Safari is the new IE • Hacker News Board

Re: Safari is the new IE

#71

Post by JadeNB » Tue, Jun 30, 2015, 2:00 PM UTC

rplnt wrote: post #57

NietTim wrote: post #38

Nolan, I'm not familiar with what you do or have done, but have you ever tried to make a website back in the day? Ever tried to support IE6? 7? 8? IE literally broke the web. CSS rules which worked in every browser ever wouldn't work in IE. Entire webpages weren't formatting correctly, having to spend hours, days, on workarounds. Comparing Safari to IE is just wrong. Safari doesn't break the web, it 'just' lacks supp…

In the same vain, Chrome does break web by introducing various custom features that can't be found in other browsers. See all those Google demos from past several years: "You need Chrome to view this" sounds very much like those "IE5+" warnings.

> See all those Google demos from past several years: "You need Chrome to view this" sounds very much like those "IE5+" warnings.

I'm in sympathy with the spirit of this post, but I'm not sure that I agree with this specific example. I think that there's a big difference between an 'everyday' web page requiring a specific browser, and the creator of a browser showing off what they see as its exceptional capabilities.

However much designers (and users) like adherence to standards, I think that it's clear that a lot of the innovations we take for granted have come from browsers leading the way; and there's not much point in having those innovations in the browser if the user doesn't know about them.

(I should be clear that I'm not advocating a functionality free-for-all, though; probably much more harm than good has come from this behaviour.)

Re: Safari is the new IE

#72

Post by dspillett » Tue, Jun 30, 2015, 2:00 PM UTC

gwbas1c wrote: post #11

The article misses the point. The browser is a document viewer, not an application delivery platform. Back in 2005 we all thought that web-based applications were going to take the world by storm, but now that we have slick application stores on all major platforms, this isn’t the case. If you need functionality like you describe, ship a native application via an app store. It’s a much better experience than web deve…

> If you need functionality like you describe, ship a native application via an app store. It’s a much better experience than web development.

That is a faf when you want to be cross platform though. With care I can write an application that covers pretty much all the users I care to cover, i.e. those using desktop or mobile browsers released in the last few years. In fact there are a couple I intend to develop once I've got certain other things out of the way that are eating my "personal project" time currently. Yes native apps have advantages, and for my projects there might be native apps later, but developing for browsers first (well, API first with browsers being the first major client) gives the best use of your initial time unless your app needs greater performance, access to hardware, or something else not possible/practical in the browser.

If Safari lags behind to the point where I can only support iDevices as secondary citizens (web first, followed by native apps for platforms that need them) then I am perfectly happy to do that. Thankfully that is a practical consideration, at least for my projects, unlike at some points in the past where not supporting IE6 locked you out of a much larger part of your potential audience then not supporting mobile safari does now.

If enough other developers take this route (Your platform doesn't work well unless I create something specifically for it? OK, I consider that later when I've got everything else working) maybe the direction of Safari will be forced to change in that respect.

Re: Safari is the new IE

#73

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jun 30, 2015, 2:00 PM UTC

joshuacc wrote: post #47

Cshelton wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has stopped supporting Safari on Windows. SO yes, you are using Safari 5.0, from over 2 and a half years ago...of course every other browser will beat it.

The comment you're responding to specified Safari on OSX .

[deleted]

Re: Safari is the new IE

#74

Post by netfire » Tue, Jun 30, 2015, 2:01 PM UTC

JohnBooty wrote: post #56

sergimansilla wrote: post #4

Agreed. However, it still has the best perceived performance. Just open a page with a heavy layout and scroll up and down, or type an address or search term in the location bar and "feel" how fast it loads. Apple really put some effort in making it "feel" extremely fast.

However, [Safari] still has the best perceived performance. Just open a page with a heavy layout and scroll up and down, or type an address or search term in the location bar and "feel" how fast it loads. The performance gap is particularly noticeable on older Macs. Safari feels about the same as other browsers on my recent Mac... but there's a big gap in responsiveness between Safari and the other browsers on my wif…

Its in Apple's interest to not have Safari work well on older machines (since they want people to buy new machines), or improve it in ways that would make the browser better compete against the app store (especially on mobile).

It is in their interest to have it be a very nice looking document viewing platform, which is where I imagine most of their developer resources are going towards.

Re: Safari is the new IE

#75

Post by Tloewald » Tue, Jun 30, 2015, 2:01 PM UTC

vdaniuk wrote: post #61

Tloewald wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely disagree. Apple wants to make the best experience for users because then they'll keep buying Apple products. If users want the web, then they make the browser better. If Apps are more appropriate, then they make apps better. Apple prioritizes stuff users care about -- battery life > IndexedDB, accessibility > WebGL. Until you understand this and stop thinking like a conspiracy theorist, you won't understan…

Apple wants to make the best experience for users while maintaining vendor lock-in. iOS users invest hundreds of dollars in apps and games and enjoy exclusive products. This creates a very significant barrier to switch to another mobile platform. Quite obviously increased switching costs for users are important for iOS to maintain leadership in platform wars. Therefore, rapid advancement of web apps user experience t…

Making web lose -> make users unhappy in short (and probably long) term, damage Apple's reputation in long term

It's totally awesome how Google created its Play store so that it seamlessly works on competing platforms -- after all it's a largely open-source stack that would easily run on (say) iPhones. No wait, they use it as a bludgeon to keep third parties in line (and create vendor lock-in).

