Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tired of Safari

quirksmode.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 125 posts

Re: Tired of Safari

#71

Post by emodendroket »

bhouston wrote: post #18
bonn1 wrote: post #14

It's obvious that Apple slowed down innovating the web since the core of their business is iOS and apps. They shouldn't have any interest in a fast innovating web that gets on par with native apps which is their main lock-in for iOS, just like Microsoft 15 years ago. They only speed up their rendering engine and JS core but don't try to help on standards improving the web experience. BUT: I doubt this pointer event t…

> It's obvious that Apple slowed down innovating the web since the core of their business is iOS and apps. They shouldn't have any interest in a fast innovating web that gets on par with native apps which is their main lock-in for iOS I worry about this regarding Google as well. Both Apple and Google benefit from App lockin. :/ NOTE: You can downvote me, but web apps are secondary on mobile -- remember all those Chro…

Really? Google is still the company behind Chromebooks, Docs, Gmail, and other attempts to replace desktop apps with Web stuff.

Re: Tired of Safari

#72

Post by BinaryIdiot »

bonn1 wrote: post #14

It's obvious that Apple slowed down innovating the web since the core of their business is iOS and apps. They shouldn't have any interest in a fast innovating web that gets on par with native apps which is their main lock-in for iOS, just like Microsoft 15 years ago. They only speed up their rendering engine and JS core but don't try to help on standards improving the web experience. BUT: I doubt this pointer event t…

> BUT: I doubt this pointer event thing is a good example for their reluctance because it's really just a nice-to-have feature for the Surface and the Note series which is for my taste a too small target to justify a standard.

This is inaccurate. The pointer events standard allows you to avoid the 300ms delay mobile / touch screen browsers have and is useful across all devices. Without it you have to continue using hacks to prevent the delay.

Re: Tired of Safari

#73

Post by sirn »

bonn1 wrote: post #47
sirn wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>CSS Flexbox is the best positioning standard I encountered, every vendor supports it, only Apple still prefixes it with -webkit. Flexbox has been unprefixed in WebKit r173579[1][2]. Presumably, it will be available when Apple release the next version of Safari. Reading the Bugzilla, the reason of not unprefixing the feature seems to be lack of contributors on WebKit's part than anything. [1]: http://trac.webkit.org/…

> Presumably, it will be available when Apple release the next version of Safari How do you know? It's was unprefixed already ~3 months ago, so why should it happen with the next release? And when does the next release come? And why do their release cycles are not as short as those from Chrome or Firefox? Because it's not their core business. > ... to be lack of contributors on WebKit's part than anything. Exactly wh…

> How do you know? It's was unprefixed already ~3 months ago, so why should it happen with the next release?

It was unprefixed ~6 months ago.

Their latest Safari release tracks WebKit release 600 which contains all changes until July 2014[1]. The latest WebKit release is 601, which contains all changes until September 2014[2], including the flexbox unprefixing. Safari normally update WebKit to the latest release in a non-maintenance update (e.g. Safari 8.1) so it should be available with the next release.

Another thing to note is that their Web Inspector (which is built with HTML+CSS+JS) already uses the unprefixed flexbox in trunk, so if they want to ship the updated Inspector, they will eventually have to ship the feature anyway.

[1]: http://trac.webkit.org/export/180623/tags/Safari-600.1.1/Cha...

[2]: http://trac.webkit.org/export/180623/tags/Safari-601.1.1/Sou...

Re: Tired of Safari

#74

Post by Mahn »

dimillian wrote: post #17

If only there was a better/faster mobile browser than Safari. The fact is there isn't, true, Google is not allowed to have its own version of Webkit/blink on iOS, but is Chrome Android better/as reliable as Safari?

> but is Chrome Android better/as reliable as Safari?

Absolutely, not sure what would make you think otherwise. Older versions (a year or two ago) used to have some minor inconveniences ocasionally, such as scrolling lag after using it for a while, but that was ironed out long ago. Chrome for Android is my main mobile browser and by and large the "app" I spend the most time with while on the go, and currently I have zero complains. It's fast, it's responsive and it gets the job done without getting on the way.

Re: Tired of Safari

#75

Post by josefresco »

emodendroket wrote: post #71
bhouston wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's obvious that Apple slowed down innovating the web since the core of their business is iOS and apps. They shouldn't have any interest in a fast innovating web that gets on par with native apps which is their main lock-in for iOS I worry about this regarding Google as well. Both Apple and Google benefit from App lockin. :/ NOTE: You can downvote me, but web apps are secondary on mobile -- remember all those Chro…

Really? Google is still the company behind Chromebooks, Docs, Gmail, and other attempts to replace desktop apps with Web stuff.

