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Why we are suing Apple for better HTML5 support in iOS

208 points by zoobab 10y ago

tambourine_man 10y ago
Probably not the best way to renew their interest in web standards
- gcp 10y ago
  I think the point is that they don't have to care, as long as they allow other browser engines than Apple's specific Webkit.
  - FussyZeus 10y ago
    Why do they need to do that? Their platform, their rules. You don't want to play by Apple's rules then leave Apple's sandbox. This is absurd. You have no rights and no freedoms while using a vendor's software. They knew the restrictions going in. This is going to die quickly in the courts.
    - manquer 10y ago
      This is in french court not US .European courts in general do not see it that way, Microsoft could not get away the same way with IE and Windows in european courts
    - sturgill 10y ago
      Do you feel the same way about Microsoft bundling Internet Explorer and trying to crush all competition in the browser market? Or do you only feel this way because it's Apple's sandbox? At least with Microsoft you _could_ install Netscape. What's your choice here? Buy an Android? I don't know you; this is a legitimate question. I don't actually know that I have an opinion on the underlying issue (I'm quite libertarian but also hate Safari). That said, I don't see how this is different from other bundling case law. But IANAL.
      - Angostura 10y ago
        Microsoft had a functional monopoly on the desktop at the time of the IE wars. Android phones are currently outshipping iOS about 4 to 1 http://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartphone-os-market-share.jsp http://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartphone-os-market-share.jsp
      - FussyZeus 10y ago
        > Do you feel the same way about Microsoft bundling Internet Explorer and trying to crush all competition in the browser market? Not a comparison. Windows was effectively a monopoly at the time where iOS is a strong but far from dominating force in mobile. However if you want to make this comparison, honestly? Yes. I think the suit against Microsoft was justified simply because of how blatantly obvious their practices were designed to squeeze out other browser makers after the fact. However it's a different situation here: Safari has always been the defacto browser for iOS since the first publicly available version. There is no significant competition for Safari because there's no way to change iOS to utilize it in the same ways, and the Apple TOS for developers specifically states you cannot create apps that directly reproduce functionality of Apple's built-in applications. Ergo, they are not decreasing the competition or being anti-market because there was no competition in the first place, and they made no secret of that.
        sturgill 10y ago
        Hard to argue they are not decreasing competition and not being anti-competitive when the TOS you quote specifically disallows competition. They literally prevent people from creating apps that compete with their own system apps. Again, at least you had the option of installing Netscape on Microsoft. And I'm writing this from my iPhone. I don't love or hate Apple. But I don't think what they're doing is different than Microsoft.
        amluto 10y ago
        This is a strange claim you're making. Squeezing out competition is bad, but banning competition in the first place is okay? Would it have been okay if Microsoft had charged a 30% tax on all sales of anything (software and content) consumable on the Windows platform on day one? Or what if the very first iPhone had a provision that for the rest of your life you were not permitted to buy a competing smartphone or participate in the development of one? If enforceable, Android might never have happened. Would that make it okay?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- sgift 10y ago
  Hard to know. If a court decision forces them to allow other browser (engines) on iOS and people start moving away from Safari Apple may decide that it is in their best interest to make Safari the best web experience if they want to (re)attract those customers. See Microsoft and Edge.
  - fen4o 10y ago
    Exactly. Competition drives innovation and progress.
    - scarface74 10y ago
      And there is plenty of competition for the iPhone.
  - simonh 10y ago
    Right, but I know Apple has argued at W3C against certain web standards and for others on the basis of security in a mobile context, power efficiency and functional alignment with touch UI behaviours. We don't know why Apple has chosen to implement some features (so far) and not others. Do you really want French courts deciding those kinds of technical decisions or taking those decisions away from mobile platform vendors?
    - DougWebb 10y ago
      Sure, that's the point of the standards process. Apple made their argument as a full member of the W3C and other standards committees. If they weren't convincing enough and the committee choose to go another way with the standard, then it's Apple's responsibility to accept that decision. After all, if the decision had gone their way, they'd expect the other vendors to adhere to it.
      - saryant 10y ago
        A standards body is not a suicide pact. If the standard in insecure, Apple should absolutely refuse to implement it.
simonh 10y ago
I'd like to launch a law suit against Nexedi because ERP5 is based on Zope instead of Django and I'd like to run a version on Django becaus Zope doesn't have the features I need but Django does. As a result they are unreasonably denying me access to those features. Does anybody know how I can start the litigation process in France?
- marianoguerra 10y ago
  nobody stops you from using another ERP, they can't use another browser. They don't own the platform where the ERP runs, apple does.
  - simonh 10y ago
    Nobody is making them support the iPhone.
    - wslh 10y ago
      iPhone and Android ARE the market, not only OSes.
      - lucozade 10y ago
        From the press release, I'm not sure anyone is stopping them from developing on iOS. What they don't like is that they have to write some different code on iOS and that costs them money. IANAL but I'd be a bit surprised if "write once, run anywhere" is enshrined in French law.
    - scarface74 10y ago
      Back in the day, PageMaker ran only on Macs because only Macs had the underlying technology to support it. People bought Macs to run PageMaker. It was the "killer app". If Nexedi's product was that good, they could convince people to buy Android devices. Can a game maker sue Sony because it is extra work to port a game from XBox? Can they force Sony to support Kinect?
heisenbit 10y ago
This will be interesting to watch. Apple has become a dominant player in the mobile industry and being in that role it restricts what they can do now (and could earlier get away with). Bundling related rulings had huge impact in the past on e.g. IBM and Microsoft.
- bluesign 10y ago
  Apple is not that much dominant like Microsoft or IBM in the past.
  - sturgill 10y ago
    In the mobile space? They own the mobile space. Which is why everything is labeled an "iPhone killer." No one labels a new product as an "Android killer." This is still their market to lose.
    - kbart 10y ago
      Sport cars are often compared to Ferrari, but we don't say that Ferrari "owns a car space". iOS falls behind Android in pretty much every market share statistics I've seen.
    - vertex-four 10y ago
      They have some of the high end, competing heavily with Samsung's Galaxy S line and the occasional high end phone from other manufacturers. There's a lot of space in even the high-end market that's not owned by Apple, never mind all the lower markets. Just because tech magazines really like them doesn't mean they actually have most of the market. If you really want to go look for something to pick on... go look at how US telecoms companies fuck over the market by directly selling phones tied to contracts, making it incredibly difficult for a manufacturer to sell a phone if the telecoms companies don't want to put their weight behind it.
    - madeofpalk 10y ago
      No. They own just "their portion" of the mobile space. There are more Android phones in the market than iOS. It's very hard to say that iOS is abusing their position of 'power' and negatively influencing the browser market like Microsoft was back when.
bluesign 10y ago
It is long shot, in my opinion PR stunt. Cited law 'déséquilibre significatif entre les droits et obligations des parties' means 'significant imbalance between the rights and obligations of the parties' I dont even think it is related (it is not even translated in the post)
- Drakim 10y ago
  Definitely a PR stunt, but even so, being sued because you are so behind on standards that it's hurting other businesses certainly puts the spotlight on you.
  - stephenr 10y ago
    "So behind on standards". Remind me which browser engine has 100% es6 support? Now remind me which half-baked web api exposes local network information to the JavaScript environment. Oh right. It's HN so apple is the work of the devil and Google is basically Jesus returned.
