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Japan: Apple Must Lift Browser Engine Ban by December

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Re: Japan: Apple Must Lift Browser Engine Ban by December

#281

Post by numpad0 »

ezfe wrote: post #271
numpad0 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iPhone just wasn't going to exit the curious gadget status and become a first class citizen in the Japanese phone market without it. Same for emoji support and flick inputs and lots of those little things. They were never forced to compete in the sense that no one is forced to be first class citizen anywhere. Apple just wanted to be by its own free will. That's technically correct.

Android have those features in Japan but not worldwide. iPhone has them worldwide.

But that part is on Apple. They could have made it Japan SKU exclusive. It isn't solely because it's their policy that an iPhone is universally an iPhone and there will never ever be Verizon backplates or brown box CostCo specials with plastic backplates. No one else cares, so everyone else make FeliCa enabled versions as Japan specials.

Re: Japan: Apple Must Lift Browser Engine Ban by December

#282

Post by zevon »

duffyjp wrote: post #201

Everybody is talking about Chrome, but I tell ya what I have that disabled on my Android in favor of Firefox. Firefox on mobile with full-fat uBlock Origin is the closest thing to parity with desktop web access you can get. I don't just block ads, I block elements on sites I don't care about with :has-text RegEx rules. You can't do that on Chrome even on desktop anymore. I'm this close to swapping to the Android as m…

If you can live with SMS instead of iMessage: KDE Connect on Android works very nicely for messaging from the desktop (the Desktop application is available for Linux, Windows and MacOS. Functionality varies per platform but SMS works on all of them). https://kdeconnect.kde.org/

Re: Japan: Apple Must Lift Browser Engine Ban by December

#283

Post by exoji2e »

duffyjp wrote: post #201

Everybody is talking about Chrome, but I tell ya what I have that disabled on my Android in favor of Firefox. Firefox on mobile with full-fat uBlock Origin is the closest thing to parity with desktop web access you can get. I don't just block ads, I block elements on sites I don't care about with :has-text RegEx rules. You can't do that on Chrome even on desktop anymore. I'm this close to swapping to the Android as m…

I use brave on ios, the built in adblocker works fine as a substitute to ff + uBlock imo.

Re: Japan: Apple Must Lift Browser Engine Ban by December

#284

Post by mvdtnz »

radiofreeeuropa wrote: post #226
kelthuzad wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My initial suspicion of you being a bad faith actor who is just regurgitating "Apple PR talk" has been proven true. 1) Here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44813704 you regurgitate the classic Apple propaganda of "web apps are akshually not 'real' apps" - what makes apps 'real' for Apple propagandists is clearly when everybody is forced to pay Apple 30% tax. 2) The hallmark of the irrational Apple shill is also…

You've got some serious biases sending you some weird places in evaluating my posts. > 1) Here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44813704 you regurgitate the classic Apple propaganda of "web apps are akshually not 'real' apps" - what makes apps 'real' for Apple propagandists is clearly when everybody is forced to pay Apple 30% tax. Yeah, that's my opinion on every platform, including back when I used Android. It's…

Oh stop this fake incredulity. You're shilling for Apple and did such a bad job of it that you were found out while your account is still green. Take it on the chin instead of lashing out. Better luck with your next shill account.

Re: Japan: Apple Must Lift Browser Engine Ban by December

#285

Post by 827a »

zuhsetaqi wrote: post #229
827a wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If its the difference-maker for you: Google Messages has a web experience, and in my not-recent experience it works great. The iOS 26 keyboard (public beta) is the biggest regression I've ever seen Apple make, and they're a company infamous for regressions. It for me has been the tipping point. [1] https://messages.google.com/web/

What did they change on iOS 26 in the keyboard?

Something significant changed about the spellchecking and swipe to type algorithms. Significant performance degradation, especially in those "i just need to get a quick message out while walking" situations. Hopefully we see some improvement by GA.

Re: Japan: Apple Must Lift Browser Engine Ban by December

#286

Post by fkyoureadthedoc »

overfeed wrote: post #217
fkyoureadthedoc wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edge (and basically every other browser besides Safari and Firefox) is a chromium fork though, so even though it only has like a 5% market share, it's still bumping up the engine's overall market share.

My point was that Chrome didn't win on marketing alone (as disproved by Edge dismal numbers). That said: browser marketshare metrics breakout the "brand" and not just the engine: for a long time, Chrome's rendering engine was downstream of Safari's WebKit before being forked outright as Blink. That Microsoft abandoned Trident for a Chromium fork speaks volumes on the amount of innovation and engineering effort Google…

I agree that Chrome won mostly on merit, but I think it stays winning on inertia and marketing. There's just not that big of a difference now to the end user when using Safari or Firefox vs Chrome based browsers in my opinion. Safari's performance is fine. Let's not forget that Google retired their public benchmark suite because V8 wasn't beating JSC.