Google seems to play both sides - they embrace the web, but also the "app" and marketplace model. With Chrome OS, Chrome Browser running Chrome Apps - is that sill the "open web"?

Re: Tired of Safari

#76

Post by bonn1 »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #72
bonn1 wrote: post #14

It's obvious that Apple slowed down innovating the web since the core of their business is iOS and apps. They shouldn't have any interest in a fast innovating web that gets on par with native apps which is their main lock-in for iOS, just like Microsoft 15 years ago. They only speed up their rendering engine and JS core but don't try to help on standards improving the web experience. BUT: I doubt this pointer event t…

> BUT: I doubt this pointer event thing is a good example for their reluctance because it's really just a nice-to-have feature for the Surface and the Note series which is for my taste a too small target to justify a standard. This is inaccurate. The pointer events standard allows you to avoid the 300ms delay mobile / touch screen browsers have and is useful across all devices. Without it you have to continue using h…

This is inaccurate. Nowadays, the 300ms goes already away if you set the meta viewport tag with width=device-width etc [1]

[1] http://updates.html5rocks.com/2013/12/300ms-tap-delay-gone-a...

Re: Tired of Safari

#77

Post by nailer »

emodendroket wrote: post #71
bhouston wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's obvious that Apple slowed down innovating the web since the core of their business is iOS and apps. They shouldn't have any interest in a fast innovating web that gets on par with native apps which is their main lock-in for iOS I worry about this regarding Google as well. Both Apple and Google benefit from App lockin. :/ NOTE: You can downvote me, but web apps are secondary on mobile -- remember all those Chro…

Really? Google is still the company behind Chromebooks, Docs, Gmail, and other attempts to replace desktop apps with Web stuff.

That's true on desktop, but on iPad, for example, Google cover Gmail and Google Maps with native app spam banners.

Re: Tired of Safari

#78

Post by matthewmacleod »

bonn1 wrote: post #40
matthewmacleod wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's obvious that Apple slowed down innovating the web since the core of their business is iOS and apps No, it's not at all obvious, and the objections you've raised do not support your view at all. CSS Flexbox is the best positioning standard I encountered, every vendor supports it, only Apple still prefixes it with -webkit That's a really pedantic objection — prefixing CSS standards which aren't actually finished i…

> ... the objections you've raised do not support your view at all. No reason to get emotional. > That's a really pedantic objection — Pedantic? Positioning elements is the most important feature of a layout system and CSS is totally broken in this regards, just try to vertical center something. Flexbox is godsend and finalized—every vendor removed the prefix. Wondering who is pedantic. > Apple could easily just not…

Flexbox is godsend and finalized

Flexbox is awesome and has been available to use in Safari for years. Prefixing is not an impediment to the adoption of web standards.

This one bug makes WKWebview utterly useless.

No it doesn't – it does harm PhoneGap/Cordova or whatever, but there are known workarounds, and this bug is likely to be fixed soon in any case (see http://trac.webkit.org/changeset/174029/trunk for the actual commit that adds the required support)

Re: Tired of Safari

#79

Post by electic »

bonn1 wrote: post #14

It's obvious that Apple slowed down innovating the web since the core of their business is iOS and apps. They shouldn't have any interest in a fast innovating web that gets on par with native apps which is their main lock-in for iOS, just like Microsoft 15 years ago. They only speed up their rendering engine and JS core but don't try to help on standards improving the web experience. BUT: I doubt this pointer event t…

It is quite simple. I have a few friends who work for Apple and they are exhausted. They don't have time to fix everything and they don't simply hire in mass because they believe in quality. A lot of these issues will not get fixed anytime soon at this rate. So you are right. Safari is starting to get neglected but it is not for the reasons you think.

Re: Tired of Safari

#80

Post by Aldo_MX »

benjaminjackman wrote: post #65
falcolas wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple only has finite resources, too. Apple's finite is larger than every other company out there (to quote an article from earlier this week). I'm pretty sure that any issues Safari is encountering is not due to Apple reaching a "finite" limit of any kind. EDIT: Many of your responses posit Apple as some kind of underdog, struggling to make it in this industry. Given Apple's size and talent, this viewpoint is all…

I believe politics is the reason here too, their strategy appears to be to hinder the browser on their iOS platform to encourage native app development which locks developers into their platform which then locks users of those developers' software into their platform. This is demonstrated by making certain features of application development on their devices only accessible by writing native software. The simple work…

> I believe politics is the reason here too, their strategy appears to be to hinder the browser on their iOS platform to encourage native app development which locks developers into their platform which then locks users of those developers' software into their platform.

Well, this is expected from a business perspective. Apple can't profit from the web as much as they do from the App Store, the only way to "convince Apple" is either by dropping their sales, or by regulation.

Post reply on HN