14 ms·

Apple is hiring engineers to bring WebRTC to Safari

173 points by cpncrunch 11y ago

alien3d 11y ago
Waiting for INTL also.Do it work now in latest version safari? https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Intl https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Web/JavaScript/Referen....
- masklinn 11y ago
  > Do it work now in latest version safari? The page you've linked says no...
cpncrunch 11y ago
There also seems to be good progress in the implementation of WebRTC in WebKit: https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=143211 https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=143211
pedalpete 11y ago
From what I've been told, they are looking to hire 1 engineer. I guess that is better than nothing, but it doesn't look like webrtc is going to be any sort of priority for them. Also, it may not be super valuable in Safari, which has a small market-share. Where it is needed is mobile safari. From what I understand having it in Safari does not mean it gets built into mobile Safari. Also, note the date of the posting. 4 months ago and still there...
- SimeVidas 11y ago
  From what I’ve read, Ericsson and other Scandinavian companies have already had a few engineers working on WebRTC in WebKit for several months now. Apple only has to connect that implementation to their OS endpoints (or something like that). One engineer should be enough.
  - cpncrunch 11y ago
    If you look at the WebRTC in Webkit bug report (https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=143211 https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=143211), they have been steadily working on it since March 2015 and it looks like they are making good progress.
- greggman 11y ago
  iOS Safari has a large marketshare. WebRTC is more than video conferencing. It's also peer to peer networking which is a huge win for certain kinds of apps
  - stenius 11y ago
    And it also allows you to directly access the camera from webpages and take photos from a JS API vs having to use a camera app and upload.
  - esailija 11y ago
    I would be surprised to see any web standard that makes iOS Safari better for "appy web apps" (web apps that are more like native apps rather than documents and forms) implemented, as that eventually just makes Safari an alternative AppStore without reviews. Of course I would love it because as a developer this is the dream but I am very skeptical that Apple will do it.
    - masklinn 11y ago
      > I would be surprised to see any web standard that makes iOS Safari better for "appy web apps" (web apps that are more like native apps rather than documents and forms) implemented, as that eventually just makes Safari an alternative AppStore without reviews. Which is pretty much what Apple has been pushing since before there was an appstore? To this day it takes just 2 taps (share > add to home screen) to add a webapp to the phone as a "standard application" (with a homescreen icon and everything) There's plenty of serious crap[0] in the apple web ecosystem, but it doesn't really seem related to "webapps as appstore replacement"[1][2][3]. [0] http://www.raymondcamden.com/2014/09/25/IndexedDB-on-iOS-8-Broken-Bad/ http://www.raymondcamden.com/2014/09/25/IndexedDB-on-iOS-8-B... [1] http://caniuse.com/#search=websql http://caniuse.com/#search=websql [2] http://caniuse.com/#search=audio http://caniuse.com/#search=audio [3] http://caniuse.com/#search=webgl http://caniuse.com/#search=webgl
      - esailija 11y ago
        But that "app" doesn't have any real capabilities so what's the point other than bookmarking websites? There's no background sync, proper offline, no notifications, no (usable) indexeddb, no rtc, no file system, no media sinks, no media sessions ... these are from the top of my head. You have a point that long time ago Apple was the one pushing the browser as application platform but today is not the same as the long gone past. Edit: The can-i-use about "web audio" is misleading about Safari. The web audio is prefixed there with "webkit" is not the same as the standard API. Edit2: Noticed it's not about "web audio" at all but html5 audio. That's an API from 2010 that doesn't really do anything for apps such as games or audio editors. The newer Web Audio API is used for this and that's what I am referring to.
shmerl 11y ago
At last. Where have they been all this time, under a rock? Does it mean they'll start supporting Opus as well?
- muddi900 11y ago
  Apple need to move Safari to the App Store. A Browser only being updated with the OS in 2016 is ridiculous.
  - ptomato 11y ago
    That hasn't been the case since sometime early 2014 iirc.
    - cpncrunch 11y ago
      Do you have a reference for that? According to wikipedia, iOS safari is updated with iOS updates. Also, Safari isn't in the App Store.
      - cmelbye 11y ago
        You're correct about iOS. For OS X, open App Store and then Updates. You'll see individual Safari updates (separate from OS updates) in the update history.
        masklinn 11y ago
        For the most part these are minor updates, the major stuff with new features comes with the yearly OS release.
  - ksec 11y ago
    When you get 80%+ of your OS updated within 6 months this isn't so much of a problem.
    - warfangle 11y ago
notatoad 11y ago
Maybe in five or six years we'll get serviceworker too.
- threeseed 11y ago
  I hope not. Service workers seems like an incredibly dangerous feature to have in a web browser. If developers need geofencing notifications or assets caching for example then implement a tightly focused API. But to allow any developer (including rogue ones) to slow the browser and computer down will be a nightmare for inexperienced and experienced users alike.
ilostmykeys 11y ago
How about the security issue with WebRTC where the browser leaks the IP address? It's part of the way WebRTC works so I can't see how that can be fixed. It's both a security issue and a key enabling feature. Update: It looks like Google Chrome (desktop) team has published a plugin that alleviates the problem but can cause performance degradations with apps that use WebRTC. They seem to suggest that a decent fix won't be possible until UDP proxies are in wide use and Chrome adds support for that.
- nemothekid 11y ago
  I don't have a full understanding of WebRTC, but AFAIK its a browser-to-browser connection library. How would that work without leaking the ip address? The browser at least has to know who to connect to?
  - ilostmykeys 11y ago
