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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

#81

Post by mort96 »

pilif wrote: post #61
nerdjon wrote: post #53

I am curious why Safari in particular is getting a lot of the hate here when firefox supports even less of the features which leads me to believe that the reason many of these features have not been accepted is because they have not been accepted by the larger ecosystem and is just google pushing their own things as standard (Feels like IE days in many ways). That being said, I am not sure why I would actually want m…

Firefox is not in a position where it is the only browser allowed to run on a platform. On iOS, you’re either doing a native app, sharing 30% of your income with Apple, or you’re restricted to Safari’s feature set. No browser in iOS can use anything but WebKit

Even so, conflating "Safari is holding the web platform back by not implementing standardized web features" with "Safari is holding the Google platform back by not implementing non-standard Google features" is kind of disingenuous.

Going through some of the list from the top:

* Shortcuts in the manifest: This seems to be standard. Would be nice if mobile Safari supported it.

* Protocol Handling: This is non-standard.

* File Handling: MDN doesn't contain a reference to a standard, and it has this caveat: "At present this feature is only available on Chromium-based browsers, and only on desktop operating systems". So not only does it seem to be non-standard; Chrome on Android doesn't even support it!

* Contact Picker: This seems to be moving through the standardization process and is not yet standardized, if I understand MDN's "experimental" label correctly.

* Face Detection: This seems to be yet another not-yet-standard API.

* Vibration: This is standard, it's a shame Safari doesn't implement it.

I'll stop here but you get the point. 2/6 are actual standards; 4/6 are just features Chromium implemented even though they aren't standard.

I'm glad mobile Safari doesn't follow every Google whim. Google has enough power over the standardization process as it is; we don't want them to control which features browsers add outside of the standard too.

In addition, parts of the list seems to be extremely outdated: Safari on iOS does support the Web Push API and most of the Notifications API (at least for apps added to your home screen as PWAs). These APIs have been supported since iOS 16.4, according to MDN.

Re: Apple's intentional crippling of Mobile Safari

#82

Post by otterley »

For those of you who believe support for PWAs is critically important: in what way does it impact you? What kind of solution are you providing (or, put another way, what problem are you solving) for customers, and why would a PWA app be better than a native one for them? (As opposed to, say, convenience for you.)

Re: Apple's intentional crippling of Mobile Safari

#83

Post by Lio »

internet2000 wrote: post #46
hx8 wrote: post #2

I'm writing this in Safari now, I'm a huge fan. There are several "features" that I actively dislike and disable in other browsers. I wonder if not being implemented in mobile safari is preventing them from being required in some webpages. * Vibration * Background Sync * Bluetooth * NFC * Notifications * Web Push

Agree and I’d add WebUSB and WebMIDI. Want to interface with USB? Go through the OS.

I’m not sure why web-midi can’t be available behind a permission to control finger printing.

I can think of several light weight patch editors I’d like be able to use. There’s probably not enough demand for someone to make a stand alone app for them.

I can’t see any reason why this needs to be controlled by apple’s app store.

Re: Apple's intentional crippling of Mobile Safari

#84

Post by JimDabell »

dagmx wrote: post #37

It would be useful if the site listed whether these had been standardized outside of Chrome yet. It’s hard to delineate which of these are Chrome features or actual web standards. And it’s therefore hard to blame either Safari or Firefox for not supporting them if they’re not standardized yet.

Here’s what Mozilla has to say about Web NFC, for example:

> We believe Web NFC poses risks to users security and privacy because of the wide range of functionality of the existing NFC devices on which it would be supported, because there is no system for ensuring that private information is not accidentally exposed other than relying on user consent, and because of the difficulty of meaningfully asking the user for permission to share or write data when the browser cannot explain to the user what is being shared or written.

— https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/#web-nfc

And here’s what they have to say about Web Bluetooth:

> This API provides access to the Generic Attribute Profile (GATT) of Bluetooth, which is not the lowest level of access that the specifications allow, but its generic nature makes it impossible to clearly evaluate. Like WebUSB there is significant uncertainty regarding how well prepared devices are to receive requests from arbitrary sites. The generic nature of the API means that this risk is difficult to manage. The Web Bluetooth CG has opted to only rely on user consent, which we believe is not sufficient protection. This proposal also uses a blocklist, which will require constant and active maintenance so that vulnerable devices aren't exploited. This model is unsustainable and presents a significant risk to users and their devices.

— https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/#web-bluetooth

The fact is that Google wrote these specifications, couldn’t convince any other rendering engine to implement them, and somehow it’s Apple’s fault the rest of the world rejected their idea.

These are not web standards, they are Blink-only APIs that Google decided to build unilaterally. The web is not defined by whatever Google wants. Web standards are supposed to be arrived at through consensus, and the consensus is that these things should not be part of the web.

Re: Apple's intentional crippling of Mobile Safari

#86

Post by rejhgadellaa »

chuckadams wrote: post #69
reustle wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox on iOS is just a wrapper around Safari, since that is all Apple allows.

The third column is your current browser and platform, and for me it's showing Firefox on macOS missing a lot of features. When I switch over to Brave, I see Chrome on macOS. Interestingly, Chrome on macOS apparently supports vibration, despite the hardware for it being nonexistent.

But on macOS you can switch to a browser that can do all these things. A company could ask you to use a different browser (not ideal, but if the web app requires a specific API, it's not an unreasonable).

Safari is in a very special position because it controls what the web can do on iOS (all browsers on iOS have to use Apple's WebKit engine, they can't add web features). Apple is not just gatekeeping native (through the app store), but its competition, too (the open web, through the webkit requirement)

Re: Apple's intentional crippling of Mobile Safari

#87

Post by DrewADesign »

nerdjon wrote: post #53

I am curious why Safari in particular is getting a lot of the hate here when firefox supports even less of the features which leads me to believe that the reason many of these features have not been accepted is because they have not been accepted by the larger ecosystem and is just google pushing their own things as standard (Feels like IE days in many ways). That being said, I am not sure why I would actually want m…

I think anything that mentions Apple in a negative light gets reflexive upvotes.

I use both Apple and Android ecosystems, so I’ll occasionally participate in normal user conversations about features, how-tos, etc. Posting anything about the Android ecosystem, unless I was talking about Samsung features I disliked using, is no more or less likely to get down/upvoted than anything else I post about any other technology. Using any tone more positive than a negative-leaning neutral when referring to any Apple product reliably collects a handful of downvotes, and often a negative comment or two. Same thing with negative sentiment and upvotes. I’ve never seen such a passionate dislike of a corporation among a small number of people. Even with famous brand loyalty rivalries like Ford/Chevy in the 80s and 90s it was more mutual. It wasn’t like 99% of drivers not giving a shit, .5% of Ford users being smug, and 2% of GMC drivers just being super mad at a product they don’t own.

Re: Apple's intentional crippling of Mobile Safari

#89

Post by rejhgadellaa »

nerdjon wrote: post #65
reustle wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox on iOS is just a wrapper around Safari, since that is all Apple allows.

While true, that does not seem to align with what the checkboxes for firefox, looking at many of the ones that Safari does not support other non chromium browsers don't support on any OS. Mobile or not

The difference is that, on iOS, you can't switch to a different browser that does support these features. Om very other OS you can.

A web app could ask you to use a different browser (not ideal, but if the web app requires a specific API, it's not an unreasonable).

Safari is in a very special position because it controls what the web can do on iOS (all browsers on iOS have to use Apple's WebKit engine, they can't add web features). Apple is not just gatekeeping native (through the app store), but its competition, too (the open web, through the webkit requirement)

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