24 ms·

Introducing Safari Technology Preview

431 points by rootinier 11y ago

ricardobeat 11y ago
Amazing to see this released while we still can not click links in mobile Safari :/
- JustSomeNobody 11y ago
  Because development is a linear thing?
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- ceejayoz 11y ago
  I can click links just fine in mobile Safari...
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    Yeah, don't go to booking.com :-)
    - ceejayoz 11y ago
      So a particular website goofing something up is Safari's fault? (Incidentally, just went to Booking.com on iOS Safari. Works fine here.)
      - chris_wot 11y ago
        You haven't been following the news lately I see. Yes, it is.
        ceejayoz 11y ago
        Since I've apparently missed "the news", would you care to provide a link?
        chris_wot 11y ago
        https://bencollier.net/2016/03/unable-to-open-links-in-safari-mail-or-messages-on-ios-9-3/ https://bencollier.net/2016/03/unable-to-open-links-in-safar... http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/28/technology/iphone-safari-bug/ http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/28/technology/iphone-safari-bug... http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/28/its-not-just-you-clicking-on-links-in-ios-9-3-can-crash-your-iphone/ http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/28/its-not-just-you-clicking-o... http://www.news.com.au/technology/gadgets/mobile-phones/new-software-update-causes-misery-for-iphone-users-but-heres-how-to-stop-the-bug-crashing-your-apps/news-story/2b06c149b797031a875c0067b823dc0f http://www.news.com.au/technology/gadgets/mobile-phones/new-... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/27/apple_safari_bug/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/27/apple_safari_bug/ http://m.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11613674 http://m.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&obj... http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/ios-93-bug-makes-some-phones-break-if-people-click-on-links-users-claim-a6956036.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/new... http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/science-technology/638412/iPhone-Safari-Suggestions-Glitch-iOS-Apple-Crash-URL-New-Search http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/science-technology/63841... http://milwaukee.suntimes.com/mil-news/7/121/284320/glitch-on-ios-9-3-causes-links-to-crash-some-apps-heres-a-possible-fix http://milwaukee.suntimes.com/mil-news/7/121/284320/glitch-o... http://betanews.com/2016/03/24/ios-9-3-os-x-10-11-4-el-capitan-upgrade-issues/ http://betanews.com/2016/03/24/ios-9-3-os-x-10-11-4-el-capit... http://www.techshout.com/macintosh/2016/28/ios-9-3-link-bug-causes-apps-crash-freeze/ http://www.techshout.com/macintosh/2016/28/ios-9-3-link-bug-... http://www.mactechnews.de/news/article/Link-Crash-Apple-kuendigt-Update-an-163779.html http://www.mactechnews.de/news/article/Link-Crash-Apple-kuen...
        ceejayoz 11y ago
        OK, so users with a particular app had Safari issues, the app got patched, and Apple's planning on fixing their end of the bug per http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/28/its-not-just-you-clicking-on-links-in-ios-9-3-can-crash-your-iphone/ http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/28/its-not-just-you-clicking-o.... "Booking.com associates its app with all sorts of domains — too many domains to be precise. With 2.4MB worth of domain-name-to-deep-link entries, Safari and other apps crash when iOS checks links against its Universal Link database because this database is too big." Your criticism seems doubly odd now. Should Apple pause all Safari development whenever a bug is encountered? What are you proposing? edit: Since I can't reply: > Any app with a link association file that had too many links can cause Safari to totally stop working. Yes, there's apparently a bug, triggered by the rare apps that pad out the file to enormous sizes. Not sure why you felt the need to spend ten minutes updating your post with every mention of it you could find (along with unrelated stuff from 2015). > This has been discussed to death already, you are very late to the party here. I'm extremely sorry I missed a bit of tech news about an edge-case bug that doesn't affect me. I'll try harder in the future. > It's totally within the realms of possibility that Apple can do more frequent bug fixes and develop new features. OK, but from the looks of the dates on those articles, this bug has been known about for about a week. Do you always fix every reported bug in a week or less, or do they sometimes take a little while to fix and QA? iOS has a bit of a larger user footprint to consider, too. Given there's a workaround - patch the apps with bloated link associations - I'm dubious of the need to rush an update here. edit 2: > edit: you can reply, press the link that takes you to my direct comme t and hit reply. No, I can't. "Submitting too quickly".
      - makomk 11y ago
        That a particular website can completely break the ability to open links in all applications on all websites just by listing too many URLs in a file, with the broken state persisting even after the original website fixed the file that caused it, is definitely Safari's fault.
  - ricardobeat 11y ago
    See news links posted below. I (and thousands other people) have been unable to use a browser normally in our mobile phones for the past week. Since Apple forces everyone to use the same underlying webkit engine, all browsers are broken. It's quite frustrating to have your 800€ device unable to perform one of it's basic duties.
deleted 11y ago
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spankalee 11y ago
With Shadow DOM!
jaredcwhite 11y ago
Apple's been taking a number of steps over the last few months to show that they take Safari/WebKit development seriously. This is another positive step in the right direction. While I never agreed with the nonsensical "Safari is the New IE" meme that was going around, I did fear that Apple's tendency to develop things in a vacuum would continue to harm WebKit relative to Blink, Gecko, etc. But all signs are pointing to good things to come. Perhaps Apple's major open source initiative in the area of Swift language and the Swift ecosystem is also benefiting their approach to WebKit now as well.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- therealmarv 11y ago
  what steps? Any prove? BTW here a good example how Chrome & Safari team cannot communicate and everyone of them implements their own HTML standards. Here gesture support (pinch and zoom, trackpad) on desktops https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=596689 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=596689 for what reason we have W3C/WHATWG etc. ?
