4 ms·

Sadly, looking at that table, it's clear that Safari is the one dragging their feet. Full support for ES6 in the latest Chrome, FF, and Edge, but very poor sup

by jnbiche 11y ago

Sadly, looking at that table, it's clear that Safari is the one dragging their feet. Full support for ES6 in the latest Chrome, FF, and Edge, but very poor support in the latest Safari. Apple recognizes that the Web poses a threat to their business model (although I think it's not as big as they fear, after all, how much of their profits come from the app store). This is why I am skeptical they will support WebAssembly in the end. After all, it will be possible to compile ES6 to WebAssembly just as much as any other language. I'm open to other suggestions for why Safari has become essentially the IE6 of our time, but pure business strategy is the only one I can come up with (which is fair, since Apple is a business after all).

eknkc 11y ago
They are getting a little bit better, transparent about new features lately. https://webkit.org/status/ https://webkit.org/status/ WebAssembly is listed as in development.
cedricr 11y ago
WebKit Nightly gets a 98% on that table.
evanriley 11y ago
I guess were in luck then. Apple recently released the Safari Technology Preview version of Safari.[0]. And if you open the ES6 support page in the post you replied to it shows support for 98% of the features. Supposedly the STP version is getting updated every 2 weeks, so lets hope that that also transitions to the non-developer version of Safari. [0] https://developer.apple.com/safari/technology-preview/ https://developer.apple.com/safari/technology-preview/
coldtea 11y ago
>Sadly, looking at that table, it's clear that Safari is the one dragging their feet. Full support for ES6 in the latest Chrome, FF, and Edge, but very poor support in the latest Safari. Actually Safari (well, Webkit), in beta, is the closest to full ES6 support of all current browsers -- down to 98% or so. It's just that Safari has a release only once or twice a year. But when it has, suddenly everybody on OS X/iOS using Safari would get all that stuff at once. (And recently they started a public beta builds program that might see them releasing new versions much sooner). >Apple recognizes that the Web poses a threat to their business model And with that information above, can we put this age old conspiracy theory to rest? Apple had long had the best mobile browser when Android still had the horrible "Android Browser". They regularly added all kinds of features that benefit apps (e.g. the canvas, css animations, several API to access native mobile features, etc.), and they continuously improve it (see this 98% ES6 support). For a company that "fears web apps" Apple not only promoted them to developers (before and after they created their native app frameworks and app store), not only has extensive documentation and how to's for best mobile experiences on their dev pages, but also has seen that Safari webkit based apps have traditionally been a better experience than Chrome based web apps on Android. Even today, it's faster, and more memory/cpu/battery efficient on mobile than Chrome is on Android. https://blog.runspired.com/2016/03/25/the-chrome-distortion-chrome-alters-our-expectations-in-highly-negative-ways/ https://blog.runspired.com/2016/03/25/the-chrome-distortion-... Safari was only held back because it's not a huge priority for Apple -- not because of some fear that web apps will eat their app store lunch. After all, web apps are difficult to monetize (no credit cards at hand), people expect most of them to be free, have a subpar experience for anything more demanding compared to bare metal languages, and don't integrate that well with native APIs anywhere (iOS, Android, Desktop, etc), as they have to run in a more restricted sandbox than native apps do (and of course somebody has to continuously porting all the native APIs, and at a great common denominator at that, since they also need to be portable).
- jnbiche 11y ago
  Fair enough. However, my paid work for the past several years has been as a frontend developer, and consistently, the browser that has held us back from adopting newer features has been Safari. I'm very happy to hear they have better/very good ES6 support coming up, I'm very glad to be wrong there. And hey, for whatever reason, Apple has earned my eternal gratitude (and my consumer dollar) over the past few months by being one of the only entities in this country capable and willing to stand up to government bullying and surveillance. Web standard are great for me in my job, and I believe they're important for the future of online communication. But standing up to government overreach is of critical importance to all of us. I'm an Android user myself, but wife uses iPhone so I'm already getting ready to buy her a new iPhone 7 when they come out.

by jnbiche 11y ago

eknkc 11y ago

They are getting a little bit better, transparent about new features lately. https://webkit.org/status/ https://webkit.org/status/ WebAssembly is listed as in development.

cedricr 11y ago

WebKit Nightly gets a 98% on that table.

evanriley 11y ago

I guess were in luck then. Apple recently released the Safari Technology Preview version of Safari.[0]. And if you open the ES6 support page in the post you replied to it shows support for 98% of the features. Supposedly the STP version is getting updated every 2 weeks, so lets hope that that also transitions to the non-developer version of Safari. [0] https://developer.apple.com/safari/technology-preview/ https://developer.apple.com/safari/technology-preview/

coldtea 11y ago

>Sadly, looking at that table, it's clear that Safari is the one dragging their feet. Full support for ES6 in the latest Chrome, FF, and Edge, but very poor support in the latest Safari. Actually Safari (well, Webkit), in beta, is the closest to full ES6 support of all current browsers -- down to 98% or so. It's just that Safari has a release only once or twice a year. But when it has, suddenly everybody on OS X/iOS using Safari would get all that stuff at once. (And recently they started a public beta builds program that might see them releasing new versions much sooner). >Apple recognizes that the Web poses a threat to their business model And with that information above, can we put this age old conspiracy theory to rest? Apple had long had the best mobile browser when Android still had the horrible "Android Browser". They regularly added all kinds of features that benefit apps (e.g. the canvas, css animations, several API to access native mobile features, etc.), and they continuously improve it (see this 98% ES6 support). For a company that "fears web apps" Apple not only promoted them to developers (before and after they created their native app frameworks and app store), not only has extensive documentation and how to's for best mobile experiences on their dev pages, but also has seen that Safari webkit based apps have traditionally been a better experience than Chrome based web apps on Android. Even today, it's faster, and more memory/cpu/battery efficient on mobile than Chrome is on Android. https://blog.runspired.com/2016/03/25/the-chrome-distortion-chrome-alters-our-expectations-in-highly-negative-ways/ https://blog.runspired.com/2016/03/25/the-chrome-distortion-... Safari was only held back because it's not a huge priority for Apple -- not because of some fear that web apps will eat their app store lunch. After all, web apps are difficult to monetize (no credit cards at hand), people expect most of them to be free, have a subpar experience for anything more demanding compared to bare metal languages, and don't integrate that well with native APIs anywhere (iOS, Android, Desktop, etc), as they have to run in a more restricted sandbox than native apps do (and of course somebody has to continuously porting all the native APIs, and at a great common denominator at that, since they also need to be portable).

jnbiche 11y ago
Fair enough. However, my paid work for the past several years has been as a frontend developer, and consistently, the browser that has held us back from adopting newer features has been Safari. I'm very happy to hear they have better/very good ES6 support coming up, I'm very glad to be wrong there. And hey, for whatever reason, Apple has earned my eternal gratitude (and my consumer dollar) over the past few months by being one of the only entities in this country capable and willing to stand up to government bullying and surveillance. Web standard are great for me in my job, and I believe they're important for the future of online communication. But standing up to government overreach is of critical importance to all of us. I'm an Android user myself, but wife uses iPhone so I'm already getting ready to buy her a new iPhone 7 when they come out.