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Apple's intentional crippling of Mobile Safari

pwa.gripe

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Re: Apple's intentional crippling of Mobile Safari

#291

Post by zombot »

omnimus wrote: post #288
cromka wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alt stores and web engine stuff are two separate things: https://developer.apple.com/support/alternative-browser-engi... Browsers with alternative engines can be offered in regular AppStore. That's why I wonder why isn't this a thing. At the end of the day, browser makers probably want to reduce confusion and complexity of maintaining two vastly different applications under the same name. This most likely isn't a cas…

This whole thing is of Apples doing. Of course they don't want to comply.

And regulators are obviously unwilling/unable to hit them with fines that really make a difference beyond "cost of doing business" small change.

Re: Apple's intentional crippling of Mobile Safari

#292

Post by jasonlotito »

ymolodtsov wrote: post #272
jasonlotito wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What makes you think that people who prefer an iOS device over Android would even install Firefox 100% guaranteed people would. I know this for a fact. You somehow have proof of the negative for some reason. Maybe you can share that. Regardless, just because you are satisfied with iOS as a platform doesn't mean others don't continue to wish for improvements. Can I ask which version of iOS was perfect in our mind?

What fact? Have you checked Firefox's market share even on desktop?

That people would use Firefox on iOS. That fact. Do you know English? It seems like you understood what I said, but still had a hard time comprehending it. Are you okay?

Re: Apple's intentional crippling of Mobile Safari

#293

Post by hu3 »

pokot0 wrote: post #80

You might want your browser to do Bluetooth, NFC, Background stuff, Face Detection but I don't. I like to use Apple products for things that are commodities to me because I am not gonna look into the details of those and when I do Apple reasoning often make sense to me (just like this list). There is a lot more we can criticize about these big tech corps (including Apple) than a product decision for a company that is…

Then don't use it? These features require explicit permission.

Re: Apple's intentional crippling of Mobile Safari

#294

Post by antonyh »

This is the current choice developers face - build for the app-store or build for the web. Or both.

For me, I honestly don't care if Mobile Safari seems 'crippled' when everything I use works exactly the same on devices as on Firefox/Desktop. If anything I'd be more annoyed if it worked better on my fringe devices, but maybe I'm the outlier here - I only use mobile for comms/banking, tablet for light browsing, and it's more often I'll be on Desktop.

Do I think it should have less functionality in Mobile Safari - yes if I get more battery life. Conversely no, if those features could give me more battery life back through intelligent apps.

Re: Apple's intentional crippling of Mobile Safari

#295

Post by mrweasel »

leptons wrote: post #184
mrweasel wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking down the list I can find more features that I'd like to yank out of Safari, and Chrome, than features I'd like to see added. Things that should be removed, according to me: * Audio recording * Geolocation * Motion * Media capture

You have to explicitly allow all of those features to work in a webpage, they aren't on by default, so I'm not sure what you're worrying about.

> so I'm not sure what you're worrying about.

Complexity primarily.

Re: Apple's intentional crippling of Mobile Safari

#296

Post by phs318u »

_aavaa_ wrote: post #202
mort96 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be conflating my opinion of "iOS's lack of browser choice has the consequence of preventing Chromium from achieving total dominance" with some imaginary other person's opinion of "iOS's lack of browser choice is a benevolent act where good guy Apple valiantly defends the open web". I do, frankly, think that mobile Safari couldn't compete that well in an open market, just like desktop Firefox can't. (Not p…

Let Google dominate the web. If that’s a problem we can sort that out. But two wrongs don’t make a right.

Do you remember Internet Explorer before Edge? Jeez I never want to go back to that. And that’s what we’d end up with in a browser monoculture.

Re: Apple's intentional crippling of Mobile Safari

#297

Post by Levitating »

boomskats wrote: post #276
Levitating wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> PWAs are great. They were literally Steve Jobs' original vision for the iPhone. Was it? I think one of IOSs strength is its operating system and proper native apps. PWAs are inaccessible, bloated, slow and awkward to use.

> Was it? Yes. Here's a quote for you from the original WWDC 2007 iPhone launch[0]: _"We've come up with a very sweet solution. An innovative new way to create applications... it’s all based on the fact that we have the full Safari engine in the iPhone. And so you can write amazing Web 2.0 and Ajax apps that look exactly and behave exactly like apps on the iPhone! And guess what? There’s no SDK that you need!"_ > I t…

> one of the OS' strengths is its OS, cool

Woops, messed up the wording there.

It's an interesting way to go about it. But I am not sure it's the same as what we get now. We aren't just leveraging the webkit renderer, we are using the browser as a complete OS/runtime for your applications. On top of an OS that already has its own UI libraries.

The current standard is that when you visit a webpage you are downloading an application in the tens of megabytes. In 2007 that would barely be possible.

When I think of PWAs I think of Microsoft Teams. It's slow as a website and somehow slower as a >100mb "native" app.

Anyway thanks for the reference. I am curious how much the current method strays from what Apple envisioned back then.

Re: Apple's intentional crippling of Mobile Safari

#298

Post by xutopia »

CharlesW wrote: post #241

I built https://pwascore.com/ several months ago. Where pwa.gripe cherry-picks and has an axe to grind, pwascore.com is intended to be a more thorough and dispassionate evaluation. I will add desktop browsers soon. Click "Expand All" for a complete and detailed list. Click "How Scores Work" to understand the scoring heuristics.

Well the notifications on your web site doesn't provide the full idea of how limited it is in Safari. We have to ask users to install the shortcut before allowing notifications with Safari. Guess how many users actually go through with installing the shortcut? Nearly none.

If we had to ask users to go into their settings and switch the "enable notifications" flag we wouldn't call that supporting anything. The whole process of installing a shortcut to even get to the point where we can ask for notifications is even more convoluted on iOS.

Re: Apple's intentional crippling of Mobile Safari

#299

Post by omnimus »

zombot wrote: post #291
omnimus wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This whole thing is of Apples doing. Of course they don't want to comply.

And regulators are obviously unwilling/unable to hit them with fines that really make a difference beyond "cost of doing business" small change.

Now it's straight up protectionism from USA. You touch our tech margins, we won't do business with you. So yeah the regulators are unable, even if they wanted to something.

Doctorow is right when he keeps saying that countries should make it legal to jailbreak devices. The problem is that first country that tries that will get hammer from the almighty POTUS.

Re: Apple's intentional crippling of Mobile Safari

#300

Post by otterley »

rejhgadellaa wrote: post #254
otterley wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much is the incremental cost per user?

Building the same app for iOS, Android and desktop: up to 2-5 times the costs (for businesses, how they cover those costs depends) App tax: 15-30%, which can drive the price for consumers up by up to 44% https://open-web-advocacy.org/walled-gardens-report/#negativ...

What I’m looking for is an answer from you as it relates to your specific business, not speculation from an advocacy org that can gin up any hypothetical numbers they want.

I asked in the start of the thread: how does it impact you, or your customers?

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