  - masklinn 11y ago
    https://webkit.org/status https://webkit.org/status is one, this very article above is an other, the much more significant than usual mid-cycle Safari 9.1 is a third. These are 3 things which happened in the last 3 months or so and are more progress than Apple had shown in the last what, 3 or 4 years at least?
- chris_wot 11y ago
  Their time to fix bugs and regressions in iOS is 3 months! Edit: Again, I write a very unpopular opinion. Yet there are hundreds of regressions that have bit developers. Some of those bugs require workarounds that would be otherwise unnecessary on any normal environment with rapid updates - like Chrome or Firefox. That increases developer effort, and there have been cases that Apple have entirely missed their update and so folks wait for 6 or more months for a fix! People can be unhappy with my comment (the score is bouncing up and down like a yo-yo!), I really don't care - but having been one of quite a few website maintainers that have had to work around Apple's bugs, it's very frustrating for both the end user and the developer.
mgreg 11y ago
Anyone know if they plan on introducing support for Service Workers ("Progressive Web Apps" in Google parlance) soon?
- rootinier 11y ago
  According to their status page it's under consideration. https://webkit.org/status/ https://webkit.org/status/
- dccoolgai 11y ago
  This is what sticks in my craw about Safari: it feels like they are intentionally dragging their feet on this because it would bring the Open Web to parity with Native Mobile and their App Store. At least IE never had a built-in conflict of interest in upgrading.
  - djrogers 11y ago
    There are a ton of valid security, performance, and storage related reasons not to blindly support service workers on mobile. I'm sure they can be overcome, but I guarantee Apple won't be running to support SW until they figure out how to do so with the best result for users. As an end user, I really don't want the result of following a link to a website (or 'web app' if you must, because app all the things) to be a progressive web app that a) consumes 100s of MB of my mobile device storage, b) runs in the background draining my battery and using my limited cell data plan, and c) send who know what information to god knows where. All because I clicked on a link and hit OK on an innocuous prompt... Some of the capabilities presumed by service workers aren't even available to native apps on iOS because of these very same issues - why would Apple grant them to random websites?
  - kalleboo 11y ago
    Meanwhile they're pretty good at keeping up with simpler ways of blurring the lines between web sites and native apps, with APIs like AirPlay, Picture-in-Picture when you leave the browser, Force Touch... I've always felt the WebKit/Safari team is just understaffed. IIRC there was graph posted here a while back showing the number of contributors on the major open source browser platforms and Google has a frightening amount of developers working on Chrome.
0x0 11y ago
That's nice, but no iOS release? Edit: As it is now, it doesn't look very different from what already existed as OSX-side-loadable Webkit Nightlies https://webkit.org/nightly/ https://webkit.org/nightly/ or building from source (which even supports iOS simulator!) https://webkit.org/building-webkit/ https://webkit.org/building-webkit/
- Viper007Bond 11y ago
  I don't see that happening as Safari isn't just some application that runs on iOS as an app, it's more built into the OS itself.
  - masklinn 11y ago
    It could be available as something of a public ad-hoc build, or as a sideload-able package since the iOS9 SDK added support for sideloading. OSX Safari is also built pretty deep into the OS.
  - 0x0 11y ago
    I don't see why not as webkit.org already supports building for the iOS simulator https://webkit.org/building-webkit/ https://webkit.org/building-webkit/
- mikhailt 11y ago
  That's because it is nearly the same as WebKit Nightly but with a few things included that WebKit Nightly can't include such as iCloud sync. Apple already explained on the same page as the OP link: > You may already be familiar with the WebKit Nightly, which serves a purpose similar to that of Safari Technology Preview. For most people, we think Safari Technology Preview is a more convenient and stable way to live on recent WebKit changes. Unlike the nightlies, Safari Technology Preview supports the full set of iCloud-based Safari features, including iCloud History and iCloud Tabs. And we’ll use the time between Safari Technology Preview releases to curate and test updates to a point where we think developers will find it practical to use as their primary browser.
emehrkay 11y ago
Menu bar says "safari tech preview" and not just safari like WebKit nightly. That is big for me. Does anyone know why WebKit nightly doesn't say WebKit nightly?
- bdash 11y ago
  The Safari Tech Preview is a full-fledged copy of Safari that bundles its own WebKit frameworks rather than using the system frameworks. As it's a separate application it can have a different name, and use an independent copy of preferences, history, bookmarks, etc. from the system version of Safari. WebKit nightly builds run your system version of Safari with an updated version of the WebKit frameworks. This means that the application you're running is your normal version of Safari. The WebKit nightlies do some shenanigans to convince the system to do things like display a different Dock icon, for instance, but for the most part they just let Safari be Safari.
  - emehrkay 11y ago
    That makes a lot of sense. I guess that is the reason why they can share sessions and other web-related resources seamlessly.
karmakaze 11y ago
Requires 10.11 El Capitan.
- r00fus 11y ago
  Which supports 7.5 year old hardware. This should not be a stopper if you're serious about web-dev.
  - karmakaze 10y ago
    4 downvotes for stating an informational fact
deleted 11y ago
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jbob2000 11y ago
I love that they are supporting Shadow DOMs, but until the other browsers support it, the feature is dead in the water. I mean, it's a feature that you'd build a whole app around, but if IE and Firefox don't support it, I can't really do that.
- spankalee 11y ago