    - roblabla 10y ago
      The problem isn't so much about how apple is so behind on standards. The problem is that they make it impossible for alternative browsers providing more up-to-date standards to exist on their platform, effectively locking away that userbase.
    - zajd 10y ago
      It's more that Apple is being very selective about which features to not include. Full screen support? Why would you not have that implemented yet in iOS? Notifications... all of these things lead to the conclusion that this isn't about security, it's about protecting the platform.
    - pritambaral 10y ago
      > which browser engine has 100% es6 support? They were talking about HTML5 standards, not JavaScript standards. Standards like fullscreen support and notifications. > It's HN so apple is the work of the devil and Google is basically Jesus returned No one here has made such hyperbole except you.
alex95 10y ago
How childish
st3fan 10y ago
Allowing alternative browsers on iOS would be great. But the real change will happen when there is a way for users to change the default. I hope that is part of their "request". With just that smaller change people could start using any of the existing alternatives available right now.
jdright 10y ago
Very Nice, hope this will get anywhere. Apple got too far with its restrictions, but I also hope that this doesnt go sideways directly into flash issues. :)
themihai 10y ago
Some(Apple) may say that the web/browser ecosystem is mess and it's not worth the investment though. However the restrictions on 3rd party browsers is weird. The application is sandboxed (thus no additional security threats compared to other apps) so I think the argument is political not technical.
- madeofpalk 10y ago
  Third party code execution environments seems like a bit of a slippery slope that I can understand Apple wanting to avoid.
  - iancarroll 10y ago
    Pythonista presumably runs Python on the device and is allowed on the App Store.
    - madeofpalk 10y ago
      Which is surprising tbh given Apple's rules and actions.
    - knocte 10y ago
      I guess the restriction is about downloading and executing software, not executing alone?
  - pier25 10y ago
    You can run C++ code in iOS, except if that code is functioning as a browser rendering DOM and running JS
- yoz-y 10y ago
  The application is sandboxed but Apple does not really want to let third parties to put native compilers on their platform. I wonder if they could allow third party rendering engines but still force people to use Nitro (or how is their javascript engine called nowadays).
pflats 10y ago
A few years ago, France passed a Law to protect small companies such as Nexedi against large companies that try to impose unbalanced contracts. [...] Not allowing the publication in Apple's AppStore of web browsers that are not based on Apple's own Webkit raises in our opinion the same issues as if Carrefour (a company similar to Walmart) was not selling any beans but those based on Carrefour's seeds. This may be legal in other countries but in France, it is most likely not. This is incredibly weird to me. In France, you can sue to force a major company to sell your product if you don't like their terms? Is this just speculation, or is there actual case law? How is this even tenable? And it only applies to contracts the aggrieved smaller party views as unbalanced. So you can sue if you don't like the contract offered, but you can't sue if you would accept the terms of their contract but MegaCorp just chooses not to do business with you? If that's actually the case, I wouldn't be surprised if Carrefour changes their policy from "we only sell Carrefour beans and beans grown from Carrefour seeds" to "we only sell Carrefour beans".
- fermigier 10y ago
  Some legal comments on the law (in French): http://www.efl.fr/actualites/affaires/contrats-regles-communes/details.html?ref=ui-c2d9a280-5e3b-44e8-8e52-d37d160408f1 http://www.efl.fr/actualites/affaires/contrats-regles-commun... Basically, if there was a clause in the Apple Store contract that said "to publish your software on our platform, you must give us three fingers of your right hand and your first born son", a judge could declare it void.
- lucaspiller 10y ago
  I feel that it's fair (at least the bean argument): Say I ran a couple of farms which grew beans and employed 250 people to work on my farms. What would happen if my main customer Carrefour, one of the biggest supermarkets in France, decided to stop selling my beans and sold only theirs (grown and packed in a foreign country)? I could try and sell to local shops, but it's unlikely they would buy the same volume as Carrefour. Or I could try and sell to another big supermarket, but they probably already have enough beans from other suppliers. I'd probably have to let go of a lot of people, or even shut down the business, which would mean a lot of people would be out of work, and most likely relying on the welfare system to support them. So in return for a megacorp boosting their profits slightly, the country has to pay a lot in return to support unemployed people. (How it applies in this case to Apple I'm not really sure though :P)
madeofpalk 10y ago
It's really hard to believe that Apple is holding back the 'mobile web' when it's shown time and time again that they have the best performing web platform in the market. It was true when iPhone was introduced in 2008, it was true in 2015[0] and it is still true now[1]. "In a nutshell, the fastest known Android device available today -- and there are millions of Android devices much slower than that out there -- performs 5× slower than a new iPhone 6s, and a little worse than a 2012 era iPhone 5 in Ember. How depressing." [0]: https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-state-of-javascript-on-android-in-2015-is-poor/33889 https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-state-of-javascript-on-andr... [1]: https://twitter.com/CraftyDeano/status/779461778677895169 https://twitter.com/CraftyDeano/status/779461778677895169
- NicoJuicy 10y ago
  Perhaps they should do more about HTML 5 features ( which is holding back the mobile web) instead of js execution. This just means they can do it, but they won't due to own personal gains
  - aeharding 10y ago
    Or at least allow other browsers to compete on the platform.
    - olavgg 10y ago
      This!!!! I cannot believe that Apple is allowed (even by EU) to only allow their own browser on App Store. Having a choice is always good. If it was Microsoft, the story would have been completely different today.
      - dangoor 10y ago
        Microsoft had 90% percent marketshare in the '90s. Apple is not in that position.
      - madeofpalk 10y ago
        Microsoft's problem was that they had a monopoly of the market and were distorting it. Apple has nowhere near close to a monopoly on the smartphone market, and there still is plenty of innovation in the 'mobile web' happening.
NicoJuicy 10y ago
Looks like a pr stunt. But, here is another point of view (perhaps it can help, i'd love to see html 5 support improve on iOS). Internet Access is a "human right" and according to the United Nations ( https://www.article19.org/data/files/Internet_Statement_Adopted.pdf https://www.article19.org/data/files/Internet_Statement_Adop... ) , they condemn countries that intentionally take away or disrupt its citizens’ internet access. Perhaps by not allowing "basic internet access" ( html 5 is part of the web), Apple is a distrupter of a basic human right. The platform, where we could least of all platforms, use our basic human right to browse the web is iOS. So Apple is, in it's own way, a company that blocks a basic human right. And the block it because of own financial gain ( using the app store instead of the browser earns them money)
- kbart 10y ago
  I really doubt you could pass HTML5 compatibility as a "basic internet access".
  - NicoJuicy 10y ago
    HTML 5 IS part of the web, so why shouldn't it? By not having several html 5 functions, you actually disallow access/usage to certain websites.
    - madeofpalk 10y ago
      Lets be honest here, are you saying that a web-based real-time-communications API is a basic human right? > Apple has no reason to "not" include it, except financial gain. The reason they have not to include it is that they have different priorities than browser vendors who want to jam mobile browsers full of every unripe API under the sun (like those that dangerously leak user's real connection info even when behind a VPN).
      - NicoJuicy 10y ago
        I'm saying that yes, webrtc is part of the HTML 5 web and so should be a basic human right. I'm not saying that it is though.
aljones 10y ago
Does the HTML5 standard specify which video formats browsers should support now? Is webrtc part of the html5 spec now? Seems misleading for them to say they just want the HTML5 standard when what they are asking for isn't in the standard.
puppetmaster3 10y ago
