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Safari is the new IE

nolanlawson.com

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Re: Safari is the new IE

#311

Post by wmil »

TheAnimus wrote: post #293
wmil wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IE5.5 had the broken box model. IE6 used the standard box model if the site had a recognized !DOCTYPE and the 5.5 model if it didn't. Web dev was "fun" in the early 2000s. Also console.log and javascript debuggers didn't exist. Working with complex JS got really interesting really quickly.

Fairly sure I remember using VisualStudio to debug some JavaScript back in the early 00s.

I only found out about that in 2014, so I didn't include it. But I've heard it was possible.

Re: Safari is the new IE

#312

Post by harel »

Why support it then? As long as people polyfill for safari or hack something to work, you just prolong its life and give Apple the motivation to continue the neglect. The same happened with IE6 - people complained and bitched but supported it, so the users had no reason to change. Until at some point it became more expensive to support IE than it was to lose the users (which of course, then upgraded).

Re: Safari is the new IE

#313

Post by [deleted] »

streptomycin wrote: post #102
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to support IE11 for corporate software, websites, etc. I'll used it as my main browser for a day or so to test things out and its just incredible how its become a 2nd class citizen and how you pretty much need Chrome or Safari nowadays to get by. I'm partial to Firefox and it works well enough, but designers only have so much time and they'll hit big targets first - Chrome/Sarafi and leave IE be with FF suppor…

My pet peeve with Edge is that it still doesn't fully support IndexedDB and the developers have no ETA for when that will change. But it's still better than Safari's IndexedDB support, though, even though they've basically not touched it since IE10!

[deleted]

Re: Safari is the new IE

#314

Post by wstrange »

Tloewald wrote: post #75
vdaniuk wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Correct me if I am wrong, but how could Google ever create a play store for Apple iOS devices? Doesn't Apple forbid that?

Re: Safari is the new IE

#315

Post by isaacremuant »

advanderveer wrote: post #87

Here is an unpopular opinion: Maybe we should chill down on the constant innovation of "the web". I think we are at the point that we need some stablity, such that technologies (and companies!) build on top of it get some time to focus on maintainability, safety and usability instead of having to constantly spend time playing catch up.

It's not unpopular but unrealistic. It's like asking scientists to "improve, standarize and organize" what exists instead of seeking new knowledge and making more experiments that confuse everyone even further.

You can't force companies to stop innovating. Specially when history shows that, the best innovations survive in a sort of tech-evolutionary process.

Re: Safari is the new IE

#316

Post by nmesse »

streptomycin wrote: post #91
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…

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…

Apple does not block people from installing better browsers (I know a couple). They did, back in the day, when they couldn't find a way to make Nitro (their web engine) secure.

Re: Safari is the new IE

#317

Post by netfire »

coldtea wrote: post #310
netfire wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> That means they have around 59 times more than that amount in cash, not the 200 you claimed Still, same order of magnitude, and still many times over their app profit. > 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. Telling towards what?

I don't see how you can justify being off on your facts by 3-4 times by saying its still in the same order of magnitude. You overestimated their cash on hand by about 422 billion dollars. Again, I see the cash on hand as a weak argument. What really matters is how much annual revenue and profit it brings in. Apple is going to be concerned about anything that adds or takes away from their revenue in a significant way.

Its telling that App Store sales are a significant source of revenue for Apple. One that could possibly justify not making improvements to Safari that could make it better compete with native applications.

Re: Safari is the new IE

#318

Post by piyush_soni »

ris wrote: post #305
cdelsolar wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not wrong, I'm looking at Chrome on my iPhone right now, I don't know what parent is talking about.

Dig a bit deeper. That is only a Chrome shell around (a slightly crippled) safari.

Aah. I knew it 'used to be' the case, but didn't know that it is still the case, especially after Apple started allowing other apps to use the Nitro Engine (WKWebView). Just came to know that due to other technical limitations by Apple, Chrome still can't use it [0].

[0] : Chromium Bug: https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=423444

Re: Safari is the new IE

#319

Post by millstone »

Touche wrote: post #37
benjamindc wrote: post #16

Safari isn't "lagging behind other browsers", it's just implementing different things. In fact, Safari is still the best browser when it comes to everything UI-related (animations, visual effects, …). You might disagree with Apple's priorities, but it doesn't mean other browsers are "better" per se, they're just different. Safari's release cycle, however, is stupid per se.

> Safari isn't "lagging behind other browsers", it's just implementing different things. In fact, Safari is still the best browser when it comes to everything UI-related (animations, visual effects, …). So then let's name these things, specifically, if you really believe that. I'm not aware of any new specs related to animations in the last couple of years. Can you name them?

Examples are Reader Mode and Power Saver, both features designed to reduce the impact of, let's say, non-central content. Ad-supported browsers are not exactly eager to implement these, naturally.

Re: Safari is the new IE

#320

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

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…

They also provided a free graphical text editor, thereby destroying the market for commercial text editors. It boggles the mind that they escaped punishment for notepad.exe.
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