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Safari is the new IE

nolanlawson.com

151–160 of 368 posts

Re: Safari is the new IE

#151
post #134

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…

Can you explain how fixing IndexedDB bugs hurts battery life? Can you explain how WebRTC hurts battery life?

It doesn't hurt battery life. It just takes engineering hours away from working on battery life.

Re: Safari is the new IE

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its in Apple's interest to not have Safari work well on older machines (since they want people to buy new machines) Then they're failing miserably, because as I (and others in this conversation) have attested to... Safari is noticeably faster than Firefox or Chrome on older Mac hardware. So I don't think your theory holds any water. Sorry. (Edit: My post was unclear. I and others feel that Safari, despite its other s…

I think he interpreted your post as being the opposite of what you meant it to say. You said the performance gap is more noticeable but you probably mean in favor of safari, although it could be interpreted either way.

I did, and I should have read it more carefully. That being said, I think there is a balance that Apple tries to maintain here. If there experience on older systems is terrible, they run the risk of people switching to a different operating system and platform. If the experience isn't significantly better on newer hardware, however, customers won't be motivated to upgrade.

Re: Safari is the new IE

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's one thing to be the first to implement standards, it's another to completely ignore them for years. The "Chrome Experiments" was a way to show off the WebGL capability in chrome that no other browsers had at the time. (Now those demos will mostly work in all browsers) Plus you are forgetting that those are experiments. They were never really meant to be actual "apps". Making an experiment/demo for one browser is…

WebRTC is not really new any more - a couple of years old (and existed in other forms long before), and still not widely adopted. In fact, not adopted in a single further browser in that time, and the original two are not compatible. I'm thinking, its almost time to consider WebRTC 'failure to achieve traction'?

Not an expert, but hopeful that WebRTC will be a success in the end. Maybe I'm just overly optimistic?

> still not widely adopted

Certainly everyone involved with WebRTC wishes that it had the support of IE and Safari, but Chrome + Firefox + Opera is nothing to sneeze at, particularly if you're targeting a savvy audience.

> Original two are not compatible

Maybe I'm confused, are you saying that Firefox and Chrome aren't compatible via WebRTC? I've used them together and had success, but just for basic video calling.

> not adopted in a single further browser in that time

This is fair, but if Microsoft's latest moves come to fruition that will be a big change. There are hints that Edge will likely support WebRTC[0], though I don't think there has been any official word. Maybe that's just for ORTC?

[0]:http://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2015/05/13/announcing-med...

Re: Safari is the new IE

#154
post #113
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…

Yes, but before that IE fixed the web! :) Remember CSS on Netscape? IE4 was actually a beacon back in its day. Everything is cyclical: Lean - Average - Bloated - Lean - Average - Bloated

Then, Safari has an amazing energy footprint.

I will readily agree that the evolutionary path of OSX seems to have gone off the rails. But hey, why do I use Safari instead of Chrome?

Re: Safari is the new IE

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WebRTC is not really new any more - a couple of years old (and existed in other forms long before), and still not widely adopted. In fact, not adopted in a single further browser in that time, and the original two are not compatible. I'm thinking, its almost time to consider WebRTC 'failure to achieve traction'?

Not an expert, but hopeful that WebRTC will be a success in the end. Maybe I'm just overly optimistic? > still not widely adopted Certainly everyone involved with WebRTC wishes that it had the support of IE and Safari, but Chrome + Firefox + Opera is nothing to sneeze at, particularly if you're targeting a savvy audience. > Original two are not compatible Maybe I'm confused, are you saying that Firefox and Chrome are…

[deleted]

Re: Safari is the new IE

#156
post #30

It isn't as bad as what led to IE's state that took several years of active development by Microsoft to even begin correcting. The gap between IE 6 and IE 7 was terrible, and IE 6 wasn't even that much more than IE 5, standards-wise. Here's an overview of what's new in Safari (WebKit) as it ships with OS X El Capitan: https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/mac/releaseno...

What people often forget is that there was a time when IE6 was actually better than the alternatives (on Windows anyway). Around the time it was released Navigator was the main competitor and that was getting progressively less stable and failed to keep up with the way the web was evolving. And by "evolving" I don't just mean new techniques/standards/whatever - simply the way the size of things was growing as people…

From the same era on Mac, IE 5 was an amazing browser.

Re: Safari is the new IE

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Th…

It also has better performance with retina, scrolling, less jank, and other user-experience/satisfaction related qualities. It's dev tools aren't adequate for my use, but for being a user of other sites, it has been wholly sufficient.

Apple's improving the dev tools in El Capitan: https://developer.apple.com/videos/wwdc/2015/?id=505

Re: Safari is the new IE

#158
> As recently as 2010, back when Steve Jobs famously skewered Flash while declaring that HTML5 is the future, Apple was a fierce web partisan.

Web partisan or just trying to eliminate the biggest cross platform competition to native applications at that time? (flash)

Re: Safari is the new IE

#159
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to do some work[1] with, basically, HTML4. Eventually I reached the stage whereby the feature worked in every other browser (IE8+, including Opera), using clean and completely hack-free code. In 3 days I had done my work. Then I tested it in Safari. Two weeks later I gave up and basically had to `if (Safari)`. I don't know if the code still has that, but it probably does. This wasn't anything 'lacking'. Sure, i…

If your target browser is IE8 and you write a bunch of html4 that looks great in IE8, I would expect it to not work anywhere else. Not only is IE8 a snowflake but html4 is particularly hard to get a good layout working. Lots of nontrivial layouts in pure html4 (and css 1/2) require tons of browser specific hacks.

You missed his point. He mentioned IE8+ and Opera as working targets to highlight the fact Safari was being lame. He said every browser - that would include complaint ones like firefox and chrome. He also specifically said he avoided browser specific hacks.
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