  Chrome already supports the v0 Shadow DOM spec, and will soon support v1. Edge(nee IE) and Firefox are committed to support and active in the standards discussions, and I believe allocating people to work on it, if not working on it already. Support across all the major browsers will arrive before we know it. We also have polyfills for Shadow DOM and the other Web Components standards, and are updating them for the v1 spec: https://github.com/webcomponents/webcomponentsjs https://github.com/webcomponents/webcomponentsjs The Shadow DOM polyfill is a bit slow, but soon it'll only be necessary on older browsers, so some properties might be able to adopt full Shadow DOM within the year. If you use Polymer, we have a fast Shadow DOM-like shim called Shadey DOM, and you can pretty seamlessly opt-in to full Shadow DOM where available.
chris_wot 11y ago
So what is Apple going to do about fixing bugs in Safari in iOS quicker? I shouldn't have to wait for 3 months for awful rendering issues that entirely prevent me from viewing important websites to be fixed! Obviously it's unpopular to complain about Apple and their dreadful fix timeframes, but there are often thousands of affected websites and often Apple have a fix already checked in and tested. But Apple being Apple, they consider web rendering bugs to be part of their iOS update process, and not just an issue with an app so we all must wait for three months for them to roll it into a major update. I'm seriously considering setting up a seperate website to track iOS bugs. Apple are hardly willing to be open and transparent about bugs, so perhaps it should be taken from their hands?
- dkonofalski 11y ago
  "Important websites"... because only the websites that you visit are important.
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    Well that was unnecessary. I guess all these developers would disagree with you: https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/13510 https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/13510
- frou_dh 11y ago
  How many times are you going to post the same comment multiple times per story? We get it, >>>3 months<<< is a travesty.
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    Are you saying this isn't a timely comment? Or relevant? I'll keep commenting on their three month timeframe on relevant stories. I don't mind that you don't like me making the point that it's unreasonable. Especially as you agree! Edit: I'll review my comment history: * The comment you are responding to, I feel is relevant * I write a reply to this comment that says that Apple's Safari development is getting better, to which I disagree - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11391186 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11391186 Entirely relevant to that thread. It's funny watching my comment scores bounce up and down though. I'm not the only one annoyed with Apple I see, there appear to be as many people who agree with me as who are annoyed I point out Apple's Safari issues :-) Don't assume that just because you think I'm unreasonable that I am unreasonable. My comments are downvoted and you are annoyed with my seeming unreasonableness, but plenty feel the opposite.
bsimpson 11y ago
Nice to have more visibility into which features are coming to WebKit, especially since they don't release to consumers very often. Bummed to not see WebRTC on here though.
- binaryjohn 11y ago
  FWIW: looks like it's in development https://webkit.org/status/#specification-webrtc https://webkit.org/status/#specification-webrtc
  - bsimpson 11y ago
    That's why I was hoping it would ship with iOS 10. =)
    - simlevesque 11y ago
      You mean iOS X.
- thought_alarm 11y ago
  They've been releasing nightly builds for over a decade. Easy to install, uses same Safari UI, and can be run alongside release versions of Safari.
  - Tloewald 11y ago
    True but they are kind of a pain. This will be a proper substitute for Safari as an everyday browser. Also, this seems to point to is decoupling safari releases more and more from OS releases, and that's a good thing.
  - masklinn 11y ago
    The problem is that Webkit nightlies are absolutely not evidence of what the future version of Safari will contain, webkit is the engine but features are added and removed before it becomes Safari. That the STP bears the "Safari" name and will be updated through MAS[0] and is featured on their developer site and has access to all the cloud features and shit from standard Safari is a much, much stronger signal as to what future version of Safari will contain. It looks very much like an apple-official dev channel (chrome) or developer edition (firefox) for Safari, TFA even claims an update frequency about halfway between the Chrome Dev Channel (0.5/1 week) and the Firefox Developer Edition (6 weeks) [0] despite not even being installed through MAS
d2ncal 11y ago
I wish they support WebGL stuff for 360 Video Playback... https://milkvr.com/view/VUNmjRRDV60 https://milkvr.com/view/VUNmjRRDV60
- eyesee 11y ago
  Safari does support WebGL and can do 360 video playback: https://360fly.com/videos/aiHPVUMLZHUPJEoiZ2yXia/ https://360fly.com/videos/aiHPVUMLZHUPJEoiZ2yXia/ It has somewhat more restrictive CORS requirements than other browsers which not every 360 player has addressed. There's also the issue that Safari on iPhone can't play 360 videos because of the media player taking over fullscreen playback.
deleted 11y ago
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sergiotapia 11y ago
Programmatic cut and copy to the clipboard It’s now possible to programmatically copy and cut text in response to a user gesture with document.execCommand('copy') and document.execCommand('cut'). Having this ability may eliminate some websites’ last need for the Flash plug-in. --- :'( - So much pain erased in a single stroke!
- Alex3917 11y ago
  Unfortunately as far as I know the text selection API is still broken on mobile Safari. At least as of a few weeks ago the JS events associated with force touch seem to randomly wipe out the text selection, so even if you can now theoretically copy stuff to the clipboard it's largely irrelevant if users can't actually select text in the first place.
  - om2 11y ago
    Can you file a bug with a specific example or two? http://bugs.webkit.org/ http://bugs.webkit.org/
    - Alex3917 11y ago
      I think my cofounder already did, I'll check. The basic issue we were encountering is that when selecting text via force touching and then dragging the selection, the text selection object was empty. (Though you can still hit Copy in the Safari UI.) There wasn't any issue when selecting text via regular press or long press.
      - om2 11y ago
        If you throw me a bug number (here or privately) I'll take a look.
        Alex3917 11y ago
        OK the bug number is 25465034. Thanks!
AbraKdabra 11y ago
> Programmatic cut and copy to the clipboard Wow, this is huge.
- ryan_lane 11y ago
  Already in released versions of Chrome and Firefox. It'll be nice when it's in safari, though, because then it'll actually work on mobile. It seems that Safari isn't using the same API, though.
mark_l_watson 11y ago