    1. http://www.techworm.net/2015/07/google-releases-a-chrome-extension-to-fix-the-critical-vpn-security-hole.html http://www.techworm.net/2015/07/google-releases-a-chrome-ext... 2. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/webrtc-network-limiter/npeicpdbkakmehahjeeohfdhnlpdklia?hl=en-US https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/webrtc-network-lim...
  - richdougherty 11y ago
    I don't really know anything about this topic, but the parent comment leads me to believe that you would use a UDP proxy to hide your address. Instead of sending out your address, you'd send out the proxy's address. When the proxy receives data, it would pass it to you. That way the other party doesn't know your address; they only know the proxy address. This is just a guess based on how I assume proxies would work, so I may be wrong.
    - HappyTypist 11y ago
      Who is going to pay for the proxy's bandwidth? Apple, Google, Mozilla? Good luck. The site owner? Well, the site owner now has your IP!
kabes 11y ago
It says the job was already posted on 19 october 2015 ?
- cpncrunch 11y ago
  Yes, but nobody really picked it up then (apart from one person who tweeted about it back in October).
- ourcat 11y ago
  I was about to say this. It's interesting that it's taking so long to hire someone for.
nappy 11y ago
My brother launched a website about a month ago built around WebRTC. The idea is to facilitate meaningful one-on-one videochats between people who share similar interests in life or at the moment. https://www.chatben.co/ https://www.chatben.co/
helly 11y ago
Can't they just use the code from Chromium?
- lmedinas 11y ago
  Sure but somebody needs to port it and maintain it.
gbachik 11y ago
Apple should just ship with chrome. ggwp
- kalleboo 11y ago
  It would kill their battery life numbers
antitamper 11y ago
I've only ever associated WebRTC with its ability to expose the real IP address when surfing with a VPN. I am unsure if this bug is unique to Firefox, and I hope the bug doesn't show up in Safari.
- kuschku 11y ago
  it’s not a bug in the direct meaning, but a bug in the specifications.
  - slac 11y ago
    That behavior has been changed in Chrome quite significantly. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/discuss-webrtc/_5hL0HeBeEA/discussion https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/discuss-webrtc/_5hL0...
bemmu 11y ago
Is there documentation on how the WebRTC protocol works (RFC style)? All I've come across is interface docs. What is actually moving on the wire?
- fulafel 11y ago
  Yep: http://tools.ietf.org/wg/rtcweb/ http://tools.ietf.org/wg/rtcweb/ edit: also https://github.com/rtcweb-wg/ https://github.com/rtcweb-wg/
greggarious 11y ago
The WebRTC spec (as it currently stands) exposes your local IP address. So I hope Apple thinks about the privacy implications of that. (Right now Tor Browser keeps it click to activate, IIRC)
- slac 11y ago
  That behavior has been changed by Chrome and FF (I think) quite significantly. Please read https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/discuss-webrtc/_5hL0HeBeEA/discussion https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/discuss-webrtc/_5hL0...
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  Why is this a thing? Your local ip address can be easily guessed. Also, secrecy is not security. I think 'exposing addresses' is a red herring, in such a small address space.
  - tracker1 11y ago
    You mean most people leave their routers at default, and have an IP of 192.168.(0|1).1xx? Shocking... shocking I say. I have to agree... the local IP address really shouldn't be considered a secret, it's also needed for LAN negotiation attempts between localized peers.
    - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
      I think that's exactly why WebRTC "exposes" it. For p2p negotiation.
Hydraulix989 11y ago
I'm currently integrating the WebRTC interface into a browser-like project by directly calling into their C++ code (when Java is the preferred interface). Most of the process so far has been trial-and-error (especially with hooking up their JNI calls back to Android from C++ land in order to access Android audio device info and state that can't be reached from C++). The code base is quite large and so gaining familiarity with it has been challenging. I can see how a single engineer's time is necessary for this project, as I've already sunk over a week of work into my own integration, and I've only gotten the peering to work so far (audio is just about there). Supposedly many years ago, there used to be an example inside the code base of what I am currently trying to pull off, but nevermore. It is quite challenging to just integrate WebRTC -- one does not simply integrate WebRTC.
- pjmlp 11y ago
  > especially with hooking up their JNI calls back to Android from C++ land in order to access Android audio device info and state that can't be reached from C++ Good luck with that part. <rant mode="on"> I have been using C++ for hobby coding between Android and WP, and the "friendliness" of the NDK has made be look for solutions that can target Java and .NET instead. Some of those APIs that one needs JNI wrappers, are actually written in C++, just not exposed to the NDK. </rant>
  - Hydraulix989 11y ago
    Currently working through that now, the issue du jour is that the class loader apparently does not find classes in the APK unless it is called from JNI_OnLoad from the application thread so I am going to have to cache references to the three or so WebRTC Java audio classes that it needs. http://developer.android.com/training/articles/perf-jni.html#faq_FindClass http://developer.android.com/training/articles/perf-jni.html... Because I'm sure everybody on here cares haha.
  - Hydraulix989 11y ago
    Which means we can call them if we get their memory addresses. Someone with more time than me should write a wrapper to do that.
jheriko 11y ago
webrtc is horrible to build and integrate with a native project, even without the quirks of ios or os x to deal with. i feel sorry for whoever gets the job.
- cpncrunch 11y ago
  I had a look at the code a while ago, with the idea of using the AEC functions. However I quickly realised that it would be practically impossible to do that, and it would probably be a lot easier just writing it myself (even though that would be a hell of a job).
arnaudbud 11y ago
Posted (again) on RTC.news: http://www.rtc.news/posts/os4JyZWT6iLR2jMua/job-apple-is-still-hiring-engineers-to-bring-webrtc-to http://www.rtc.news/posts/os4JyZWT6iLR2jMua/job-apple-is-sti...
rocky1138 11y ago
Sorry to sound harsh, but why is this news? Chrome has had this forever.