I can't say the same about the Trident based Edge though, it just wasn't as nice to use.

> The gaggle of browsers opted to fork Chromium rather than WebKit or Gecko because Chromium is best-in-class.

If I was making the decision to make browser, and finances were on the line, I'd pick Chromium just because other people have already done it. If I was doing it for fun, I'd rather just contribute to Ladybird.

Re: Japan: Apple Must Lift Browser Engine Ban by December

#287

Post by sunaookami »

JimDabell wrote: post #118
fkyoureadthedoc wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox is overall a fine browser. Still has 2% marketshare. There's also the fact that websites themselves need to be mindful of multiple browser engines existing because of Safari. Once users are able to install Chrome on iPhones, developers will just abandon every other engine wholesale.

> Once users are able to install Chrome on iPhones, developers will just abandon every other engine wholesale. This is the thing that is most concerning. We’ve seen this happen before. We ended up with an Internet Explorer monoculture that paralysed front-end development for over a decade. Huge numbers of developers were happily writing Internet Explorer-only websites and didn’t care about any other browser at all. T…

IE was bad because development stopped for years and nobody could use modern web standards without supporting IE.

Re: Japan: Apple Must Lift Browser Engine Ban by December

#288

Post by close04 »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #235
close04 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then Apple can just work harder on securing the OS. When desktop OS security is discussed does anyone ever seriously float the idea that maybe we should only allow MS, Apple, or Linus approved apps to run on the OS to avoid hackers having free rein to find holes? The market for sideloading apps is anyway much smaller than the whole mobile market because most people can’t be bothered to do it. The ones determined to i…

No matter how much Apple invests into security, parties like Meta will find holes to exploit because it’s profitable to do so. It’s a cat and mouse game, and so even though Apple should be investing in security they also need to be able to put an end to the game when there’s obvious abuse afoot. I’m not as supportive of this ability for computers, but the market is so broad and large for mobile devices that I feel it…

Meta doesn’t need to hack your OS. It’s not only cheaper to just ask you to give them all the access that matters to your data, it also poses less legal risk. You accept to install their alternative app and give them all the data they ask for.

Whatever technical tricks Meta is using today pass Apple’s review and implicit endorsement. Whatever tricks they use in the future to escape the sandbox and access (hack) the OS with the sideloaded app are unilateral. Could open up a legal can of worms.

I’d be more concerned about the shady flashlight app downloaded from some corner of the internet. Or the Fakebook app, the all-in-one social media aggregator, the fake banking apps.

Re: Japan: Apple Must Lift Browser Engine Ban by December

#289

Post by m463 »

There's a lot of nonsense buried in safari and webkit. For example, loading certain URLs will deep link to on-device apps. If you surf to amazon urls in the browser, the amazon app will be notified. I'm pretty sure this is unblockable snooping people don't realize is going on.

So I think this is great news, maybe we get rid of nonsense like that.

However, I'll bet apple will make this japan specific just like eu laws don't affect their behavior in the US.

For example, a japanese iphone will always make a sound when you take a picture. If you leave the country, that will go away, unless you're in airplane mode and then it will start making sounds for every picture again. country-specific behavior.

I don't see why apple wouldn't do the same thing -- firefox works in japan, but not outside japan.

Re: Japan: Apple Must Lift Browser Engine Ban by December

#290

Post by zevon »

crinkly wrote: post #239
duffyjp wrote: post #201

Everybody is talking about Chrome, but I tell ya what I have that disabled on my Android in favor of Firefox. Firefox on mobile with full-fat uBlock Origin is the closest thing to parity with desktop web access you can get. I don't just block ads, I block elements on sites I don't care about with :has-text RegEx rules. You can't do that on Chrome even on desktop anymore. I'm this close to swapping to the Android as m…

Wake me up when someone makes a better Reminders, Calendar and Photos app on Android... I'm using AdGuard for blocking ads in Safari. Works fine. I do have a GrapheneOS pixel 7a as well but I'd rather not let Google near my shit.

I can relate to not wanting any of the tech giants near my shit but may I ask what your Google concerns are on GrapheneOS?

I also have an iPhone as well as a GrapheneOS phone. They are different but I'm quite happy with those alternatives to the apps you mentioned:

Etar as a calendar frontend app. DAVx5 for syncing CalDAV and CardDAV (so calendar data, contacts and optionally also tasks). I manage tasks within my notes, so I do not really use a todo/reminder app at all but there are different options. tasks.org plugs into DAVx5, for example.

Depending on your server-side setup and your willingness to compromise on open source, are also other options. For example, if you work with an Exchange server, there is the "Nine - Email & Calendar" app which is a very powerful all-in-one-client similar to traditional Outlook on the desktop.

For photos, there are quite a few solid options, depending on what you want. I use the Fossify Gallery with only my Camera folder visible for day-to-day stuff and also have Aves Libre installed for a more advanced interface to my pictures and videos.

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