Good move on Apple's part. Similar to Microsoft providing Windows 10 VirtualBox images with versions of their browsers.
- vardump 11y ago
  > ... Similar to Microsoft providing Windows 10 VirtualBox images with versions of their browsers. I must have missed something. Are you saying it's possible to run these Safari previews on any platform, not just on OS X?
  - 542458 11y ago
    No, but it's a sign of goodwill towards webdevs.
mortenjorck 11y ago
It's great to see Apple doing this on the desktop - I wonder if they have any similar plans for Mobile Safari? I would imagine they could do something similar to the process for iOS public betas: allow users to install a cert for Safari Technology Preview, keeping them on a parallel channel of updates.
dumbmatter 11y ago
I guess my years of complaining about Safari's IndexedDB support might finally be close to paying off...
talles 11y ago
Chrome -> Chromium Firefox -> Firefox Developer Edition Safari -> Safari Technology Preview Am I getting that right? What about Edge?
- deleted 11y ago
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- masklinn 11y ago
  > Chrome -> Chromium Chrome -> Chrome Dev Channel. Chromium is a different product than Chrome. > What about Edge? Edge Previews? https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/platform/changelog/ https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/platfor...
  - therealmarv 11y ago
    Or Chrome Canary if you want a side by side installation https://www.google.de/chrome/browser/canary.html https://www.google.de/chrome/browser/canary.html I think Chrome Dev replaces your Chrome Stable or Beta.
deleted 11y ago
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an4rchy 11y ago
It would be great if they mentioned El Capitan as a pre- requisite before people download and find out. I know the expectation is that most Macs are up to date but if you can't install it on Yosemite, they should let people know.
- X-Istence 11y ago
  It's mentioned right there on the download page: https://developer.apple.com/safari/download/ https://developer.apple.com/safari/download/ "Compatible with OS X 10.11.4 or later"
lobster_johnson 11y ago
While I'd love to use this app, there's no way to transfer your current Safari config — including extensions and the last browser session — to the Tech Preview. Copying the files doesn't work.
- orik 11y ago
  most of my settings came over through iCloud - I don't think last browser session or extensions are very important for them to support pulling across.
  - lobster_johnson 11y ago
    I have about 10 windows with umpteen tabs open. I do not want to go through the process of replicating that. Same with extensions.
    - glhaynes 11y ago
      That makes me wonder whether Safari extensions can access iCloud Tabs. If so, it'd really come in handy to be able to do things like "move all these tabs from this device to this device". I accumulate tons of tabs on my mobile devices that I'd like to move to my Mac (or vice-versa, depending on circumstance) so I could just crank through them all at once. [Edit: A brief look makes it appear that native OS X apps can, not sure about Safari extensions. But a native app could be sufficient.]
- mikhailt 11y ago
  That's actually intentional, this is not supposed to carry over the current Safari configuration. If you want that, you might as well keep using WebKit Nightly, which reuses your Safari stuff.
  - lobster_johnson 11y ago
    Sorry to be obstinate, but then I'm not going to use it. Too much hassle. If it turns out that the Tech Preview is too buggy, I can't easily migrate back.
circlingthesun 11y ago
Will localStorage work in private mode on mobile safari?
deleted 11y ago
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taf2 11y ago
I can't take them seriously until WebRTC...
kingnight 11y ago
I find Safari to be the nicest browser to use in general, but Chrome seems to have a leg up on performance in key areas like new tab creation especially when opening a link in a new tab. It's weird lapse for Safari to lag in certain situations. I hope they continue to iteratively improve the performance of the general UI and improve the general behavior of the developer tools in addition to adding these new techs.
- ino 11y ago
  If you change the new tab to a blank page in the preferences, it opens instantly. I just wish one thing: that it would remember the zoom level on a per website basis. It's incredible that it's still impossible to do so. Don't the devs use Safari? Or maybe they all have perfect vision and the most expensive displays.
  - bartvk 11y ago
    In my case, it lags (up to two-three seconds) even if I set new tabs to about:blank. Haven't been able to find a workaround, and it occurs infrequently.
    - heelhook 11y ago
      You might want to try doing a SCM reset. I was having the same issue and did an SMC and noticed that opening a new tab went back to being instantaneous (also using about:blank).
  - ttepasse 11y ago
    An extension helps with per site zoom factors. I use ZoomBySite but while looking if it is also in the new extension gallery I found Zoom. Untested. http://www.cerimorgan.com/products/zoombysite/ http://www.cerimorgan.com/products/zoombysite/ https://safari-extensions.apple.com/details/?id=com.stefanvd.zoom-PRR97757HF https://safari-extensions.apple.com/details/?id=com.stefanvd...
  - chmaynard 11y ago
    Like you, I’m constantly zooming in or out because there is so much variation in font sizes and layouts. I wonder if Safari could be programmed to automatically adjust the zoom level of every web page, based on my preferred viewing style. Safari would need to take into account things such as preferred font size, current window size, etc.
tapsboy 11y ago
Happy to see Webkit at 98% ES6 completion. Hopefully, all of these updates are flowing into Safari http://kangax.github.io/compat-table/es6/#webkit http://kangax.github.io/compat-table/es6/#webkit
- masklinn 11y ago
  ESnext is lagging behind though (12% to >30% for Firefox and Chrome) On the other hand, i18n API support: http://kangax.github.io/compat-table/esintl/ http://kangax.github.io/compat-table/esintl/ not done yet, but at >90% it's way better than Safari's 50% and most of the failures seem to be accepting values it should throw errors for in i18n API.
aorth 11y ago
Where is Safari in terms of security? Speed, battery usage, and standards support are one thing, but as far as I know, neither Firefox nor Safari have the robust level of sandboxing and other Chrome security features.
ksherlock 11y ago
fetch("..."); Promise {status: "rejected", result: "Fetch is not yet implemented"} = $1 If you use a fetch polyfill, it won't install itself because there's a native fetch. But the native fetch is only there to tell you that it's not really there.