Ah... Apple wants you in the app store they create. Chrome is forced to use Safari under in IOS. Google want's browser to get the ads revenue. Suffers the web developer and end user.
kyriakos 10y ago
Many of the HTML5 technologies Apple is steering clear from make the Web more App like meaning they become a threat to their dominance with the App Store on their own platform. The longer they take to adopt them the longer they can benefit from the exclusiveness and control over iOS app ecosystem. I don't think sueing them will get them anywhere but it might be a push to get them understand that users are aware of the shortcomings.
- namaemuta 10y ago
  It's the Chrome version of the apple store also restricted in its html5 features?
  - gcp 10y ago
    If you mean the Android store, then no. You can for example find the "real" Firefox on the Google Play store. (The one on the Apple store is a Safari skin which has the problems the article points out)
    - namaemuta 10y ago
      Sorry, I didn't express myself correctly. I meant this chrome app[1] in the apple store. I was wondering if people with iPhones can at least install a different browser to take advantage of those features. But if you say that it's just a skin they are pretty much trapped there. [1] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-chrome-fast-secure/id535886823?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-chrome-fast-secure/id...
      - fenomas 10y ago
        The fact that Apple doesn't allow competing browsers on iOS is what the entire article is about. It's why the article's authors are suing Apple.
  - thomasahle 10y ago
    Afaik All 'browsers' in the app store have to be just a skin on top of Safari. Apple has rules against independent rendering code.
mikegerwitz 10y ago
I'm far from one to defend Apple on most things, but is Apple doing anything intentionally malicious here? In the United States, forcing someone to write code is compelled speech, which is a violation of the First Amendment. I'm not aware of laws in France, but in any case, this seems like a completely wrong approach to solving this problem. The real problem here is Apple's proprietary platform.
- fpgeek 10y ago
  I agree that Apple's management of their platform is the underlying problem, but there's no compelled speech here. Writing code to provide better HTML5 support is only one of the ways Apple could satisfy this complaint. Lifting the developer agreement / Apple App Store restrictions that prevent third-party developers from writing browsers with better HTML5 support is another.
  - mikegerwitz 10y ago
    Ah, I see, thank you for the clarification. That would indeed be beneficial.
- vanwalj 10y ago
  I think they just ask for Apple to let developers publish custom web browsers (not based on Apple WebKit) on the App Store, which is currently not allowed by Apple.
thealistra 10y ago
The point is that feature compatibility is not everything. Apple may say that they develop webkit in a more power saving/secure/better manner than other browsers and this is the reason they lag on html5 features.
- gtirloni 10y ago
  If a user wants to use a different browser because of $reasons and is happy with it draining the battery, the user should be allowed to. There is no technical reason for not allowing other browsers to work on iOS, it's purely a ToS/market/profits issue.
  - redial 10y ago
    I'm not 100% sure, but I think most of the jailbrake exploits use some form of safari or webkit bug to modify the system. Apple is very aware that the browser is the most targeted point in the OS. By the nature of modern JS interpreters they would need some kind of low (or lower) level access to the CPU to be competitive and that will open a new vector, maybe multiple, for attack that Apple would not be able to control. I think their decision is about a lot of things including the App Store, but security is certainly one.
keyle 10y ago
Remember when Apple was bashing Adobe for Flash and how they were about standards? (I'm going to get downvoted for this) Anyways you were a fool for believing it.
- koonsolo 10y ago
  Yes, exactly my thoughts as well. Good thing you said it first :).
- madeofpalk 10y ago
  Blackberry CEO back in 2010[0]: For those of us who live outside of Apple’s distortion field, we know that 7-inch tablets will actually be a big portion of the market and we know that Adobe Flash support actually matters to customers who want a real web experience. We also know that while Apple’s attempt to control the ecosystem and maintain a closed platform may be good for Apple, developers want more options and customers want to fully access the overwhelming majority of web sites that use Flash. Adobe, 12 months ago[1]: Adobe said that it will now "encourage content creators to build with ne web standards," such as HTML5, rather than Flash. [0]: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2016/09/30/balsillie-2010 http://daringfireball.net/linked/2016/09/30/balsillie-2010 [1]: https://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2015/11/flash-html5-and-open-web-standards.html?scid=social_20151201_55826586&adbid=671559505906282496&adbpl=tw&adbpr=63786611 https://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2015/11/flash-html5-an...
  - pier25 10y ago
    You are missing the point. Of course Flash was/is terrible, and not only for mobile phones. But what keyle is pointing out is the irony of Apple arguing against Flash for being a proprietary and non standard technology, praising HTML5, and now relegating HTML5 as a second class technology in iOS.
- publicfig 10y ago
  Apple bashing Adobe was for much more than standards, but for keeping aspects out of their mobile browser that they felt caused either security or performance issues. I feel that their stance on this is honestly fairly consistant with that.
coldtea 10y ago
>Why we are suing Apple for better HTML5 support in iOS Because you don't know how the law works?
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
ahmetkun 10y ago
someone should also sue Apple (and Google?) for worse performance in the webview. something that run smoothly on native Safari was laggy in webview. haven't checked in a while though, not sure if this is still the case.
- barumrho 10y ago
  WKWebView is supposed to fix this issue. https://developer.apple.com/reference/webkit/wkwebview https://developer.apple.com/reference/webkit/wkwebview
  - pier25 10y ago
    WKWebView is a mess. There are bugs that have been there since it was released years ago and are still unassigned. https://bugs.webkit.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=wkwebview&list_id=2174173 https://bugs.webkit.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=wkwebview&li...
samuellh21 10y ago
There is a reason why Safari is called "the new Internet Explorer"
samuellh21 10y ago
Good luck guys!! Apple is the only company now who slows down the innovation in web.
sarreph 10y ago
When I see someone suing a company for not innovating fast enough and opening with sexist terminology[0] I just close the tab and move on. [0] - "Anyone running html5test (http://html5test.com/ http://html5test.com/) on his iPhone"
- lasfter 10y ago
  I think it may have more to do with the article being written by a native French speaker than sexism. One of my friends routinely says things like "a woman has rights to his body" when speaking in English because in French possessives agree with the object not the subject, and the French word for body, "corps", is masculine. In this case, since iPhone starts with a vowel, in French you'd say "son iPhone", so "his iPhone", perhaps. Alternatively, in French you also always tend to the masculine form in the general case, so maybe that's it? It just strikes me as extremely unlikely that anyone would think, consciously or otherwise, that women don't have iPhones.
  - sarreph 10y ago
    Yes, of course! Thank you for pointing this out. I guess I'm the ignorant one for not doing my research on the author/company before making such a loaded statement. On your point about it being "extremely unlikely that anyone would think, consciously or otherwise, that women don't have iPhones", I was more referring to the older (20th century) authoring style where masculine references were used as a default rather than generalising such as "their iPhone".
- ionciobanu 10y ago
  omg, get a life
- sigzero 10y ago
  I just did. 391/555. I ran it against FF 45 and got 429/555. Are we suing Mozilla now for not supporting the standard like we want them to? Obviously not.
  - mayank10j 10y ago
jbmorgado 10y ago
This actually could be something to hold up in court at least in EU. It's not really different from when Microsoft was doing something similar with their browser, using their market position to force people using IE. Apple could be forced to open their rendering engine and allow real fully fledged browsers to be used in iOS, because at this point, just fixing the compatibility to HTML standards on iOS may not be enough anymore.
- madeofpalk 10y ago
  Actually, very different from Microsoft. Apple has plenty of competition and the mobile web has not stalled.
- Millennium 10y ago