173 points by cpncrunch 11y ago

Waiting for INTL also.Do it work now in latest version safari? https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Intl https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Web/JavaScript/Referen....

masklinn 11y ago
> Do it work now in latest version safari? The page you've linked says no...

cpncrunch 11y ago

There also seems to be good progress in the implementation of WebRTC in WebKit: https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=143211 https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=143211

pedalpete 11y ago

From what I've been told, they are looking to hire 1 engineer. I guess that is better than nothing, but it doesn't look like webrtc is going to be any sort of priority for them. Also, it may not be super valuable in Safari, which has a small market-share. Where it is needed is mobile safari. From what I understand having it in Safari does not mean it gets built into mobile Safari. Also, note the date of the posting. 4 months ago and still there...

SimeVidas 11y ago
From what I’ve read, Ericsson and other Scandinavian companies have already had a few engineers working on WebRTC in WebKit for several months now. Apple only has to connect that implementation to their OS endpoints (or something like that). One engineer should be enough.
- cpncrunch 11y ago
  If you look at the WebRTC in Webkit bug report (https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=143211 https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=143211), they have been steadily working on it since March 2015 and it looks like they are making good progress.
greggman 11y ago
iOS Safari has a large marketshare. WebRTC is more than video conferencing. It's also peer to peer networking which is a huge win for certain kinds of apps
- stenius 11y ago
  And it also allows you to directly access the camera from webpages and take photos from a JS API vs having to use a camera app and upload.
- esailija 11y ago
  I would be surprised to see any web standard that makes iOS Safari better for "appy web apps" (web apps that are more like native apps rather than documents and forms) implemented, as that eventually just makes Safari an alternative AppStore without reviews. Of course I would love it because as a developer this is the dream but I am very skeptical that Apple will do it.
  - masklinn 11y ago
    > I would be surprised to see any web standard that makes iOS Safari better for "appy web apps" (web apps that are more like native apps rather than documents and forms) implemented, as that eventually just makes Safari an alternative AppStore without reviews. Which is pretty much what Apple has been pushing since before there was an appstore? To this day it takes just 2 taps (share > add to home screen) to add a webapp to the phone as a "standard application" (with a homescreen icon and everything) There's plenty of serious crap[0] in the apple web ecosystem, but it doesn't really seem related to "webapps as appstore replacement"[1][2][3]. [0] http://www.raymondcamden.com/2014/09/25/IndexedDB-on-iOS-8-Broken-Bad/ http://www.raymondcamden.com/2014/09/25/IndexedDB-on-iOS-8-B... [1] http://caniuse.com/#search=websql http://caniuse.com/#search=websql [2] http://caniuse.com/#search=audio http://caniuse.com/#search=audio [3] http://caniuse.com/#search=webgl http://caniuse.com/#search=webgl
    - esailija 11y ago
      But that "app" doesn't have any real capabilities so what's the point other than bookmarking websites? There's no background sync, proper offline, no notifications, no (usable) indexeddb, no rtc, no file system, no media sinks, no media sessions ... these are from the top of my head. You have a point that long time ago Apple was the one pushing the browser as application platform but today is not the same as the long gone past. Edit: The can-i-use about "web audio" is misleading about Safari. The web audio is prefixed there with "webkit" is not the same as the standard API. Edit2: Noticed it's not about "web audio" at all but html5 audio. That's an API from 2010 that doesn't really do anything for apps such as games or audio editors. The newer Web Audio API is used for this and that's what I am referring to.