431 points by rootinier 11y ago

ricardobeat 11y ago

Amazing to see this released while we still can not click links in mobile Safari :/

JustSomeNobody 11y ago
Because development is a linear thing?
- deleted 11y ago
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ceejayoz 11y ago
I can click links just fine in mobile Safari...
- chris_wot 11y ago
  Yeah, don't go to booking.com :-)
  - ceejayoz 11y ago
    So a particular website goofing something up is Safari's fault? (Incidentally, just went to Booking.com on iOS Safari. Works fine here.)
    - chris_wot 11y ago
      You haven't been following the news lately I see. Yes, it is.
      - ceejayoz 11y ago
        Since I've apparently missed "the news", would you care to provide a link?
        chris_wot 11y ago
        https://bencollier.net/2016/03/unable-to-open-links-in-safari-mail-or-messages-on-ios-9-3/ https://bencollier.net/2016/03/unable-to-open-links-in-safar... http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/28/technology/iphone-safari-bug/ http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/28/technology/iphone-safari-bug... http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/28/its-not-just-you-clicking-on-links-in-ios-9-3-can-crash-your-iphone/ http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/28/its-not-just-you-clicking-o... http://www.news.com.au/technology/gadgets/mobile-phones/new-software-update-causes-misery-for-iphone-users-but-heres-how-to-stop-the-bug-crashing-your-apps/news-story/2b06c149b797031a875c0067b823dc0f http://www.news.com.au/technology/gadgets/mobile-phones/new-... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/27/apple_safari_bug/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/27/apple_safari_bug/ http://m.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11613674 http://m.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&obj... http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/ios-93-bug-makes-some-phones-break-if-people-click-on-links-users-claim-a6956036.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/new... http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/science-technology/638412/iPhone-Safari-Suggestions-Glitch-iOS-Apple-Crash-URL-New-Search http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/science-technology/63841... http://milwaukee.suntimes.com/mil-news/7/121/284320/glitch-on-ios-9-3-causes-links-to-crash-some-apps-heres-a-possible-fix http://milwaukee.suntimes.com/mil-news/7/121/284320/glitch-o... http://betanews.com/2016/03/24/ios-9-3-os-x-10-11-4-el-capitan-upgrade-issues/ http://betanews.com/2016/03/24/ios-9-3-os-x-10-11-4-el-capit... http://www.techshout.com/macintosh/2016/28/ios-9-3-link-bug-causes-apps-crash-freeze/ http://www.techshout.com/macintosh/2016/28/ios-9-3-link-bug-... http://www.mactechnews.de/news/article/Link-Crash-Apple-kuendigt-Update-an-163779.html http://www.mactechnews.de/news/article/Link-Crash-Apple-kuen...
        ceejayoz 11y ago
        OK, so users with a particular app had Safari issues, the app got patched, and Apple's planning on fixing their end of the bug per http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/28/its-not-just-you-clicking-on-links-in-ios-9-3-can-crash-your-iphone/ http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/28/its-not-just-you-clicking-o.... "Booking.com associates its app with all sorts of domains — too many domains to be precise. With 2.4MB worth of domain-name-to-deep-link entries, Safari and other apps crash when iOS checks links against its Universal Link database because this database is too big." Your criticism seems doubly odd now. Should Apple pause all Safari development whenever a bug is encountered? What are you proposing? edit: Since I can't reply: > Any app with a link association file that had too many links can cause Safari to totally stop working. Yes, there's apparently a bug, triggered by the rare apps that pad out the file to enormous sizes. Not sure why you felt the need to spend ten minutes updating your post with every mention of it you could find (along with unrelated stuff from 2015). > This has been discussed to death already, you are very late to the party here. I'm extremely sorry I missed a bit of tech news about an edge-case bug that doesn't affect me. I'll try harder in the future. > It's totally within the realms of possibility that Apple can do more frequent bug fixes and develop new features. OK, but from the looks of the dates on those articles, this bug has been known about for about a week. Do you always fix every reported bug in a week or less, or do they sometimes take a little while to fix and QA? iOS has a bit of a larger user footprint to consider, too. Given there's a workaround - patch the apps with bloated link associations - I'm dubious of the need to rush an update here. edit 2: > edit: you can reply, press the link that takes you to my direct comme t and hit reply. No, I can't. "Submitting too quickly".
    - makomk 11y ago
      That a particular website can completely break the ability to open links in all applications on all websites just by listing too many URLs in a file, with the broken state persisting even after the original website fixed the file that caused it, is definitely Safari's fault.
- ricardobeat 11y ago
  See news links posted below. I (and thousands other people) have been unable to use a browser normally in our mobile phones for the past week. Since Apple forces everyone to use the same underlying webkit engine, all browsers are broken. It's quite frustrating to have your 800€ device unable to perform one of it's basic duties.

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spankalee 11y ago

With Shadow DOM!

jaredcwhite 11y ago

Apple's been taking a number of steps over the last few months to show that they take Safari/WebKit development seriously. This is another positive step in the right direction. While I never agreed with the nonsensical "Safari is the New IE" meme that was going around, I did fear that Apple's tendency to develop things in a vacuum would continue to harm WebKit relative to Blink, Gecko, etc. But all signs are pointing to good things to come. Perhaps Apple's major open source initiative in the area of Swift language and the Swift ecosystem is also benefiting their approach to WebKit now as well.