  Apple's rendering engine is already open. That isn't what the lawsuit is about. It's about opening the operating environment to other browsers (or rather, other rendering engines).
dogmata 10y ago
Seriously..... as an industry we've been back porting code and implementing browser specific hacks since day 1. Since Netscape Navigator, since every version of IE. Is it a pain? yes but ultimately it's the world we live in and i for one am glad. If every browser just focused on 'the specs' where would the innovation come from. In fact i'd strongly argue that Apple / iOS is the reason we have such a standard web based eco system at the moment. I mean who remembers the dark days of Java Applets, ActiveX components and browser specific plugins? Apples firm stance on the lack of plugin support was a major factor in their demise and the birth of the amazing rich JS & HTML5 world that many here seem to take for granted. In short it strikes me as the wines of a spoilt child complaining about their parents forgetting that they are the one's who taught them how to tie their shoes.
gok 10y ago
Well this should be easy. Their metric (html5test.com) gives points for things utterly unrelated to HTML or web standards like WebP support. Apple just needs to convince them to start giving out points for wide color gamuts and proper tail calls in JavaScript. Hell, those two even are standards, which makes them nearly as relevant to what most web developers care about as Google's fiat.
barumrho 10y ago
Looking through the list of features that iOS Safari doesn't support, I am happy that Apple doesn't blindly implement these features. I think a lot of these present tricky user experience issues (fullscreen support, notifications, background, file system api) and can be abused by websites. (I am also noticing a lot of these are still proposals and experimental features.)
chvid 10y ago
I honestly think that the latest iOS safari has really good html5 support and very fast JavaScript. Including support for things such as web workers.
sigzero 10y ago
I am sorry, I get what their intent is but suing? Really? I hope that it gets nowhere. We cannot start a precedent of "Company won't implement this technology so sue them.".
natch 10y ago
To Nexedi, if you're reading this discussion: As you know Apple these days has devices and platforms to which users entrust a tremendous amount of very personal and often private data. Therefore, Apple is relatively careful about security issues, and slow to introduce features that may open holes that expose users' private data. Your entire blog post does not even once mention the word security. It seems this concept does not even enter your thinking at all as an explanation for why Apple must be very conservative about adding the types of functionalities you list. When weighing the tradeoffs between the benefits you mention versus protection of user security and privacy, I'm pretty sure Apple has the right to make the choice it is making, and you'll find your argument is a difficult one to make.
- WhitneyLand 10y ago
  Isn't bringing up security a red herring in this case? Desktop operating systems are arguably less secure than iOS, yet Google and Mozilla have already finished it and Microsoft is close to finishing it. Yet Apple can't even confirm they'll eventually try it? How is that a security limitation?
- briandear 10y ago
  Except French law doesn't care about reality when it comes to these kinds of disputes. This is a country that makes it nearly impossible to fire employees despite a company needing to downsize due to reduced revenues or other legitimate business situations. Also France doesn't have much to lose by siding against Apple -- it isn't as if they have a large employee base here and thus a limited number of people available to start fires and throw rocks if the ruling goes against Apple. (See what would happen if the French government had sided with Uber for example.) Also look at how France denied the sale of Dailymotion to a US company and are waging a constant battle against AirBnB and Uber -- even going so far as to fund a series of taxi apps using taxpayer money. Am I being unfair in this case? Maybe, however, I do own a (very) small business in France and it is fair to say that France is hostile towards business -- and for a company like Apple, the French courts would rule against them just out of spite. A small, insignificant French startup going against 'American' Apple -- it's no contest. Apple has a good chance of losing this fight. If this startup we're going against Peugeot however, the startup would get crushed because the Peugeot constituency is much more politically 'dangerous.' I admit I am highly cynical but the reality is that there is no upside to a French court siding with Apple in terms of politics. However I have to ask: what's the desired remedy of this company? Do they actually think a French court is going to rule that Apple must develop technology to support the claims of this company or are they seeking to get paid? Is there actually an injury here? My phone doesn't make pizza, so could I sue to force Apple to adopt pizza making technology assuming such technology existed on Android? The argument that Android can do it is interesting, given Android's market share, a monopoly argument would be difficult to make against Apple. This company seems mad because their target market uses iPhone -- that sounds like a business problem rather than something that's Apple's fault. If their product were so vital and compelling, customers would switch if they were so inclined -- much how people switched from the ubiquitous Blackberry -- even 'top' executives. Additionally, more to the parent comment's point -- are consumers being harmed by not being able to use this company's products? Probably not. If fact, it could be argued that consumers are being protected from potentially unsafe situations. So what is the greater good here? Also what's stopping them from writing an app to do what they want? HTML 5 is a particular technology, however everything they want to do could be done in Swift. Should we sue Android for not allowing us to use Swift and iOS APIs when building apps? I do agree that I wish WebRTC could run on iOS Safari (or any Safari for that matter,) because my startup deals with video conferencing, however this certainly isn't the way to 'force' them.
WhitneyLand 10y ago
Succeding would require tons of money, political expediency, and novel strategy from legal experts in French civil law, EU law, tech, and business. So far the arguments seem weak. Apple scores a little lower on one test? Some sites can't work offline due lack of service workers? This is a useful but niche use case so it would seem hard to rally massive public support for. Apple would argue users are not being hurt anyway because you could trivially do what you want by wrapping your site in Cordova. Is a primary motivation here to avoid app revenue sharing for your product? If so I understand but that becomes a whole separate legal mountain to climb.
redial 10y ago
In a civil case, this has no merit. What they should do is "sue" them using a W3C "court", and if there is no such thing (as I'm pretty sure there is none) it should be created. If members of W3C don't adhere by the standards set after a lengthy and tiresome process of review, they should be "liable" to the standards body. This of course is not going to happen because members are the ones funding W3C, and they would just take their money elsewhere and the W3C would be sad.
- stephenr 10y ago
  > If members of W3C don't adhere by the standards set after a lengthy and tiresome process of review Which standard would that be? Web workers and Webrtc are not standardised. Html5 makes no specification about video codecs. So, what standards exactly are not being adhered to?
jbob2000 10y ago
My company builds software applications for hospitals and healthcare providers. Across the board, we have stopped recommending Apple devices for solutions. Some of our applications use the headphone jack to communicate with our apps (we take readings from an Ultrasound, for example). Without a headphone jack, this solution is dead in the water. The unknowns around how this will work on future iOS devices is too risky for us to invest in. The app review process is brutal for project management. Our clients run studies and trials on our software and we need to be able to say to them "yes, your app will be on the store on this day". And if we need to make an update, I need to be able to say that the update will be available at a specific date. Submitting apps and patches into the Apple wormhole and praying it doesn't take two weeks to come out the other side is a huge risk for us. We just sent 60 android phones to Africa for an HIV study. If these were iPhones, it would have cost close to $50,000 for the devices alone. But we picked up 60 Samsung Galaxy Cores for $100 a pop and they work perfectly (they stopped making Cores around the same time the iPhone 5 came out). Android devices seem to age much more gracefully than iOS devices. I feel much more confident advising a hospital to purchase 100 Android devices than I do iPads.

