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I understand that argument, but I don't buy it, because Android has 80%+ of the smartphone market. If Apple actively tried to block the adoption of features tha

I understand that argument, but I don't buy it, because Android has 80%+ of the smartphone market. If Apple actively tried to block the adoption of features that were good for users and developers it would blow up in their faces(1). How well did that work out for Microsoft with IE6? That's not to say Apple don't have influence, but do they have the kind of strong-arm leverage you seem to be implying? What would help is: can you explain to us what HTML (CSS, JS, browser API) features you're talking about? (1) I suppose some might argue they did that with Flash, and it turned out quite nicely for them. But was Flash, as closed, proprietary tech, really a good thing for the web? For users? For developers? For the web?

shmerl 10y ago
> That's not to say Apple don't have influence, but do they have the kind of strong-arm leverage you seem to be implying? Enough of an influence to force many video providers to use non-free codecs and HLS. I find such influence to be very damaging for the whole Web. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13486246 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13486246
- bartread 10y ago
  I don't know enough about it to know why they're not supporting MPEG-DASH on iOS (although, weirdly, desktop Safari does support it), beyond the obvious, "it's not Apple's HLS," answer. If it is just that - Apple don't want to support it because it's not their standard - then I'd be inclined to agree with you. Is there some technical disadvantage to MPEG-DASH vs HLS, or impact on the user, battery life, bandwidth usage, or whatever?
  - shmerl 10y ago
    I actually don't consider their intentions to make any difference here. But the damage they are causing is real, and it spans many areas way beyond iOS itself. So IMHO there should be some way to prevent it legally. But again, may be current law doesn't address such situation. Then it should be fixed. HLS is just one example. I brought it, to demonstrate how such ban on competing browsers can cause bad effects to everyone else, even to those who have nothing to do with Apple and its products.

shmerl 10y ago

> That's not to say Apple don't have influence, but do they have the kind of strong-arm leverage you seem to be implying? Enough of an influence to force many video providers to use non-free codecs and HLS. I find such influence to be very damaging for the whole Web. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13486246 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13486246

bartread 10y ago
I don't know enough about it to know why they're not supporting MPEG-DASH on iOS (although, weirdly, desktop Safari does support it), beyond the obvious, "it's not Apple's HLS," answer. If it is just that - Apple don't want to support it because it's not their standard - then I'd be inclined to agree with you. Is there some technical disadvantage to MPEG-DASH vs HLS, or impact on the user, battery life, bandwidth usage, or whatever?
- shmerl 10y ago
  I actually don't consider their intentions to make any difference here. But the damage they are causing is real, and it spans many areas way beyond iOS itself. So IMHO there should be some way to prevent it legally. But again, may be current law doesn't address such situation. Then it should be fixed. HLS is just one example. I brought it, to demonstrate how such ban on competing browsers can cause bad effects to everyone else, even to those who have nothing to do with Apple and its products.