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therealmarv 11y ago
what steps? Any prove? BTW here a good example how Chrome & Safari team cannot communicate and everyone of them implements their own HTML standards. Here gesture support (pinch and zoom, trackpad) on desktops https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=596689 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=596689 for what reason we have W3C/WHATWG etc. ?
- masklinn 11y ago
  https://webkit.org/status https://webkit.org/status is one, this very article above is an other, the much more significant than usual mid-cycle Safari 9.1 is a third. These are 3 things which happened in the last 3 months or so and are more progress than Apple had shown in the last what, 3 or 4 years at least?
chris_wot 11y ago
Their time to fix bugs and regressions in iOS is 3 months! Edit: Again, I write a very unpopular opinion. Yet there are hundreds of regressions that have bit developers. Some of those bugs require workarounds that would be otherwise unnecessary on any normal environment with rapid updates - like Chrome or Firefox. That increases developer effort, and there have been cases that Apple have entirely missed their update and so folks wait for 6 or more months for a fix! People can be unhappy with my comment (the score is bouncing up and down like a yo-yo!), I really don't care - but having been one of quite a few website maintainers that have had to work around Apple's bugs, it's very frustrating for both the end user and the developer.

mgreg 11y ago

Anyone know if they plan on introducing support for Service Workers ("Progressive Web Apps" in Google parlance) soon?

rootinier 11y ago
According to their status page it's under consideration. https://webkit.org/status/ https://webkit.org/status/
dccoolgai 11y ago
This is what sticks in my craw about Safari: it feels like they are intentionally dragging their feet on this because it would bring the Open Web to parity with Native Mobile and their App Store. At least IE never had a built-in conflict of interest in upgrading.
- djrogers 11y ago
  There are a ton of valid security, performance, and storage related reasons not to blindly support service workers on mobile. I'm sure they can be overcome, but I guarantee Apple won't be running to support SW until they figure out how to do so with the best result for users. As an end user, I really don't want the result of following a link to a website (or 'web app' if you must, because app all the things) to be a progressive web app that a) consumes 100s of MB of my mobile device storage, b) runs in the background draining my battery and using my limited cell data plan, and c) send who know what information to god knows where. All because I clicked on a link and hit OK on an innocuous prompt... Some of the capabilities presumed by service workers aren't even available to native apps on iOS because of these very same issues - why would Apple grant them to random websites?
- kalleboo 11y ago
  Meanwhile they're pretty good at keeping up with simpler ways of blurring the lines between web sites and native apps, with APIs like AirPlay, Picture-in-Picture when you leave the browser, Force Touch... I've always felt the WebKit/Safari team is just understaffed. IIRC there was graph posted here a while back showing the number of contributors on the major open source browser platforms and Google has a frightening amount of developers working on Chrome.

0x0 11y ago

That's nice, but no iOS release? Edit: As it is now, it doesn't look very different from what already existed as OSX-side-loadable Webkit Nightlies https://webkit.org/nightly/ https://webkit.org/nightly/ or building from source (which even supports iOS simulator!) https://webkit.org/building-webkit/ https://webkit.org/building-webkit/

Viper007Bond 11y ago
I don't see that happening as Safari isn't just some application that runs on iOS as an app, it's more built into the OS itself.
- masklinn 11y ago
  It could be available as something of a public ad-hoc build, or as a sideload-able package since the iOS9 SDK added support for sideloading. OSX Safari is also built pretty deep into the OS.
- 0x0 11y ago
  I don't see why not as webkit.org already supports building for the iOS simulator https://webkit.org/building-webkit/ https://webkit.org/building-webkit/
mikhailt 11y ago
That's because it is nearly the same as WebKit Nightly but with a few things included that WebKit Nightly can't include such as iCloud sync. Apple already explained on the same page as the OP link: > You may already be familiar with the WebKit Nightly, which serves a purpose similar to that of Safari Technology Preview. For most people, we think Safari Technology Preview is a more convenient and stable way to live on recent WebKit changes. Unlike the nightlies, Safari Technology Preview supports the full set of iCloud-based Safari features, including iCloud History and iCloud Tabs. And we’ll use the time between Safari Technology Preview releases to curate and test updates to a point where we think developers will find it practical to use as their primary browser.

emehrkay 11y ago

Menu bar says "safari tech preview" and not just safari like WebKit nightly. That is big for me. Does anyone know why WebKit nightly doesn't say WebKit nightly?

bdash 11y ago
The Safari Tech Preview is a full-fledged copy of Safari that bundles its own WebKit frameworks rather than using the system frameworks. As it's a separate application it can have a different name, and use an independent copy of preferences, history, bookmarks, etc. from the system version of Safari. WebKit nightly builds run your system version of Safari with an updated version of the WebKit frameworks. This means that the application you're running is your normal version of Safari. The WebKit nightlies do some shenanigans to convince the system to do things like display a different Dock icon, for instance, but for the most part they just let Safari be Safari.
- emehrkay 11y ago
  That makes a lot of sense. I guess that is the reason why they can share sessions and other web-related resources seamlessly.

karmakaze 11y ago

Requires 10.11 El Capitan.

r00fus 11y ago
Which supports 7.5 year old hardware. This should not be a stopper if you're serious about web-dev.
- karmakaze 10y ago
  4 downvotes for stating an informational fact

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jbob2000 11y ago

I love that they are supporting Shadow DOMs, but until the other browsers support it, the feature is dead in the water. I mean, it's a feature that you'd build a whole app around, but if IE and Firefox don't support it, I can't really do that.

spankalee 11y ago
Chrome already supports the v0 Shadow DOM spec, and will soon support v1. Edge(nee IE) and Firefox are committed to support and active in the standards discussions, and I believe allocating people to work on it, if not working on it already. Support across all the major browsers will arrive before we know it. We also have polyfills for Shadow DOM and the other Web Components standards, and are updating them for the v1 spec: https://github.com/webcomponents/webcomponentsjs https://github.com/webcomponents/webcomponentsjs The Shadow DOM polyfill is a bit slow, but soon it'll only be necessary on older browsers, so some properties might be able to adopt full Shadow DOM within the year. If you use Polymer, we have a fast Shadow DOM-like shim called Shadey DOM, and you can pretty seamlessly opt-in to full Shadow DOM where available.