208 points by zoobab 10y ago

tambourine_man 10y ago

Probably not the best way to renew their interest in web standards

gcp 10y ago
I think the point is that they don't have to care, as long as they allow other browser engines than Apple's specific Webkit.
- FussyZeus 10y ago
  Why do they need to do that? Their platform, their rules. You don't want to play by Apple's rules then leave Apple's sandbox. This is absurd. You have no rights and no freedoms while using a vendor's software. They knew the restrictions going in. This is going to die quickly in the courts.
  - manquer 10y ago
    This is in french court not US .European courts in general do not see it that way, Microsoft could not get away the same way with IE and Windows in european courts
  - sturgill 10y ago
    Do you feel the same way about Microsoft bundling Internet Explorer and trying to crush all competition in the browser market? Or do you only feel this way because it's Apple's sandbox? At least with Microsoft you _could_ install Netscape. What's your choice here? Buy an Android? I don't know you; this is a legitimate question. I don't actually know that I have an opinion on the underlying issue (I'm quite libertarian but also hate Safari). That said, I don't see how this is different from other bundling case law. But IANAL.
    - Angostura 10y ago
      Microsoft had a functional monopoly on the desktop at the time of the IE wars. Android phones are currently outshipping iOS about 4 to 1 http://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartphone-os-market-share.jsp http://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartphone-os-market-share.jsp
    - FussyZeus 10y ago
      > Do you feel the same way about Microsoft bundling Internet Explorer and trying to crush all competition in the browser market? Not a comparison. Windows was effectively a monopoly at the time where iOS is a strong but far from dominating force in mobile. However if you want to make this comparison, honestly? Yes. I think the suit against Microsoft was justified simply because of how blatantly obvious their practices were designed to squeeze out other browser makers after the fact. However it's a different situation here: Safari has always been the defacto browser for iOS since the first publicly available version. There is no significant competition for Safari because there's no way to change iOS to utilize it in the same ways, and the Apple TOS for developers specifically states you cannot create apps that directly reproduce functionality of Apple's built-in applications. Ergo, they are not decreasing the competition or being anti-market because there was no competition in the first place, and they made no secret of that.
      - sturgill 10y ago
        Hard to argue they are not decreasing competition and not being anti-competitive when the TOS you quote specifically disallows competition. They literally prevent people from creating apps that compete with their own system apps. Again, at least you had the option of installing Netscape on Microsoft. And I'm writing this from my iPhone. I don't love or hate Apple. But I don't think what they're doing is different than Microsoft.
      - amluto 10y ago
        This is a strange claim you're making. Squeezing out competition is bad, but banning competition in the first place is okay? Would it have been okay if Microsoft had charged a 30% tax on all sales of anything (software and content) consumable on the Windows platform on day one? Or what if the very first iPhone had a provision that for the rest of your life you were not permitted to buy a competing smartphone or participate in the development of one? If enforceable, Android might never have happened. Would that make it okay?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
sgift 10y ago
Hard to know. If a court decision forces them to allow other browser (engines) on iOS and people start moving away from Safari Apple may decide that it is in their best interest to make Safari the best web experience if they want to (re)attract those customers. See Microsoft and Edge.
- fen4o 10y ago
  Exactly. Competition drives innovation and progress.
  - scarface74 10y ago
    And there is plenty of competition for the iPhone.
- simonh 10y ago
  Right, but I know Apple has argued at W3C against certain web standards and for others on the basis of security in a mobile context, power efficiency and functional alignment with touch UI behaviours. We don't know why Apple has chosen to implement some features (so far) and not others. Do you really want French courts deciding those kinds of technical decisions or taking those decisions away from mobile platform vendors?
  - DougWebb 10y ago
    Sure, that's the point of the standards process. Apple made their argument as a full member of the W3C and other standards committees. If they weren't convincing enough and the committee choose to go another way with the standard, then it's Apple's responsibility to accept that decision. After all, if the decision had gone their way, they'd expect the other vendors to adhere to it.
    - saryant 10y ago
      A standards body is not a suicide pact. If the standard in insecure, Apple should absolutely refuse to implement it.

simonh 10y ago

I'd like to launch a law suit against Nexedi because ERP5 is based on Zope instead of Django and I'd like to run a version on Django becaus Zope doesn't have the features I need but Django does. As a result they are unreasonably denying me access to those features. Does anybody know how I can start the litigation process in France?

marianoguerra 10y ago
nobody stops you from using another ERP, they can't use another browser. They don't own the platform where the ERP runs, apple does.
- simonh 10y ago
  Nobody is making them support the iPhone.
  - wslh 10y ago
    iPhone and Android ARE the market, not only OSes.
    - lucozade 10y ago
      From the press release, I'm not sure anyone is stopping them from developing on iOS. What they don't like is that they have to write some different code on iOS and that costs them money. IANAL but I'd be a bit surprised if "write once, run anywhere" is enshrined in French law.
  - scarface74 10y ago
    Back in the day, PageMaker ran only on Macs because only Macs had the underlying technology to support it. People bought Macs to run PageMaker. It was the "killer app". If Nexedi's product was that good, they could convince people to buy Android devices. Can a game maker sue Sony because it is extra work to port a game from XBox? Can they force Sony to support Kinect?

heisenbit 10y ago

This will be interesting to watch. Apple has become a dominant player in the mobile industry and being in that role it restricts what they can do now (and could earlier get away with). Bundling related rulings had huge impact in the past on e.g. IBM and Microsoft.

bluesign 10y ago
Apple is not that much dominant like Microsoft or IBM in the past.
- sturgill 10y ago
  In the mobile space? They own the mobile space. Which is why everything is labeled an "iPhone killer." No one labels a new product as an "Android killer." This is still their market to lose.
  - kbart 10y ago
    Sport cars are often compared to Ferrari, but we don't say that Ferrari "owns a car space". iOS falls behind Android in pretty much every market share statistics I've seen.
  - vertex-four 10y ago
    They have some of the high end, competing heavily with Samsung's Galaxy S line and the occasional high end phone from other manufacturers. There's a lot of space in even the high-end market that's not owned by Apple, never mind all the lower markets. Just because tech magazines really like them doesn't mean they actually have most of the market. If you really want to go look for something to pick on... go look at how US telecoms companies fuck over the market by directly selling phones tied to contracts, making it incredibly difficult for a manufacturer to sell a phone if the telecoms companies don't want to put their weight behind it.
  - madeofpalk 10y ago
    No. They own just "their portion" of the mobile space. There are more Android phones in the market than iOS. It's very hard to say that iOS is abusing their position of 'power' and negatively influencing the browser market like Microsoft was back when.

bluesign 10y ago

It is long shot, in my opinion PR stunt. Cited law 'déséquilibre significatif entre les droits et obligations des parties' means 'significant imbalance between the rights and obligations of the parties' I dont even think it is related (it is not even translated in the post)

