Safari is the new IE • Hacker News Board

Re: Safari is the new IE

#261

Post by exelius » Tue, Jun 30, 2015, 5:52 PM UTC

lotharbot wrote: post #235

disusered wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> "pre 4.4 embedded WebViews have worse support for standards than Mobile Safari" My old Windows XP box also has worse support for standards than Mobile Safari. OK, so XP also doesn't have market share. But it's hard to blame older versions of Android for not supporting standards that didn't exist when they were implemented, just because people continue to buy low-end devices running those old versions.

Right, but at the same time you can't say that Safari is the only thing holding mobile web development back. Because dropping users on "old" versions of Android isn't an option from a business standpoint, Safari isn't the only thing holding people back. And 4.4 really isn't that old; so there are tons of users on older devices.

Re: Safari is the new IE

#262

Post by gedrap » Tue, Jun 30, 2015, 5:52 PM UTC

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.

>>> Why has that not resulted in anti competitive behavior lawsuits?

IANAL but folks over reddit explained it as this:

Microsoft was a software only vendor in the past but Apple is the hardware and software vendor. US and EU laws dictate that the hardware manufacturer to have full control over the ecosystem becuase of the industry behaviour in the past and who the end-consumer pays his money to.

http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/39q25f/el...

I am not sure how correct it is but at least it makes sense.

Re: Safari is the new IE

#263

Post by snuxoll » Tue, Jun 30, 2015, 5:53 PM UTC

kijin wrote: post #14

As a primarily web-based advertising company, Google benefits immensely from a more feature-packed web. So does Mozilla, both because they depend on ad revenue and because they are betting very heavily on the web as a platform. Even Microsoft is heavily invested in web technologies, not only because of Bing but also because HTML5 forms the backbone of Modern (Metro) UI. Apple, on the other hand, has no reason to want…

> HTML5 forms the backbone of Modern (Metro) UI.

Factually incorrect, WinRT certainly supports HTML5 apps but it supports .Net and C++ too, all of the WinRT implementation code is either native C++ or .Net.

Re: Safari is the new IE

#264

Post by krschultz » Tue, Jun 30, 2015, 5:56 PM UTC

wutbrodo wrote: post #249

krschultz wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"?

He's attacking the guy's experience and insinuating that the OP is being sensational to get upvotes.

Re: Safari is the new IE

#265

Post by snuxoll » Tue, Jun 30, 2015, 5:58 PM UTC

leephillips wrote: post #63

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.

I've noticed this using Chrome on Ubuntu. Is Firefox the best alternative, (is it significantly more efficient?) or can you suggest something else?

Epiphany works pretty well for me, I've been forced to customize the User-Agent string to that of Chrome to make certain things like Outlook Web App treat it like a Real Browser(TM), on occasion I have to use Firefox still (Plex doesn't work in epiphany) but overall it works fine.

I should note that Epiphany is the only Linux web browser that seems to interact with touch screens correctly, drag-to-scroll works wonderfully on my XPS 13 meanwhile Chrome and Firefox just keep trying to highlight text.

Re: Safari is the new IE

#266

Post by grumblestumble » Tue, Jun 30, 2015, 5:58 PM UTC

Absolutely agree with this article. Safari is fast becoming the bane of my existence, to the point where we're considering migrating our entire app to Electron just to lock down compatibility issues. Something the article doesn't touch on is that the maximum version of Safari is locked to the OS version, and on desktop, many A/V professionals have serious PTSD when it comes to upgrading OS X. We have many customers using our app who won't upgrade from Mountain Lion, so supporting Safari cripples what we can do - even flexbox isn't an option.

Re: Safari is the new IE

#267

Post by exelius » Tue, Jun 30, 2015, 5:59 PM UTC

VieElm wrote: post #85

exelius wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nothing you've said here really addresses the problem discussed and really you're looking at this from the perspective of the consumer and not the developer. That's entirely the point: developers and users have different needs. But the developers will follow the users to whatever browser the users feel is best. Apple's priorities are on improving battery life, page responsiveness, etc. If users value Apple's browse…

> then the developers will simply follow the users. That didn't happen with IE6. I think the web as platform is bigger than Apple as big as it may be. It's amazing to me that you're OK with a single company holding back the entire platform because of a single device. People use the web with machines that don't even have batteries. Really to a developer who cares about the open web and standards, just throwing the who…

> That didn't happen with IE6.

Yes it did. That's the entire reason IE6 was such a headache: IE6 was by far the worst browser platform out there, but everything in the corporate world was written with IE6 in mind. This made it a nightmare to support these sites -- because they didn't work in Firefox or Chrome. So when IE6 was finally deprecated, it was a mad scramble to try to patch internal tools (or hack an unsupported install of IE6) so your HR person could access payroll.

Re: Safari is the new IE

#268

Post by ytdht » Tue, Jun 30, 2015, 5:59 PM UTC

that reminds me of this CSS file I once saw on microsoft.com: http://farm1.staticflickr.com/49/119928279_59247e2095.jpg

Re: Safari is the new IE

#269

Post by bzbarsky » Tue, Jun 30, 2015, 6:00 PM UTC

a_c_s wrote: post #246

collyw wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

The real issue is just whether Apple has a monopoly or not. IANAL, but as I understand it what's illegal is using a monopoly in one market to muscle into another market via bundling deals. Just doing bundling deals if you're not a monopoly is perfectly OK.

Re: Safari is the new IE

#270

Post by jessaustin » Tue, Jun 30, 2015, 6:00 PM UTC

Tloewald wrote: post #252

jessaustin wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that argument can justify any deficiency in Safari, so it's unconvincing. Eventually you're just saying, "Apple don't care about all these new web things." Which is the point of TFA.

How so? Let's suppose Safari has some horrible bug in it that exposes users to malware or whatever. (And it has had from time to time and Apple has been rightly pilloried for some of these cases.) Tell me how saying that Apple would rather improve user experience than add developer-friendly features justifies this.

Different people will draw the line at different places. To you, the hypothetical malware vuln should be fixed before e.g. improving battery life by 5%. To some other user who is on a long plane journey without a power adapter and doesn't e.g. click on .flv links on specialty forums, maybe it shouldn't. But to a greedy fruit executive who wants the web to be insecure? There's no question! b^)

This thread explores the possibility that, for strategic reasons, new web stuff is not implemented on Safari. That proposition is scarcely undermined by hypothesizing a typical user who doesn't care about new web stuff as much as she cares about battery life. She's hypothetical, why should she care about anything as much as she cares about battery life?