4 ms·

Maybe we can split the difference. Chrome == IE because of breaking standards, and Safari == IE because it is so far behind on supporting standards. Also, both

Maybe we can split the difference. Chrome == IE because of breaking standards, and Safari == IE because it is so far behind on supporting standards. Also, both Chrome OS and iOS, both have integrated their browser into their OS and don't allow competition from other browsers on their platforms. Is that a fair assessment?

JohnBooty 9y ago
Yeah I think it's a totally fair assessment. And it's right to be wary of Apple. They have many of the same negative incentives as Microsoft had: if the web outshines their proprietary app platforms, then what good are those platforms? However, out of the two behaviors ("embrace and extend" versus "slow standards adoption") I think that Chrome's "embrace and extend" is the one that's actually a threat - and to me, that's what really made IE dangerous: it was a threat to the web. Safari's pace of standards adoption is merely annoying. I'm a developer too; I get it -- I want to use the cool new shit! But Safari's not going to break the web in the way that propietary browser lock-in could break it.
- RobertRoberts 9y ago
  I agree that Google's Chrome tactics can be perceived as evil, I won't discount that, because it causes issues when you are forced to use a particular browser. But if your client only runs iOS for their entire business, you can't even complain about Chrome to them. And if their browser doesn't support something as simple as offline html5 features properly, and you need this, across multiple platforms (cause they have a few laptops too). Then you can't use a browser based platform. Or if you do, you have to live with many compromises. This is how I see Apple working. If the market didn't force them to upgrade Safari, I think they never would. They'd just say "browsers are for html, and the Apple App Store is for everything else". But my client just wanted their stupid form to work offline. At least Chrome can do this, their adding of extra stuff doesn't _limit_ what is possible. And I don't think many of these features are "new and shiny", I think they are fundamental to the web now. If they were new and shiny only, then Firefox would have had it's ass handed to it by the big-boys. But instead, we see MS and Apple falling behind a simple non-profit in the web standards support area. Remember, Apple has more money in the bank than any company ever in the history of the world. It's a choice they are making not keeping up with web standards. So the question has to be asked, what benefit does Apple get from keeping web standards very low on it's locked down platform? (any answer besides forcing devs into their store?)
  - alwillis 9y ago
    Sounds a little paranoid, especially since Service Workers are on by default in the latest Safari Technology Preview: https://webkit.org/blog/8042/release-notes-for-safari-technology-preview-46/ https://webkit.org/blog/8042/release-notes-for-safari-techno.... You might want to check the WebKit status page; you might be pleasantly surprised: https://webkit.org/status/ https://webkit.org/status/. When Safari has complete support for PWAs in 2018, you guys will have to come up with a new Apple conspiracy against the web. ;-) Until just last month, Firefox was pretty damn slow compared to Safari and Chrome but they got a pass from the HN crowd. I suspect Tim Cook isn’t losing sleep about PWAs vs. native apps. It’s win-win for Apple either way.
    - RobertRoberts 9y ago
      Thanks for the link to the webkit status. When do you suppose this will end up in the Safari in iOS 10? I suspect never. Since my clients literally have thousands (maybe 10s of thousands) invested in devices that will never get any updates past iOS 10, they are forced into a hardware upgrade because Apple won't allow 3rd party browsers on their devices, and tie their browser version to their OS version. If you see another way around this, I'd really like to know.
      - alwillis 9y ago
        When do you suppose this will end up in the Safari in iOS 10? I suspect never. Since my clients literally have thousands (maybe 10s of thousands) invested in devices that will never get any updates past iOS 10, they are forced into a hardware upgrade because Apple won't allow 3rd party browsers on their devices, and tie their browser version to their OS version. I obviously don't know your situation, but the newest iPad where iOS 10.x is its last operating system is the 4th gen iPad, which was introduced October 2012 and was discontinued October 2014. It shipped with iOS 6, so it's been through 4 major upgrades. You make not like it, but that's about the general lifetime of computing devices today regarding their upgradeability. It's not like there are 5-year old Android tablets running the latest operating systems from Google either. Apple’s modus operandi has been the same for the 10 years of iOS devices: all of the new features go into the latest version; the previous version only gets security updates and they don’t back-port those features to the previous operating system. Mobile Safari 11 uses APIs and frameworks (like the machine learning for Intelligent Tracking Prevention) that only exist in iOS 11, which is why it won’t be ported to iOS 10. In most mainstream work/production environments, 3-4 years is the useful lifetime for computers and the iPad is a computer. I did this for a living at MIT; I dealt with these exact issues for 14 years. I get that it's convenient to blame Apple for not allowing 3rd-party web engines on iOS, but that's really the cover story, right? The key issue here: iOS 10 was the last version to run on 32-bit A6 processors, which is what your iPads have. iPhones and iPads with 64-bit A7s (and newer) can run iOS 11. Unfortunately, you got caught in this hardware transition. If these iPads are mission-critical for something, then there should have been some device lifecycle planning when the project started so you wouldn’t end up in a situation like the one you’re in. BTW, both Google and Firefox stopped supporting 32-bit operating systems years ago, so even if iOS allowed 3rd-party browsers, you still wouldn’t have the option of running something that had today’s latest features like Service Worker anyway…
- pjmlp 9y ago
  Same applies to Google, lets not forget that the bad experience of web apps over Android native ones, meant that now it is also possible to use Android native apps on ChromeOS and that they took the effort to implement something like Java Web Start (Instant Apps) for Android.