shmerl 11y ago

At last. Where have they been all this time, under a rock? Does it mean they'll start supporting Opus as well?

muddi900 11y ago
Apple need to move Safari to the App Store. A Browser only being updated with the OS in 2016 is ridiculous.
- ptomato 11y ago
  That hasn't been the case since sometime early 2014 iirc.
  - cpncrunch 11y ago
    Do you have a reference for that? According to wikipedia, iOS safari is updated with iOS updates. Also, Safari isn't in the App Store.
    - cmelbye 11y ago
      You're correct about iOS. For OS X, open App Store and then Updates. You'll see individual Safari updates (separate from OS updates) in the update history.
      - masklinn 11y ago
        For the most part these are minor updates, the major stuff with new features comes with the yearly OS release.
- ksec 11y ago
  When you get 80%+ of your OS updated within 6 months this isn't so much of a problem.
  - warfangle 11y ago

notatoad 11y ago

Maybe in five or six years we'll get serviceworker too.

threeseed 11y ago
I hope not. Service workers seems like an incredibly dangerous feature to have in a web browser. If developers need geofencing notifications or assets caching for example then implement a tightly focused API. But to allow any developer (including rogue ones) to slow the browser and computer down will be a nightmare for inexperienced and experienced users alike.

ilostmykeys 11y ago

How about the security issue with WebRTC where the browser leaks the IP address? It's part of the way WebRTC works so I can't see how that can be fixed. It's both a security issue and a key enabling feature. Update: It looks like Google Chrome (desktop) team has published a plugin that alleviates the problem but can cause performance degradations with apps that use WebRTC. They seem to suggest that a decent fix won't be possible until UDP proxies are in wide use and Chrome adds support for that.

nemothekid 11y ago
I don't have a full understanding of WebRTC, but AFAIK its a browser-to-browser connection library. How would that work without leaking the ip address? The browser at least has to know who to connect to?
- ilostmykeys 11y ago
  1. http://www.techworm.net/2015/07/google-releases-a-chrome-extension-to-fix-the-critical-vpn-security-hole.html http://www.techworm.net/2015/07/google-releases-a-chrome-ext... 2. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/webrtc-network-limiter/npeicpdbkakmehahjeeohfdhnlpdklia?hl=en-US https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/webrtc-network-lim...
- richdougherty 11y ago
  I don't really know anything about this topic, but the parent comment leads me to believe that you would use a UDP proxy to hide your address. Instead of sending out your address, you'd send out the proxy's address. When the proxy receives data, it would pass it to you. That way the other party doesn't know your address; they only know the proxy address. This is just a guess based on how I assume proxies would work, so I may be wrong.
  - HappyTypist 11y ago
    Who is going to pay for the proxy's bandwidth? Apple, Google, Mozilla? Good luck. The site owner? Well, the site owner now has your IP!

kabes 11y ago

It says the job was already posted on 19 october 2015 ?

cpncrunch 11y ago
Yes, but nobody really picked it up then (apart from one person who tweeted about it back in October).
ourcat 11y ago
I was about to say this. It's interesting that it's taking so long to hire someone for.

nappy 11y ago

My brother launched a website about a month ago built around WebRTC. The idea is to facilitate meaningful one-on-one videochats between people who share similar interests in life or at the moment. https://www.chatben.co/ https://www.chatben.co/

helly 11y ago

Can't they just use the code from Chromium?