Drakim 10y ago
Definitely a PR stunt, but even so, being sued because you are so behind on standards that it's hurting other businesses certainly puts the spotlight on you.
- stephenr 10y ago
  "So behind on standards". Remind me which browser engine has 100% es6 support? Now remind me which half-baked web api exposes local network information to the JavaScript environment. Oh right. It's HN so apple is the work of the devil and Google is basically Jesus returned.
  - roblabla 10y ago
    The problem isn't so much about how apple is so behind on standards. The problem is that they make it impossible for alternative browsers providing more up-to-date standards to exist on their platform, effectively locking away that userbase.
  - zajd 10y ago
    It's more that Apple is being very selective about which features to not include. Full screen support? Why would you not have that implemented yet in iOS? Notifications... all of these things lead to the conclusion that this isn't about security, it's about protecting the platform.
  - pritambaral 10y ago
    > which browser engine has 100% es6 support? They were talking about HTML5 standards, not JavaScript standards. Standards like fullscreen support and notifications. > It's HN so apple is the work of the devil and Google is basically Jesus returned No one here has made such hyperbole except you.

alex95 10y ago

How childish

st3fan 10y ago

Allowing alternative browsers on iOS would be great. But the real change will happen when there is a way for users to change the default. I hope that is part of their "request". With just that smaller change people could start using any of the existing alternatives available right now.

jdright 10y ago

Very Nice, hope this will get anywhere. Apple got too far with its restrictions, but I also hope that this doesnt go sideways directly into flash issues. :)

themihai 10y ago

Some(Apple) may say that the web/browser ecosystem is mess and it's not worth the investment though. However the restrictions on 3rd party browsers is weird. The application is sandboxed (thus no additional security threats compared to other apps) so I think the argument is political not technical.

madeofpalk 10y ago
Third party code execution environments seems like a bit of a slippery slope that I can understand Apple wanting to avoid.
- iancarroll 10y ago
  Pythonista presumably runs Python on the device and is allowed on the App Store.
  - madeofpalk 10y ago
    Which is surprising tbh given Apple's rules and actions.
  - knocte 10y ago
    I guess the restriction is about downloading and executing software, not executing alone?
- pier25 10y ago
  You can run C++ code in iOS, except if that code is functioning as a browser rendering DOM and running JS
yoz-y 10y ago
The application is sandboxed but Apple does not really want to let third parties to put native compilers on their platform. I wonder if they could allow third party rendering engines but still force people to use Nitro (or how is their javascript engine called nowadays).

pflats 10y ago

A few years ago, France passed a Law to protect small companies such as Nexedi against large companies that try to impose unbalanced contracts. [...] Not allowing the publication in Apple's AppStore of web browsers that are not based on Apple's own Webkit raises in our opinion the same issues as if Carrefour (a company similar to Walmart) was not selling any beans but those based on Carrefour's seeds. This may be legal in other countries but in France, it is most likely not. This is incredibly weird to me. In France, you can sue to force a major company to sell your product if you don't like their terms? Is this just speculation, or is there actual case law? How is this even tenable? And it only applies to contracts the aggrieved smaller party views as unbalanced. So you can sue if you don't like the contract offered, but you can't sue if you would accept the terms of their contract but MegaCorp just chooses not to do business with you? If that's actually the case, I wouldn't be surprised if Carrefour changes their policy from "we only sell Carrefour beans and beans grown from Carrefour seeds" to "we only sell Carrefour beans".

fermigier 10y ago
Some legal comments on the law (in French): http://www.efl.fr/actualites/affaires/contrats-regles-communes/details.html?ref=ui-c2d9a280-5e3b-44e8-8e52-d37d160408f1 http://www.efl.fr/actualites/affaires/contrats-regles-commun... Basically, if there was a clause in the Apple Store contract that said "to publish your software on our platform, you must give us three fingers of your right hand and your first born son", a judge could declare it void.
lucaspiller 10y ago
I feel that it's fair (at least the bean argument): Say I ran a couple of farms which grew beans and employed 250 people to work on my farms. What would happen if my main customer Carrefour, one of the biggest supermarkets in France, decided to stop selling my beans and sold only theirs (grown and packed in a foreign country)? I could try and sell to local shops, but it's unlikely they would buy the same volume as Carrefour. Or I could try and sell to another big supermarket, but they probably already have enough beans from other suppliers. I'd probably have to let go of a lot of people, or even shut down the business, which would mean a lot of people would be out of work, and most likely relying on the welfare system to support them. So in return for a megacorp boosting their profits slightly, the country has to pay a lot in return to support unemployed people. (How it applies in this case to Apple I'm not really sure though :P)

madeofpalk 10y ago

It's really hard to believe that Apple is holding back the 'mobile web' when it's shown time and time again that they have the best performing web platform in the market. It was true when iPhone was introduced in 2008, it was true in 2015[0] and it is still true now[1]. "In a nutshell, the fastest known Android device available today -- and there are millions of Android devices much slower than that out there -- performs 5× slower than a new iPhone 6s, and a little worse than a 2012 era iPhone 5 in Ember. How depressing." [0]: https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-state-of-javascript-on-android-in-2015-is-poor/33889 https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-state-of-javascript-on-andr... [1]: https://twitter.com/CraftyDeano/status/779461778677895169 https://twitter.com/CraftyDeano/status/779461778677895169

NicoJuicy 10y ago
Perhaps they should do more about HTML 5 features ( which is holding back the mobile web) instead of js execution. This just means they can do it, but they won't due to own personal gains
- aeharding 10y ago
  Or at least allow other browsers to compete on the platform.
  - olavgg 10y ago
    This!!!! I cannot believe that Apple is allowed (even by EU) to only allow their own browser on App Store. Having a choice is always good. If it was Microsoft, the story would have been completely different today.
    - dangoor 10y ago
      Microsoft had 90% percent marketshare in the '90s. Apple is not in that position.
    - madeofpalk 10y ago
      Microsoft's problem was that they had a monopoly of the market and were distorting it. Apple has nowhere near close to a monopoly on the smartphone market, and there still is plenty of innovation in the 'mobile web' happening.

NicoJuicy 10y ago

Looks like a pr stunt. But, here is another point of view (perhaps it can help, i'd love to see html 5 support improve on iOS). Internet Access is a "human right" and according to the United Nations ( https://www.article19.org/data/files/Internet_Statement_Adopted.pdf https://www.article19.org/data/files/Internet_Statement_Adop... ) , they condemn countries that intentionally take away or disrupt its citizens’ internet access. Perhaps by not allowing "basic internet access" ( html 5 is part of the web), Apple is a distrupter of a basic human right. The platform, where we could least of all platforms, use our basic human right to browse the web is iOS. So Apple is, in it's own way, a company that blocks a basic human right. And the block it because of own financial gain ( using the app store instead of the browser earns them money)

kbart 10y ago
I really doubt you could pass HTML5 compatibility as a "basic internet access".
- NicoJuicy 10y ago
  HTML 5 IS part of the web, so why shouldn't it? By not having several html 5 functions, you actually disallow access/usage to certain websites.
  - madeofpalk 10y ago
    Lets be honest here, are you saying that a web-based real-time-communications API is a basic human right? > Apple has no reason to "not" include it, except financial gain. The reason they have not to include it is that they have different priorities than browser vendors who want to jam mobile browsers full of every unripe API under the sun (like those that dangerously leak user's real connection info even when behind a VPN).
    - NicoJuicy 10y ago
      I'm saying that yes, webrtc is part of the HTML 5 web and so should be a basic human right. I'm not saying that it is though.

aljones 10y ago

Does the HTML5 standard specify which video formats browsers should support now? Is webrtc part of the html5 spec now? Seems misleading for them to say they just want the HTML5 standard when what they are asking for isn't in the standard.