chris_wot 11y ago

So what is Apple going to do about fixing bugs in Safari in iOS quicker? I shouldn't have to wait for 3 months for awful rendering issues that entirely prevent me from viewing important websites to be fixed! Obviously it's unpopular to complain about Apple and their dreadful fix timeframes, but there are often thousands of affected websites and often Apple have a fix already checked in and tested. But Apple being Apple, they consider web rendering bugs to be part of their iOS update process, and not just an issue with an app so we all must wait for three months for them to roll it into a major update. I'm seriously considering setting up a seperate website to track iOS bugs. Apple are hardly willing to be open and transparent about bugs, so perhaps it should be taken from their hands?

dkonofalski 11y ago
"Important websites"... because only the websites that you visit are important.
- chris_wot 11y ago
  Well that was unnecessary. I guess all these developers would disagree with you: https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/13510 https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/13510
frou_dh 11y ago
How many times are you going to post the same comment multiple times per story? We get it, >>>3 months<<< is a travesty.
- chris_wot 11y ago
  Are you saying this isn't a timely comment? Or relevant? I'll keep commenting on their three month timeframe on relevant stories. I don't mind that you don't like me making the point that it's unreasonable. Especially as you agree! Edit: I'll review my comment history: * The comment you are responding to, I feel is relevant * I write a reply to this comment that says that Apple's Safari development is getting better, to which I disagree - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11391186 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11391186 Entirely relevant to that thread. It's funny watching my comment scores bounce up and down though. I'm not the only one annoyed with Apple I see, there appear to be as many people who agree with me as who are annoyed I point out Apple's Safari issues :-) Don't assume that just because you think I'm unreasonable that I am unreasonable. My comments are downvoted and you are annoyed with my seeming unreasonableness, but plenty feel the opposite.

bsimpson 11y ago

Nice to have more visibility into which features are coming to WebKit, especially since they don't release to consumers very often. Bummed to not see WebRTC on here though.

binaryjohn 11y ago
FWIW: looks like it's in development https://webkit.org/status/#specification-webrtc https://webkit.org/status/#specification-webrtc
- bsimpson 11y ago
  That's why I was hoping it would ship with iOS 10. =)
  - simlevesque 11y ago
    You mean iOS X.
thought_alarm 11y ago
They've been releasing nightly builds for over a decade. Easy to install, uses same Safari UI, and can be run alongside release versions of Safari.
- Tloewald 11y ago
  True but they are kind of a pain. This will be a proper substitute for Safari as an everyday browser. Also, this seems to point to is decoupling safari releases more and more from OS releases, and that's a good thing.
- masklinn 11y ago
  The problem is that Webkit nightlies are absolutely not evidence of what the future version of Safari will contain, webkit is the engine but features are added and removed before it becomes Safari. That the STP bears the "Safari" name and will be updated through MAS[0] and is featured on their developer site and has access to all the cloud features and shit from standard Safari is a much, much stronger signal as to what future version of Safari will contain. It looks very much like an apple-official dev channel (chrome) or developer edition (firefox) for Safari, TFA even claims an update frequency about halfway between the Chrome Dev Channel (0.5/1 week) and the Firefox Developer Edition (6 weeks) [0] despite not even being installed through MAS

d2ncal 11y ago

I wish they support WebGL stuff for 360 Video Playback... https://milkvr.com/view/VUNmjRRDV60 https://milkvr.com/view/VUNmjRRDV60

eyesee 11y ago
Safari does support WebGL and can do 360 video playback: https://360fly.com/videos/aiHPVUMLZHUPJEoiZ2yXia/ https://360fly.com/videos/aiHPVUMLZHUPJEoiZ2yXia/ It has somewhat more restrictive CORS requirements than other browsers which not every 360 player has addressed. There's also the issue that Safari on iPhone can't play 360 videos because of the media player taking over fullscreen playback.

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sergiotapia 11y ago

Programmatic cut and copy to the clipboard It’s now possible to programmatically copy and cut text in response to a user gesture with document.execCommand('copy') and document.execCommand('cut'). Having this ability may eliminate some websites’ last need for the Flash plug-in. --- :'( - So much pain erased in a single stroke!

Alex3917 11y ago
Unfortunately as far as I know the text selection API is still broken on mobile Safari. At least as of a few weeks ago the JS events associated with force touch seem to randomly wipe out the text selection, so even if you can now theoretically copy stuff to the clipboard it's largely irrelevant if users can't actually select text in the first place.
- om2 11y ago
  Can you file a bug with a specific example or two? http://bugs.webkit.org/ http://bugs.webkit.org/
  - Alex3917 11y ago
    I think my cofounder already did, I'll check. The basic issue we were encountering is that when selecting text via force touching and then dragging the selection, the text selection object was empty. (Though you can still hit Copy in the Safari UI.) There wasn't any issue when selecting text via regular press or long press.
    - om2 11y ago
      If you throw me a bug number (here or privately) I'll take a look.
      - Alex3917 11y ago
        OK the bug number is 25465034. Thanks!

