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Safari is the new IE

nolanlawson.com

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Re: Safari is the new IE

#241

Post by coldtea »

fpgeek wrote: post #66
coldtea wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which has been stated again and again, but was never an issue with Apple. First because what they make from the App Store is spare change for them. Second because they did have the best browser for a while, and did very much to advance the state of the art (from WebSQL, to Canvas, CSS 3D and other stuff, all originating there, along with the original fast-JITed JS engine who started the JS-race to what we have know).…

It's not about the money from the app store, it's about the lock-in from apps, which is far more valuable.

Not much lock-in. Most apps are either cross platform or for casual use, and I could buy an Android phone and be productive tomorrow, transferring all my images, documents, contacts and such in a couple of hours.

People don't feel locked with their app purchases. Case in point, the large volumes of people going from Android to iOS and vice versa.

Re: Safari is the new IE

#242

Post by dysfunction »

jonny_eh wrote: post #233
kedean wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't need to be. MS in the late 90's dominated, and you could not do work with someone using MS products unless you also used MS products. One person having an iOS device and another having an Android device does not cause any issues between the two, they are fully able to communicate by the nature of cell phones. I would bet that the lawsuits against MS would not go through if they were brought up today (and,…

You can't facetime or iMessage with an iPerson if you don't have an iDevice.

No, but you can use SMS, Skype, or Hangouts.

Re: Safari is the new IE

#243

Post by criley2 »

disusered wrote: post #220
criley2 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chrome on Android works great and experiences literally zero of the issues mentioned for Safari. Chrome for Android is an app, not a system component, and does not require Android point releases to be updated. It is frequently updated on a regular schedule by Google and pushed out to devices. Using sources like www.caniuse.com, I frequently find that Safari/iOS does not support a feature that is supported on Android…

https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html?ut... What about the other 50% of Android users that don't have Chrome or Chrome WebView? I've been working mobile for a few years now and would love to drop anything before KitKat, but that's not something feasible given market share. In practice, pre 4.4 embedded WebViews have worse support for standards than Mobile Safari. Chrome for Android was in part a s…

http://caniuse.com/usage-table

Android Chrome has about 13.3% global usage, and all versions of Android Browser have about 6.5%. If we do not count versions before 4.4, then Android Browser has about 2.5%.

Also worth pointing out that Chrome for Android is over the 1 billion mark (1,000,000,000 - 5,000,000,000)

Re: Safari is the new IE

#244

Post by mikhailt »

I have to agree with the author based on the experience of developing an extension for it. Safari is sadly way behind Firefox and Chrome in supporting latest features. This has not changed since Safari 5/6 in Lion.

I think the author is saying Safari is new IE in terms that you need to start adding features to your sites (and extensions) that Safari won't support and blame Apple for not catching up, like Microsoft did at the time with IE.

Even Microsoft is planning to duplicate Chrome's extension APIs for Edge.

Re: Safari is the new IE

#245

Post by jsprogrammer »

kedean wrote: post #227
jsprogrammer wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it actually reasonably easy to install a different operating system on an i device?

It doesn't need to be. MS in the late 90's dominated, and you could not do work with someone using MS products unless you also used MS products. One person having an iOS device and another having an Android device does not cause any issues between the two, they are fully able to communicate by the nature of cell phones. I would bet that the lawsuits against MS would not go through if they were brought up today (and,…

>It doesn't need to be.

Maybe, maybe not. That is what the person I was responding to claimed though.

I don't believe it is reasonably easy to choose/install another operating system on an i device. I could be wrong.

>One person having an iOS device and another having an Android device does not cause any issues between the two, they are fully able to communicate by the nature of cell phones.

By the nature of cell phones? What is the nature of cell phones?

Ethernet existed in the 90's and I personally setup networks using it that allowed Windows and Linux systems to communicate with each other.

Re: Safari is the new IE

#246

Post by a_c_s »

collyw wrote: post #170
streptomycin wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What rules that had been there for tens of years were broken by IE6? IE6 was the best browser available when it was released, and the web standards ecosystem was nothing like it is today. I think the analogy is very clear. If you want to code like it's 2000, supporting IE6 is easy, because IE6 is a very good 2000 browser. If you want to code like it's 2010, supporting Safari is easy, because Safari is a very good 201…

"Another difference is that MS never blocked you from installing a better browser, but Apple does that on iOS. That policy is becoming increasingly ridiculous..." Why has that not resulted in anti competitive behavior lawsuits? MS got in to a fair bit of trouble for similar things. They didn't stop you installing an alternative.

Netscape used to be a paid product* before Microsoft made IE free. What Microsoft did was make a free competitor and install it on every machine running their OS.

So what Microsoft did that was illegal was use their monopoly power to destroy an existing player. That's how they were "anti-competitive".

While Apple not allowing any competing rendering engines to be written for iOS is anti-competitive in the dictionary sense that they are preventing competition to be created, it isn't the type of behavior targeted by anti-trust law.

(IANAL, but my understanding is that if Apple had removed Spotify, Pandora and other music apps from the App Store while releasing their streaming music service, that would be an anti-trust violation.)

*Netscape was $49 in 1996 http://www.fastcompany.com/27743/nothing-netscape

Re: Safari is the new IE

#247

Post by netfire »

coldtea wrote: post #239
netfire wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious where you are basing your revenue numbers from. Per Apple's reported statistics for 2014[1], developers pulled in $10 billion dollars in revenue from the app store. That means that Apple's revenue from the app store should also be in the low billions (based on the 70/30 cut they take from app store sales and purchases). All without manufacturing logistics and hardware production costs. Obviously the computing…

> That means that Apple's revenue from the app store should also be in the low billions (based on the 70/30 cut they take from app store sales and purchases). That makes it around $3 billion, before taxes and infrastructure expenses, payment deals, etc. $3 billion is spare change for Apple. They have 200 times than in cash.

Again you post information without any sources. A more accurate figure is $178 billion in cash at the beginning of this year.[1] That means they have around 59 times more than that amount in cash, not the 200 you claimed. Also, I think its telling that Apple themselves mentioned App Store Sales as a main factor in their revenue earnings for Q4 of their 2014 fiscal year. [2] What's important is how much of their total annual revenue and profits are derived from App Store sales, not how it compares to the amount of cash they have on hand.

As others have mentioned, there are other benefits from native applications, like vendor lock-in, which Apple isn't going to get with web-based applications.

[1] http://money.cnn.com/2015/01/28/investing/apple-cash-178-bil...

[2] http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2014/10/20Apple-Reports-Four...

Re: Safari is the new IE

#249

Post by wutbrodo »

krschultz wrote: post #201
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…

And I'm sure using this tone gets you more upvotes, but it feels very ad hominem.

What? How is this ad hominen? Do you think that term just means "being harsh"?

Re: Safari is the new IE

#250

Post by Tloewald »

vdaniuk wrote: post #90
Tloewald wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

> Making web lose -> make users unhappy in short term Sure, it decreases user satisfaction for a SUBSET of users, who care about web apps. This subset seems to be strategically negligible for Apple. This is a trade-off which is absolutely rational from the shareholders/management perspective. >It's totally awesome how Google created its Play store so that it seamlessly works on competing platforms Your fanboyism show…

Ah yes, pointing out that your anti-Apple arguments are just as easily applied to Chrome/Google, Firefox/Mozilla, or IE/Microsoft makes me a fanboy.

It's like Betteridge's Law for discussions involving Apple.

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