puppetmaster3 10y ago

Ah... Apple wants you in the app store they create. Chrome is forced to use Safari under in IOS. Google want's browser to get the ads revenue. Suffers the web developer and end user.

kyriakos 10y ago

Many of the HTML5 technologies Apple is steering clear from make the Web more App like meaning they become a threat to their dominance with the App Store on their own platform. The longer they take to adopt them the longer they can benefit from the exclusiveness and control over iOS app ecosystem. I don't think sueing them will get them anywhere but it might be a push to get them understand that users are aware of the shortcomings.

namaemuta 10y ago
It's the Chrome version of the apple store also restricted in its html5 features?
- gcp 10y ago
  If you mean the Android store, then no. You can for example find the "real" Firefox on the Google Play store. (The one on the Apple store is a Safari skin which has the problems the article points out)
  - namaemuta 10y ago
    Sorry, I didn't express myself correctly. I meant this chrome app[1] in the apple store. I was wondering if people with iPhones can at least install a different browser to take advantage of those features. But if you say that it's just a skin they are pretty much trapped there. [1] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-chrome-fast-secure/id535886823?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-chrome-fast-secure/id...
    - fenomas 10y ago
      The fact that Apple doesn't allow competing browsers on iOS is what the entire article is about. It's why the article's authors are suing Apple.
- thomasahle 10y ago
  Afaik All 'browsers' in the app store have to be just a skin on top of Safari. Apple has rules against independent rendering code.

mikegerwitz 10y ago

I'm far from one to defend Apple on most things, but is Apple doing anything intentionally malicious here? In the United States, forcing someone to write code is compelled speech, which is a violation of the First Amendment. I'm not aware of laws in France, but in any case, this seems like a completely wrong approach to solving this problem. The real problem here is Apple's proprietary platform.

fpgeek 10y ago
I agree that Apple's management of their platform is the underlying problem, but there's no compelled speech here. Writing code to provide better HTML5 support is only one of the ways Apple could satisfy this complaint. Lifting the developer agreement / Apple App Store restrictions that prevent third-party developers from writing browsers with better HTML5 support is another.
- mikegerwitz 10y ago
  Ah, I see, thank you for the clarification. That would indeed be beneficial.
vanwalj 10y ago
I think they just ask for Apple to let developers publish custom web browsers (not based on Apple WebKit) on the App Store, which is currently not allowed by Apple.

thealistra 10y ago

The point is that feature compatibility is not everything. Apple may say that they develop webkit in a more power saving/secure/better manner than other browsers and this is the reason they lag on html5 features.

gtirloni 10y ago
If a user wants to use a different browser because of $reasons and is happy with it draining the battery, the user should be allowed to. There is no technical reason for not allowing other browsers to work on iOS, it's purely a ToS/market/profits issue.
- redial 10y ago
  I'm not 100% sure, but I think most of the jailbrake exploits use some form of safari or webkit bug to modify the system. Apple is very aware that the browser is the most targeted point in the OS. By the nature of modern JS interpreters they would need some kind of low (or lower) level access to the CPU to be competitive and that will open a new vector, maybe multiple, for attack that Apple would not be able to control. I think their decision is about a lot of things including the App Store, but security is certainly one.

keyle 10y ago

Remember when Apple was bashing Adobe for Flash and how they were about standards? (I'm going to get downvoted for this) Anyways you were a fool for believing it.

koonsolo 10y ago
Yes, exactly my thoughts as well. Good thing you said it first :).
madeofpalk 10y ago
Blackberry CEO back in 2010[0]: For those of us who live outside of Apple’s distortion field, we know that 7-inch tablets will actually be a big portion of the market and we know that Adobe Flash support actually matters to customers who want a real web experience. We also know that while Apple’s attempt to control the ecosystem and maintain a closed platform may be good for Apple, developers want more options and customers want to fully access the overwhelming majority of web sites that use Flash. Adobe, 12 months ago[1]: Adobe said that it will now "encourage content creators to build with ne web standards," such as HTML5, rather than Flash. [0]: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2016/09/30/balsillie-2010 http://daringfireball.net/linked/2016/09/30/balsillie-2010 [1]: https://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2015/11/flash-html5-and-open-web-standards.html?scid=social_20151201_55826586&adbid=671559505906282496&adbpl=tw&adbpr=63786611 https://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2015/11/flash-html5-an...
- pier25 10y ago
  You are missing the point. Of course Flash was/is terrible, and not only for mobile phones. But what keyle is pointing out is the irony of Apple arguing against Flash for being a proprietary and non standard technology, praising HTML5, and now relegating HTML5 as a second class technology in iOS.
publicfig 10y ago
Apple bashing Adobe was for much more than standards, but for keeping aspects out of their mobile browser that they felt caused either security or performance issues. I feel that their stance on this is honestly fairly consistant with that.

coldtea 10y ago

>Why we are suing Apple for better HTML5 support in iOS Because you don't know how the law works?

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

ahmetkun 10y ago

someone should also sue Apple (and Google?) for worse performance in the webview. something that run smoothly on native Safari was laggy in webview. haven't checked in a while though, not sure if this is still the case.

barumrho 10y ago
WKWebView is supposed to fix this issue. https://developer.apple.com/reference/webkit/wkwebview https://developer.apple.com/reference/webkit/wkwebview
- pier25 10y ago
  WKWebView is a mess. There are bugs that have been there since it was released years ago and are still unassigned. https://bugs.webkit.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=wkwebview&list_id=2174173 https://bugs.webkit.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=wkwebview&li...

samuellh21 10y ago

There is a reason why Safari is called "the new Internet Explorer"

samuellh21 10y ago

Good luck guys!! Apple is the only company now who slows down the innovation in web.

sarreph 10y ago

When I see someone suing a company for not innovating fast enough and opening with sexist terminology[0] I just close the tab and move on. [0] - "Anyone running html5test (http://html5test.com/ http://html5test.com/) on his iPhone"

lasfter 10y ago
I think it may have more to do with the article being written by a native French speaker than sexism. One of my friends routinely says things like "a woman has rights to his body" when speaking in English because in French possessives agree with the object not the subject, and the French word for body, "corps", is masculine. In this case, since iPhone starts with a vowel, in French you'd say "son iPhone", so "his iPhone", perhaps. Alternatively, in French you also always tend to the masculine form in the general case, so maybe that's it? It just strikes me as extremely unlikely that anyone would think, consciously or otherwise, that women don't have iPhones.
- sarreph 10y ago
  Yes, of course! Thank you for pointing this out. I guess I'm the ignorant one for not doing my research on the author/company before making such a loaded statement. On your point about it being "extremely unlikely that anyone would think, consciously or otherwise, that women don't have iPhones", I was more referring to the older (20th century) authoring style where masculine references were used as a default rather than generalising such as "their iPhone".
ionciobanu 10y ago
omg, get a life
sigzero 10y ago
I just did. 391/555. I ran it against FF 45 and got 429/555. Are we suing Mozilla now for not supporting the standard like we want them to? Obviously not.
- mayank10j 10y ago

jbmorgado 10y ago

This actually could be something to hold up in court at least in EU. It's not really different from when Microsoft was doing something similar with their browser, using their market position to force people using IE. Apple could be forced to open their rendering engine and allow real fully fledged browsers to be used in iOS, because at this point, just fixing the compatibility to HTML standards on iOS may not be enough anymore.