AbraKdabra 11y ago

> Programmatic cut and copy to the clipboard Wow, this is huge.

ryan_lane 11y ago
Already in released versions of Chrome and Firefox. It'll be nice when it's in safari, though, because then it'll actually work on mobile. It seems that Safari isn't using the same API, though.

mark_l_watson 11y ago

Good move on Apple's part. Similar to Microsoft providing Windows 10 VirtualBox images with versions of their browsers.

vardump 11y ago
> ... Similar to Microsoft providing Windows 10 VirtualBox images with versions of their browsers. I must have missed something. Are you saying it's possible to run these Safari previews on any platform, not just on OS X?
- 542458 11y ago
  No, but it's a sign of goodwill towards webdevs.

mortenjorck 11y ago

It's great to see Apple doing this on the desktop - I wonder if they have any similar plans for Mobile Safari? I would imagine they could do something similar to the process for iOS public betas: allow users to install a cert for Safari Technology Preview, keeping them on a parallel channel of updates.

dumbmatter 11y ago

I guess my years of complaining about Safari's IndexedDB support might finally be close to paying off...

talles 11y ago

Chrome -> Chromium Firefox -> Firefox Developer Edition Safari -> Safari Technology Preview Am I getting that right? What about Edge?

deleted 11y ago
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masklinn 11y ago
> Chrome -> Chromium Chrome -> Chrome Dev Channel. Chromium is a different product than Chrome. > What about Edge? Edge Previews? https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/platform/changelog/ https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/platfor...
- therealmarv 11y ago
  Or Chrome Canary if you want a side by side installation https://www.google.de/chrome/browser/canary.html https://www.google.de/chrome/browser/canary.html I think Chrome Dev replaces your Chrome Stable or Beta.

deleted 11y ago

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an4rchy 11y ago

It would be great if they mentioned El Capitan as a pre- requisite before people download and find out. I know the expectation is that most Macs are up to date but if you can't install it on Yosemite, they should let people know.

X-Istence 11y ago
It's mentioned right there on the download page: https://developer.apple.com/safari/download/ https://developer.apple.com/safari/download/ "Compatible with OS X 10.11.4 or later"

lobster_johnson 11y ago

While I'd love to use this app, there's no way to transfer your current Safari config — including extensions and the last browser session — to the Tech Preview. Copying the files doesn't work.

orik 11y ago
most of my settings came over through iCloud - I don't think last browser session or extensions are very important for them to support pulling across.
- lobster_johnson 11y ago
  I have about 10 windows with umpteen tabs open. I do not want to go through the process of replicating that. Same with extensions.
  - glhaynes 11y ago
    That makes me wonder whether Safari extensions can access iCloud Tabs. If so, it'd really come in handy to be able to do things like "move all these tabs from this device to this device". I accumulate tons of tabs on my mobile devices that I'd like to move to my Mac (or vice-versa, depending on circumstance) so I could just crank through them all at once. [Edit: A brief look makes it appear that native OS X apps can, not sure about Safari extensions. But a native app could be sufficient.]
mikhailt 11y ago
That's actually intentional, this is not supposed to carry over the current Safari configuration. If you want that, you might as well keep using WebKit Nightly, which reuses your Safari stuff.
- lobster_johnson 11y ago
  Sorry to be obstinate, but then I'm not going to use it. Too much hassle. If it turns out that the Tech Preview is too buggy, I can't easily migrate back.

circlingthesun 11y ago

Will localStorage work in private mode on mobile safari?

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taf2 11y ago

I can't take them seriously until WebRTC...

kingnight 11y ago

I find Safari to be the nicest browser to use in general, but Chrome seems to have a leg up on performance in key areas like new tab creation especially when opening a link in a new tab. It's weird lapse for Safari to lag in certain situations. I hope they continue to iteratively improve the performance of the general UI and improve the general behavior of the developer tools in addition to adding these new techs.

ino 11y ago
If you change the new tab to a blank page in the preferences, it opens instantly. I just wish one thing: that it would remember the zoom level on a per website basis. It's incredible that it's still impossible to do so. Don't the devs use Safari? Or maybe they all have perfect vision and the most expensive displays.
- bartvk 11y ago
  In my case, it lags (up to two-three seconds) even if I set new tabs to about:blank. Haven't been able to find a workaround, and it occurs infrequently.
  - heelhook 11y ago
    You might want to try doing a SCM reset. I was having the same issue and did an SMC and noticed that opening a new tab went back to being instantaneous (also using about:blank).
- ttepasse 11y ago
  An extension helps with per site zoom factors. I use ZoomBySite but while looking if it is also in the new extension gallery I found Zoom. Untested. http://www.cerimorgan.com/products/zoombysite/ http://www.cerimorgan.com/products/zoombysite/ https://safari-extensions.apple.com/details/?id=com.stefanvd.zoom-PRR97757HF https://safari-extensions.apple.com/details/?id=com.stefanvd...
- chmaynard 11y ago
  Like you, I’m constantly zooming in or out because there is so much variation in font sizes and layouts. I wonder if Safari could be programmed to automatically adjust the zoom level of every web page, based on my preferred viewing style. Safari would need to take into account things such as preferred font size, current window size, etc.

tapsboy 11y ago

Happy to see Webkit at 98% ES6 completion. Hopefully, all of these updates are flowing into Safari http://kangax.github.io/compat-table/es6/#webkit http://kangax.github.io/compat-table/es6/#webkit

masklinn 11y ago
ESnext is lagging behind though (12% to >30% for Firefox and Chrome) On the other hand, i18n API support: http://kangax.github.io/compat-table/esintl/ http://kangax.github.io/compat-table/esintl/ not done yet, but at >90% it's way better than Safari's 50% and most of the failures seem to be accepting values it should throw errors for in i18n API.

aorth 11y ago

Where is Safari in terms of security? Speed, battery usage, and standards support are one thing, but as far as I know, neither Firefox nor Safari have the robust level of sandboxing and other Chrome security features.

ksherlock 11y ago

fetch("..."); Promise {status: "rejected", result: "Fetch is not yet implemented"} = $1 If you use a fetch polyfill, it won't install itself because there's a native fetch. But the native fetch is only there to tell you that it's not really there.