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For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

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Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#591

Post by admax88q »

admax88q wrote: post #577
dmitriid wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does make the difference. You don't deliberately increase the surface of attack if you can help it.

I feel like your speaking in atitides, but not looking at this situation specifically. If I can unlock your computer with your password or with the word "hello" and you have no intention of removing the "hello" feature, would you not agree that we might as well remove the password entirely? How do we increase the attack surface of service workers by adding background sync, when we can get nearly identical behaviour u…

s/atitides/platitudes

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#592

Post by admax88q »

the_other wrote: post #572
admax88q wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I find very few sites that work in Chrome but not Firefox. But as a web developer I'm still irked by some of the more "fun" APIs that firefox refuses to support such as USB/PWAs/NFC etc. Your issue however also ties in to what the article said about how Apple does not auto update Safari. You're tied to Safari 12 partially because the upgrade flow is a huge disruptive process as you have to update your enti…

> I am saying that the lack of modern features by Safari and Firefox If only Chrome implements that feature, it’s not “a modern feature” for the web. It’s an “experimental technology”. It’s only a “modern feature” when several browsers implement it.

Not if you're comparing against other application platforms such as Android, JavaFX, etc.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#593

Post by admax88q »

tekknik wrote: post #587
admax88q wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree with most of what you're saying, but I think we're coming at it from different perspectives. I am looking at it from the perspective of software which does not yet exist but will be built in the future. In that case, missing Safari features _are_ a detriment to users, because it prevents developers from building this new software. From the perspective of users of existing software that seems to break…

> In that case, missing Safari features _are_ a detriment to users, because it prevents developers from building this new software. > Perhaps they could have created a packaged native application for all major operating systems, but in reality that's a ton more work, and a huge impediment for users to convince collaborators to buy/install some native app so they can work on a drawing together. > What other software a…

This is not about my willingness to learn, it's about my willingness to invest.

Sure I can make a native app that extends Safari with the APIs I need, and I can also do that again for Android, and again for Windows and again for macOS. Or the browsers could implement features developers like me want and I only have to invest once.

Replacing native apps with web apps IS innovative.

Sure the app's functionality is the same as those before it, but the delivery and interaction paradigm is so much improved for users. Being able to invite a friend to participate on what I'm doing without them having to install a native app IS a step forward in user experience.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#594

Post by admax88q »

the_other wrote: post #571
admax88q wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's absurd. I'm not targetting Lynx, Haiku, or 8 year old shitty phones. Nor are most web developers. And the attitude that you must support those things is detrimental to the web. It makes people feel like they're doing it wrong of they don't spend all their time chasing those rare edge cases. Which if you're trying to start something new, can kill your productivity. I'd rather have web developers target the comm…

You’re missing my point. I’m not against browsers having features. They can add whatever they want. Devs can target them too. But “the web”, the platform, the standards process, the language specs, the method of their development is all about maintaining access for the widest range of users for the longest time possible. Or it was. There’s nothing about it stopping you from restricting your own market to support user…

Someone has to propose new APIs. Google is the only one at the moment seriously pushing the web as a complete application platform via Chromebooks, and even they are doing a half assed job.

Firefox abandoned FirefoxOS, Apple is focused on the App Store.

What's the last interesting API proposed by someone other than Google?

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#595

Post by xnx »

strogonoff wrote: post #80
jolux wrote: post #22

Apple has its own opinions about what web standards it should implement. It’s as simple as that. Google has been extremely successful in convincing developers that browsers that don’t behave like Chrome are behaving wrong. Don’t get me wrong, I wish Safari had more features, fewer bugs, and an evergreen release cycle. It’s clear Apple do not see themselves as competing with Chrome, largely because of iOS, and I do wa…

The difference in the amount of attention invested in spec support in Chrome and Safari can be explained by the difference in business models between Google and Apple. For Google, the browser is closely associated with their revenue streams. If you profit by showing ads across web properties, you’d naturally prefer to have more control over how those properties are viewed. The motivation can be benevolent in some asp…

Even worse for Apple, if there was a more capable browser on iOS, the need for their app store would be reduced.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#596

Post by heavyset_go »

dwaite wrote: post #93
smoldesu wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That shouldn't prevent it from being an opt-in toggle for the people (like me) who rely on it.

Similar to how javascript is a toggle, or how accepting third/first party cookies are toggles? Because the web is mostly useless if any of those are turned off now - even easy cases like static forms commonly break with javascript off rather than degrading to just server-side validation.