madeofpalk 10y ago
Actually, very different from Microsoft. Apple has plenty of competition and the mobile web has not stalled.
Millennium 10y ago
Apple's rendering engine is already open. That isn't what the lawsuit is about. It's about opening the operating environment to other browsers (or rather, other rendering engines).

dogmata 10y ago

Seriously..... as an industry we've been back porting code and implementing browser specific hacks since day 1. Since Netscape Navigator, since every version of IE. Is it a pain? yes but ultimately it's the world we live in and i for one am glad. If every browser just focused on 'the specs' where would the innovation come from. In fact i'd strongly argue that Apple / iOS is the reason we have such a standard web based eco system at the moment. I mean who remembers the dark days of Java Applets, ActiveX components and browser specific plugins? Apples firm stance on the lack of plugin support was a major factor in their demise and the birth of the amazing rich JS & HTML5 world that many here seem to take for granted. In short it strikes me as the wines of a spoilt child complaining about their parents forgetting that they are the one's who taught them how to tie their shoes.

gok 10y ago

Well this should be easy. Their metric (html5test.com) gives points for things utterly unrelated to HTML or web standards like WebP support. Apple just needs to convince them to start giving out points for wide color gamuts and proper tail calls in JavaScript. Hell, those two even are standards, which makes them nearly as relevant to what most web developers care about as Google's fiat.

barumrho 10y ago

Looking through the list of features that iOS Safari doesn't support, I am happy that Apple doesn't blindly implement these features. I think a lot of these present tricky user experience issues (fullscreen support, notifications, background, file system api) and can be abused by websites. (I am also noticing a lot of these are still proposals and experimental features.)

chvid 10y ago

I honestly think that the latest iOS safari has really good html5 support and very fast JavaScript. Including support for things such as web workers.

sigzero 10y ago

I am sorry, I get what their intent is but suing? Really? I hope that it gets nowhere. We cannot start a precedent of "Company won't implement this technology so sue them.".

natch 10y ago

To Nexedi, if you're reading this discussion: As you know Apple these days has devices and platforms to which users entrust a tremendous amount of very personal and often private data. Therefore, Apple is relatively careful about security issues, and slow to introduce features that may open holes that expose users' private data. Your entire blog post does not even once mention the word security. It seems this concept does not even enter your thinking at all as an explanation for why Apple must be very conservative about adding the types of functionalities you list. When weighing the tradeoffs between the benefits you mention versus protection of user security and privacy, I'm pretty sure Apple has the right to make the choice it is making, and you'll find your argument is a difficult one to make.

WhitneyLand 10y ago
Isn't bringing up security a red herring in this case? Desktop operating systems are arguably less secure than iOS, yet Google and Mozilla have already finished it and Microsoft is close to finishing it. Yet Apple can't even confirm they'll eventually try it? How is that a security limitation?
briandear 10y ago
Except French law doesn't care about reality when it comes to these kinds of disputes. This is a country that makes it nearly impossible to fire employees despite a company needing to downsize due to reduced revenues or other legitimate business situations. Also France doesn't have much to lose by siding against Apple -- it isn't as if they have a large employee base here and thus a limited number of people available to start fires and throw rocks if the ruling goes against Apple. (See what would happen if the French government had sided with Uber for example.) Also look at how France denied the sale of Dailymotion to a US company and are waging a constant battle against AirBnB and Uber -- even going so far as to fund a series of taxi apps using taxpayer money. Am I being unfair in this case? Maybe, however, I do own a (very) small business in France and it is fair to say that France is hostile towards business -- and for a company like Apple, the French courts would rule against them just out of spite. A small, insignificant French startup going against 'American' Apple -- it's no contest. Apple has a good chance of losing this fight. If this startup we're going against Peugeot however, the startup would get crushed because the Peugeot constituency is much more politically 'dangerous.' I admit I am highly cynical but the reality is that there is no upside to a French court siding with Apple in terms of politics. However I have to ask: what's the desired remedy of this company? Do they actually think a French court is going to rule that Apple must develop technology to support the claims of this company or are they seeking to get paid? Is there actually an injury here? My phone doesn't make pizza, so could I sue to force Apple to adopt pizza making technology assuming such technology existed on Android? The argument that Android can do it is interesting, given Android's market share, a monopoly argument would be difficult to make against Apple. This company seems mad because their target market uses iPhone -- that sounds like a business problem rather than something that's Apple's fault. If their product were so vital and compelling, customers would switch if they were so inclined -- much how people switched from the ubiquitous Blackberry -- even 'top' executives. Additionally, more to the parent comment's point -- are consumers being harmed by not being able to use this company's products? Probably not. If fact, it could be argued that consumers are being protected from potentially unsafe situations. So what is the greater good here? Also what's stopping them from writing an app to do what they want? HTML 5 is a particular technology, however everything they want to do could be done in Swift. Should we sue Android for not allowing us to use Swift and iOS APIs when building apps? I do agree that I wish WebRTC could run on iOS Safari (or any Safari for that matter,) because my startup deals with video conferencing, however this certainly isn't the way to 'force' them.

WhitneyLand 10y ago

Succeding would require tons of money, political expediency, and novel strategy from legal experts in French civil law, EU law, tech, and business. So far the arguments seem weak. Apple scores a little lower on one test? Some sites can't work offline due lack of service workers? This is a useful but niche use case so it would seem hard to rally massive public support for. Apple would argue users are not being hurt anyway because you could trivially do what you want by wrapping your site in Cordova. Is a primary motivation here to avoid app revenue sharing for your product? If so I understand but that becomes a whole separate legal mountain to climb.

redial 10y ago

In a civil case, this has no merit. What they should do is "sue" them using a W3C "court", and if there is no such thing (as I'm pretty sure there is none) it should be created. If members of W3C don't adhere by the standards set after a lengthy and tiresome process of review, they should be "liable" to the standards body. This of course is not going to happen because members are the ones funding W3C, and they would just take their money elsewhere and the W3C would be sad.

stephenr 10y ago
> If members of W3C don't adhere by the standards set after a lengthy and tiresome process of review Which standard would that be? Web workers and Webrtc are not standardised. Html5 makes no specification about video codecs. So, what standards exactly are not being adhered to?

jbob2000 10y ago

My company builds software applications for hospitals and healthcare providers. Across the board, we have stopped recommending Apple devices for solutions. Some of our applications use the headphone jack to communicate with our apps (we take readings from an Ultrasound, for example). Without a headphone jack, this solution is dead in the water. The unknowns around how this will work on future iOS devices is too risky for us to invest in. The app review process is brutal for project management. Our clients run studies and trials on our software and we need to be able to say to them "yes, your app will be on the store on this day". And if we need to make an update, I need to be able to say that the update will be available at a specific date. Submitting apps and patches into the Apple wormhole and praying it doesn't take two weeks to come out the other side is a huge risk for us. We just sent 60 android phones to Africa for an HIV study. If these were iPhones, it would have cost close to $50,000 for the devices alone. But we picked up 60 Samsung Galaxy Cores for $100 a pop and they work perfectly (they stopped making Cores around the same time the iPhone 5 came out). Android devices seem to age much more gracefully than iOS devices. I feel much more confident advising a hospital to purchase 100 Android devices than I do iPads.