamp, though.

Re: The Mobile Web should just work for everyone

#55

Post by elinchrome »

rayiner wrote: post #53

The mobile web is just a disaster all around. I remember when I got my iPhone in '08, the browsing experience was amazing. Most sites were still relatively simple, and whatever highly non-standard tricks Safari played to do things like text reflow worked great on that small 3.5" screen. Half a decade later, I'm profusely disappointed with Chrome's browsing experience on my Nexus 5's massive 5" screen. Even on HN, I c…

For reddit you should use the .compact url. E.g. reddit.com/.compact.

Re: The Mobile Web should just work for everyone

#58

Post by tomjen3 »

masklinn wrote: post #50
tomjen3 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you blame developers? The fault lies with the standards community for not standardizing much faster (at most a week after the second browser has support for that feature) and for MS for developing a browser at a glacial pace.

> Why do you blame developers? Because the fault lies with them and no one else, no matter how in denial you are. > The fault lies with the standards community for not standardizing much faster (at most a week after the second browser has support for that feature) That doesn't even make sense, standards work is not "you shipped some random unspecified and mostly broken pile of shit and some other bloke was convinced…

Do you have any backup for your arguments?

Re: The Mobile Web should just work for everyone

#59

Post by hadri »

symlinkk wrote: post #46

How exactly is the mobile web biased towards iOS? I've rarely (if ever) had to use a vendor prefix when developing for mobile. I am using Bootstrap, so maybe they're doing those for me.

https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/blob/master/less/mixins/ve...

They are indeed! ;-)

Re: The Mobile Web should just work for everyone

#60

Post by tomjen3 »

masklinn wrote: post #52
Smudge wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That query means nothing. Most of those results include the non-prefixed version as well. The prefixed one is there for backwards compatibility.

> That query means nothing. That query means developers by and large don't care and just cargo-cult through. > The prefixed one is there for backwards compatibility. Backwards compatibility with what, fucking Chrome 6? How many of these sites have been tested for backwards compatibility in Chrome 6? I'd bet it's somewhere around "none whatsoever".

No reason to remove them when they are there.
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