Firefox has been blocking third party cookies for quite some time now without problems. It's also quite literally a toggle.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#597

Post by heavyset_go »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #464

> The reason for Apple’s self-imposed limitations on PWA-related web APIs? They’ll tell you they’re for user privacy reasons, which may be valid in certain cases. > But most of us know the dominant reason is because fully-capable PWAs would compete against the iOS App Store – robbing Apple of 30% cut in revenue it rakes in when an app is purchased, or an in-app purchase is executed. The rest of us don't know this. Ma…

25% of Apple's profits come from the App Store.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#598

Post by heavyset_go »

sgt wrote: post #234

I think PWA is a good concept and interesting, but I don't really use them myself. I also noticed that very few people use PWA's - especially in cases where you have to pay for the apps, which makes me think that developers like them because they are cool, but because they make business sense.

There's little incentive to develop PWAs when 60% of your customers in the US can't use them.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#599

Post by tekknik »

admax88q wrote: post #593
tekknik wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In that case, missing Safari features _are_ a detriment to users, because it prevents developers from building this new software. > Perhaps they could have created a packaged native application for all major operating systems, but in reality that's a ton more work, and a huge impediment for users to convince collaborators to buy/install some native app so they can work on a drawing together. > What other software a…

This is not about my willingness to learn, it's about my willingness to invest. Sure I can make a native app that extends Safari with the APIs I need, and I can also do that again for Android, and again for Windows and again for macOS. Or the browsers could implement features developers like me want and I only have to invest once. Replacing native apps with web apps IS innovative. Sure the app's functionality is the…

> I can also do that again for Android, and again for Windows and again for macOS.

This is one file at best per platform, even less now given the frameworks available. And what you learn in the process goes on to benefit your career forever.

> Being able to invite a friend to participate on what I'm doing without them having to install a native app IS a step forward in user experience.

This is entirely subjective. And webapps have their own version of this by forcing usage of chrome, forcing account creation, forcing facebook usage, etc. Web experiences for anything complex doesn’t exactly instill confidence given the shaky experience and devs inability to create seem less offline experiences even with all the required transports available.

Then there’s performance aspects of things. Things like Unreal Engine Editor running in the web, or blender, just seems ridiculous. Sometimes you need native performance.

There’s also security issues with each additional API and web has a bad history with security.

People are making and remaking collaboration apps every day. They’re a dime a dozen now. Apps that truly are innovative that people use to create more things are still native apps for good reason. Otherwise the current set of features supported by safari is enough for me to do my daily work and I feel like Im missing nothing by not using chrome.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#600

Post by zenexer »

tekknik wrote: post #588
zenexer wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I get that you’re disappointed Safari doesn’t support the same stuff, the same way as Chrome. In some cases, yes, but in others, no. For example, Safari still clings to their proprietary image formats. That means I need two versions of each image: something legacy or proprietary for Safari users (PNG, JPEG, HEIF) and something to appease the Google Gods (WebP) so I don't get blasted by Core Web Vitals. It's the IE…

> That means I need two versions of each image: something legacy or proprietary for Safari users (PNG, JPEG, HEIF) and something to appease the Google Gods (WebP) so I don't get blasted by Core Web Vitals. WebP uses VP8, which requires hardware support to run correctly. Apple's "proprietary" format is also open, and created by a standards body instead of Google. VP8 also has some patent claims on it by Nokia, even th…

> Apple’s “proprietary” format is also open

No, it isn’t. It’s useless without HEVC, which is encumbered and requires royalties,[0] most of which go to Apple. VP8 is free (as in “free beer,” not as in “freedom”).

> What if iOS users view this as a feature?

They can view it however they like. I’m typing this on iOS and find it disappointing.

> Again, Apple’s formats are open.

HEVC is not open.[0]

> My experience is a bit different.

Chrome has its own issues, though, as does Firefox. Safari just seems to have more than the other two. For example, for the longest time, Safari was the only browser to support color() and DCI-P3.

> That’s actually the point.

While Safari might not have the nasty Google habit of coming up with their own standards, they do have the nasty IE habit of failing to keep up with widely accepted standards. For example, to this day, HTTP/2 server push remains broken and will crash Safari if you attempt to push a zero-byte resource.

> The question is, is any of this needed?

If you want to cater to an audience that prefers a clean, efficient UI while simultaneously avoiding creating a horrible mess of dark patterns, yes. If you want to run on as many browsers as possible without looking like a Word document, yes. If you want to appease Google so you don’t get deranked, yes.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding#P...

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