lmedinas 11y ago
Sure but somebody needs to port it and maintain it.

gbachik 11y ago

Apple should just ship with chrome. ggwp

kalleboo 11y ago
It would kill their battery life numbers

antitamper 11y ago

I've only ever associated WebRTC with its ability to expose the real IP address when surfing with a VPN. I am unsure if this bug is unique to Firefox, and I hope the bug doesn't show up in Safari.

kuschku 11y ago
it’s not a bug in the direct meaning, but a bug in the specifications.
- slac 11y ago
  That behavior has been changed in Chrome quite significantly. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/discuss-webrtc/_5hL0HeBeEA/discussion https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/discuss-webrtc/_5hL0...

bemmu 11y ago

Is there documentation on how the WebRTC protocol works (RFC style)? All I've come across is interface docs. What is actually moving on the wire?

fulafel 11y ago
Yep: http://tools.ietf.org/wg/rtcweb/ http://tools.ietf.org/wg/rtcweb/ edit: also https://github.com/rtcweb-wg/ https://github.com/rtcweb-wg/

greggarious 11y ago

The WebRTC spec (as it currently stands) exposes your local IP address. So I hope Apple thinks about the privacy implications of that. (Right now Tor Browser keeps it click to activate, IIRC)

slac 11y ago
That behavior has been changed by Chrome and FF (I think) quite significantly. Please read https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/discuss-webrtc/_5hL0HeBeEA/discussion https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/discuss-webrtc/_5hL0...
JoeAltmaier 11y ago
Why is this a thing? Your local ip address can be easily guessed. Also, secrecy is not security. I think 'exposing addresses' is a red herring, in such a small address space.
- tracker1 11y ago
  You mean most people leave their routers at default, and have an IP of 192.168.(0|1).1xx? Shocking... shocking I say. I have to agree... the local IP address really shouldn't be considered a secret, it's also needed for LAN negotiation attempts between localized peers.
  - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
    I think that's exactly why WebRTC "exposes" it. For p2p negotiation.

Hydraulix989 11y ago

I'm currently integrating the WebRTC interface into a browser-like project by directly calling into their C++ code (when Java is the preferred interface). Most of the process so far has been trial-and-error (especially with hooking up their JNI calls back to Android from C++ land in order to access Android audio device info and state that can't be reached from C++). The code base is quite large and so gaining familiarity with it has been challenging. I can see how a single engineer's time is necessary for this project, as I've already sunk over a week of work into my own integration, and I've only gotten the peering to work so far (audio is just about there). Supposedly many years ago, there used to be an example inside the code base of what I am currently trying to pull off, but nevermore. It is quite challenging to just integrate WebRTC -- one does not simply integrate WebRTC.

pjmlp 11y ago
> especially with hooking up their JNI calls back to Android from C++ land in order to access Android audio device info and state that can't be reached from C++ Good luck with that part. <rant mode="on"> I have been using C++ for hobby coding between Android and WP, and the "friendliness" of the NDK has made be look for solutions that can target Java and .NET instead. Some of those APIs that one needs JNI wrappers, are actually written in C++, just not exposed to the NDK. </rant>
- Hydraulix989 11y ago
  Currently working through that now, the issue du jour is that the class loader apparently does not find classes in the APK unless it is called from JNI_OnLoad from the application thread so I am going to have to cache references to the three or so WebRTC Java audio classes that it needs. http://developer.android.com/training/articles/perf-jni.html#faq_FindClass http://developer.android.com/training/articles/perf-jni.html... Because I'm sure everybody on here cares haha.
- Hydraulix989 11y ago
  Which means we can call them if we get their memory addresses. Someone with more time than me should write a wrapper to do that.

jheriko 11y ago

webrtc is horrible to build and integrate with a native project, even without the quirks of ios or os x to deal with. i feel sorry for whoever gets the job.

cpncrunch 11y ago
I had a look at the code a while ago, with the idea of using the AEC functions. However I quickly realised that it would be practically impossible to do that, and it would probably be a lot easier just writing it myself (even though that would be a hell of a job).

arnaudbud 11y ago

Posted (again) on RTC.news: http://www.rtc.news/posts/os4JyZWT6iLR2jMua/job-apple-is-still-hiring-engineers-to-bring-webrtc-to http://www.rtc.news/posts/os4JyZWT6iLR2jMua/job-apple-is-sti...

rocky1138 11y ago

Sorry to sound harsh, but why is this news? Chrome has had this forever.