JohnBooty 9y ago

Yeah I think it's a totally fair assessment. And it's right to be wary of Apple. They have many of the same negative incentives as Microsoft had: if the web outshines their proprietary app platforms, then what good are those platforms? However, out of the two behaviors ("embrace and extend" versus "slow standards adoption") I think that Chrome's "embrace and extend" is the one that's actually a threat - and to me, that's what really made IE dangerous: it was a threat to the web. Safari's pace of standards adoption is merely annoying. I'm a developer too; I get it -- I want to use the cool new shit! But Safari's not going to break the web in the way that propietary browser lock-in could break it.

RobertRoberts 9y ago
I agree that Google's Chrome tactics can be perceived as evil, I won't discount that, because it causes issues when you are forced to use a particular browser. But if your client only runs iOS for their entire business, you can't even complain about Chrome to them. And if their browser doesn't support something as simple as offline html5 features properly, and you need this, across multiple platforms (cause they have a few laptops too). Then you can't use a browser based platform. Or if you do, you have to live with many compromises. This is how I see Apple working. If the market didn't force them to upgrade Safari, I think they never would. They'd just say "browsers are for html, and the Apple App Store is for everything else". But my client just wanted their stupid form to work offline. At least Chrome can do this, their adding of extra stuff doesn't _limit_ what is possible. And I don't think many of these features are "new and shiny", I think they are fundamental to the web now. If they were new and shiny only, then Firefox would have had it's ass handed to it by the big-boys. But instead, we see MS and Apple falling behind a simple non-profit in the web standards support area. Remember, Apple has more money in the bank than any company ever in the history of the world. It's a choice they are making not keeping up with web standards. So the question has to be asked, what benefit does Apple get from keeping web standards very low on it's locked down platform? (any answer besides forcing devs into their store?)
- alwillis 9y ago
  Sounds a little paranoid, especially since Service Workers are on by default in the latest Safari Technology Preview: https://webkit.org/blog/8042/release-notes-for-safari-technology-preview-46/ https://webkit.org/blog/8042/release-notes-for-safari-techno.... You might want to check the WebKit status page; you might be pleasantly surprised: https://webkit.org/status/ https://webkit.org/status/. When Safari has complete support for PWAs in 2018, you guys will have to come up with a new Apple conspiracy against the web. ;-) Until just last month, Firefox was pretty damn slow compared to Safari and Chrome but they got a pass from the HN crowd. I suspect Tim Cook isn’t losing sleep about PWAs vs. native apps. It’s win-win for Apple either way.
  - RobertRoberts 9y ago
    Thanks for the link to the webkit status. When do you suppose this will end up in the Safari in iOS 10? I suspect never. Since my clients literally have thousands (maybe 10s of thousands) invested in devices that will never get any updates past iOS 10, they are forced into a hardware upgrade because Apple won't allow 3rd party browsers on their devices, and tie their browser version to their OS version. If you see another way around this, I'd really like to know.
    - alwillis 9y ago
      When do you suppose this will end up in the Safari in iOS 10? I suspect never. Since my clients literally have thousands (maybe 10s of thousands) invested in devices that will never get any updates past iOS 10, they are forced into a hardware upgrade because Apple won't allow 3rd party browsers on their devices, and tie their browser version to their OS version. I obviously don't know your situation, but the newest iPad where iOS 10.x is its last operating system is the 4th gen iPad, which was introduced October 2012 and was discontinued October 2014. It shipped with iOS 6, so it's been through 4 major upgrades. You make not like it, but that's about the general lifetime of computing devices today regarding their upgradeability. It's not like there are 5-year old Android tablets running the latest operating systems from Google either. Apple’s modus operandi has been the same for the 10 years of iOS devices: all of the new features go into the latest version; the previous version only gets security updates and they don’t back-port those features to the previous operating system. Mobile Safari 11 uses APIs and frameworks (like the machine learning for Intelligent Tracking Prevention) that only exist in iOS 11, which is why it won’t be ported to iOS 10. In most mainstream work/production environments, 3-4 years is the useful lifetime for computers and the iPad is a computer. I did this for a living at MIT; I dealt with these exact issues for 14 years. I get that it's convenient to blame Apple for not allowing 3rd-party web engines on iOS, but that's really the cover story, right? The key issue here: iOS 10 was the last version to run on 32-bit A6 processors, which is what your iPads have. iPhones and iPads with 64-bit A7s (and newer) can run iOS 11. Unfortunately, you got caught in this hardware transition. If these iPads are mission-critical for something, then there should have been some device lifecycle planning when the project started so you wouldn’t end up in a situation like the one you’re in. BTW, both Google and Firefox stopped supporting 32-bit operating systems years ago, so even if iOS allowed 3rd-party browsers, you still wouldn’t have the option of running something that had today’s latest features like Service Worker anyway…
pjmlp 9y ago
Same applies to Google, lets not forget that the bad experience of web apps over Android native ones, meant that now it is also possible to use Android native apps on ChromeOS and that they took the effort to implement something like Java Web Start (Instant Apps) for Android.