Re: Safari is the new IE

#76

Post by jfoster » Tue, Jun 30, 2015, 2:02 PM UTC

rplnt wrote: post #57

NietTim wrote: post #38

Nolan, I'm not familiar with what you do or have done, but have you ever tried to make a website back in the day? Ever tried to support IE6? 7? 8? IE literally broke the web. CSS rules which worked in every browser ever wouldn't work in IE. Entire webpages weren't formatting correctly, having to spend hours, days, on workarounds. Comparing Safari to IE is just wrong. Safari doesn't break the web, it 'just' lacks supp…

In the same vain, Chrome does break web by introducing various custom features that can't be found in other browsers. See all those Google demos from past several years: "You need Chrome to view this" sounds very much like those "IE5+" warnings.

Google are definitely breaking the web in lots of ways. They even have an audio limitation in Chrome on Android where they have added an explicit exception just for google.com: https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=178297#c...

That said, there are some cases where things are Chrome-only simply because other vendors are far behind. (eg. speech recognition & synthesis)

Re: Safari is the new IE

#77

Post by dspillett » Tue, Jun 30, 2015, 2:03 PM UTC

rplnt wrote: post #57

NietTim wrote: post #38

Nolan, I'm not familiar with what you do or have done, but have you ever tried to make a website back in the day? Ever tried to support IE6? 7? 8? IE literally broke the web. CSS rules which worked in every browser ever wouldn't work in IE. Entire webpages weren't formatting correctly, having to spend hours, days, on workarounds. Comparing Safari to IE is just wrong. Safari doesn't break the web, it 'just' lacks supp…

In the same vain, Chrome does break web by introducing various custom features that can't be found in other browsers. See all those Google demos from past several years: "You need Chrome to view this" sounds very much like those "IE5+" warnings.

A lot of that is new features that are later implemented in competing browsers though, sometimes features that aren't even officially declared stable in Chrome yet. I'll happily allow "works best in X" for a tech demo. For a site/app I want to use for doing something, this is different of course.

Re: Safari is the new IE

#78

Post by jackgavigan » Tue, Jun 30, 2015, 2:03 PM UTC

exelius wrote: post #49

dailyrorschach wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Safari daily as my primary browser on desktop. I don't doubt it presents challenges for developers, and hope they update faster. But, not only is it fast on OS X, the battery life optimization is amazing. I run Safari without Flash installed, and only need to pop over to Chrome once and a while. I've come to understand Chrome is making more power consumption adjustments in it's OS X version, and look forward to…

Chrome is bloated and inefficient; even if it's not doing power-saving CPU scheduling. The "one process per tab" model seems great, but it allows Google to ignore performance problems in the browser and push them off to the page itself. That said, Google is a lot more active in pushing the envelope of browser development, so even though I personally stopped using Chrome, I still appreciate the work Google is doing on…

Since Mavericks, Safari comes with a 'Power Saver' feature that automatically pauses resource-intensive Flash plugins.

Re: Safari is the new IE

#79

Post by braythwayt » Tue, Jun 30, 2015, 2:03 PM UTC

exelius wrote: post #34

Disagree with this assessment. IE was so bad because Microsoft tried to go off and create its own standards that were incompatible with Mozilla / Firefox / etc. (I'm thinking of IE6 specifically). And this was big, core functionality like page layout and CSS; not some data structures that can be implemented in other ways (albeit with a performance hit). This was doubly bad because "enterprise" companies (SAP, SAS, Or…

  > in my experience, it's the fastest browser on OS X by a pretty
  > wide margin. Chrome is so bloated and full of garbage at this
  > point that when I have it open, I usually have at least one tab
  > sitting at 100% CPU (and this is with FlashBlock enabled). Safari
  > also manages to feel faster while using significantly less power
  > -- I suspect Apple has done some optimizations through Grand
  > Central on this front.

This. As a developer... I sympathize with people who like developing on the desktop with Chrome and for Chrome, but as a user, I prefer the browser that doesn't spin up the fans on my MacBook Air.

As we adulate Tesla for their accomplishments with battery technology, we often point out that battery life is a software problem, and that it involves a specific set of engineering tradeoffs. Apple is simply making those tradeoffs. And it has to.

Google make a browser that runs on everything. If one platform is slower than another, or has less battery life than another, blame the platform vendor. Google doesn't care. But Apple sells hardware. If a MacBook gets so hot it burns your thighs, they lose sales. If the battery life on an iPad is terrible, they lose sales.

Safari gives their users a legitimate way to enjoy web browsing on a cool-running system with long battery life. That sells.

Re: Safari is the new IE

#80

Post by exelius » Tue, Jun 30, 2015, 2:03 PM UTC

chii wrote: post #64

dmd wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> significantly less power This is the big issue for most people, I think. I would love to use Chrome, but when I do, (a) thighs burn to a crisp if my machine is on my lap directly and (b) the battery depletes, literally, 1.5x as fast.

why is that? does safari use some undocumented api, or that chrome sucks up more computing power in the name of rendering speed/responsiveness?

It's the latter. From what I've noticed, Chrome engages the dedicated GPU to speed up rendering. This by itself will cause a spike in power usage.