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It would mean shipping 2 WebKit frameworks, once for Safari and one for the rest of the OS. Even then it could be fixed in Safari, but then sites still wouldn't

It would mean shipping 2 WebKit frameworks, once for Safari and one for the rest of the OS. Even then it could be fixed in Safari, but then sites still wouldn't work in Chrome, Firefox, or other apps with embedded browsers.

RobertRoberts 9y ago
You mean just like Android does with Chrome? How hard is that? Why is this even worthy of debate? The browser is an application, not a system resource. To commingle the two makes no sense. Unless you think it's worth saving a few mbs of storage to have two instances for security and stability??
- scarface74 9y ago
  How is the browser not a system resource when there are so many apps that are basically a wrapper around a webview or have one embedded? The preferred Webview on iOS for apps is an out of process Safari instance that the app has minimum control over.
  - lern_too_spel 9y ago
    The preferred WebView on Android is an out of process Chrome instance. The difference is that the Chrome app that provides that widget is updated without requiring an OS update, which is what we're all wondering why Apple can't do, either because of incompetence (my guess) or malice (the hypothesis of the article's author).
    - scarface74 9y ago
      Chrome is being updated outside of the operating system updates not because of some great pure architectural motivation - but out of necessity. Apple can push an entire OS upgrade to its entire customer base without worrying about carriers or third party OEMs. Google not so much so. Why would Apple go through the trouble of implementing a feature and then breaking it? The promise of not needing native apps for mobile started with Apple in 2007, then Palm, RIM, and Microsoft. It's always been a poor user experience. It still is today on mobile - with apps that are just glorified web view wrappers and on the desktop with memory hogging, battery draining, slow Electron apps.
      - lern_too_spel 9y ago
        > Apple can push an entire OS upgrade to its entire customer base without worrying about carriers or third party OEMs. Google not so much so. Google can do the same thing with its own devices and on Android One devices. Even so, updating just the browser automatically is clearly better than requiring the user to reboot. Since apps are required to deal gracefully with being restarted by the system arbitrarily, the user doesn't even notice. This allows Google to update the browser much faster than Apple even on non-Google devices. All that talk about web apps vs. native is tangential to the point — that Apple, through sheer incompetence, ships a worse browser that is updated much more slowly than its competitors, allowing its competitors customers to have more and better apps than Apple's customers in a more secure browser. That Apple apologists even try to find some way to justify this just makes them look ridiculous.
        scarface74 9y ago
        Googles own devices and Android One devices are a tiny subset of Android devices. From what I see on Android apps, most are using the standard OS webview not Chrome.
        lern_too_spel 9y ago
        The standard OS WebView (used prior to Android 7.0) is also updated via the Play Store. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.webview https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and... This has been updated automatically without an OS update for years, and Apple still can't get it right. Worse, Apple requires apps to use their broken, rarely updated implementation. On Android, even Firefox can render pages for other apps with Gecko if the user prefers. On the topic of Android One and Google vs. the rest, the smart user knows which phone they are getting, and the smart user prefers Android One and Google phones to iPhones and other rarely updated phones. It is not a choice between an Android phone selected uniformly at random (which in expectation is partially updated quickly and partially updated very slowly) and an iPhone (entirely updated slowly). That is a false dichotomy.
- oneplane 9y ago
  It is a system resource to Apple. There are a set of basic "protected" system resources you are not allowed to touch. You can debate if that is an ecosystem you want, but that is what it currently is. You cannot replace the phone dialer, you cannot replace the SMS interface, you cannot modify buttons etc. It's mostly for two design reasons: maintain a consistent UX, and, protect users from themselves. And yes, users need that, and no, it's not forced upon them, you are free to not buy it. The thing is, that for 99% of the users, the defaults work wonderfully and allow them to be super productive without having to toy with their device like they used to have to in the Windows Mobile and Palm days.
  - lern_too_spel 9y ago
    While I think it's stupid that I can't use real Firefox or Chrome on iPhone, GP's point is that it's stupid that even Apple (forgetting third parties) can't update its browser without an OS update, and he understandably can't believe that people are defending this.
    - oneplane 9y ago
      I suppose the reasoning is that it doesn't matter when you have a WebKit-flaw. It doesn't matter if the browser gets an update if the average user is using 3-5 apps every day that use WebKit themselves and are still vulnerable. For example, StackExchange has a built-in browser using WebKit, as do Twitter and Facebook. Updating Apple's Browser (is it called Safari on iOS as well?) separately would fix about 20% of the attack surface, totally not enough for any sensible company.
      - lern_too_spel 9y ago
        Then they should update both simultaneously, like Android has done for years. But not even being able to update even the browser by itself shows an extreme level of incompetence.
seba_dos1 9y ago
Or, it would simply mean providing updates to system WebKit, just like it's done on Android.
- favorited 9y ago
  Isn't releasing new versions of shared system code what an OS update is? Not trying to be snarky or anything, it just seems like that's what this is.
  - JohnTHaller 9y ago
    The underlying blink engine on Android is basically a shared app library. It's updated as often as Chrome is via automatic updates from the Play Store. It gets updated even on phones running older versions of Android or Android versions the OEM isn't updating in a timely manner.
  - d1zzy 9y ago
    No matter how it's called it shouldn't take multiple months to test and release updates to single shared components, especially when the point is that you introduced a regression in a previous update.

RobertRoberts 9y ago

You mean just like Android does with Chrome? How hard is that? Why is this even worthy of debate? The browser is an application, not a system resource. To commingle the two makes no sense. Unless you think it's worth saving a few mbs of storage to have two instances for security and stability??

scarface74 9y ago
How is the browser not a system resource when there are so many apps that are basically a wrapper around a webview or have one embedded? The preferred Webview on iOS for apps is an out of process Safari instance that the app has minimum control over.
- lern_too_spel 9y ago
  The preferred WebView on Android is an out of process Chrome instance. The difference is that the Chrome app that provides that widget is updated without requiring an OS update, which is what we're all wondering why Apple can't do, either because of incompetence (my guess) or malice (the hypothesis of the article's author).
  - scarface74 9y ago
    Chrome is being updated outside of the operating system updates not because of some great pure architectural motivation - but out of necessity. Apple can push an entire OS upgrade to its entire customer base without worrying about carriers or third party OEMs. Google not so much so. Why would Apple go through the trouble of implementing a feature and then breaking it? The promise of not needing native apps for mobile started with Apple in 2007, then Palm, RIM, and Microsoft. It's always been a poor user experience. It still is today on mobile - with apps that are just glorified web view wrappers and on the desktop with memory hogging, battery draining, slow Electron apps.
    - lern_too_spel 9y ago
      > Apple can push an entire OS upgrade to its entire customer base without worrying about carriers or third party OEMs. Google not so much so. Google can do the same thing with its own devices and on Android One devices. Even so, updating just the browser automatically is clearly better than requiring the user to reboot. Since apps are required to deal gracefully with being restarted by the system arbitrarily, the user doesn't even notice. This allows Google to update the browser much faster than Apple even on non-Google devices. All that talk about web apps vs. native is tangential to the point — that Apple, through sheer incompetence, ships a worse browser that is updated much more slowly than its competitors, allowing its competitors customers to have more and better apps than Apple's customers in a more secure browser. That Apple apologists even try to find some way to justify this just makes them look ridiculous.
      - scarface74 9y ago
        Googles own devices and Android One devices are a tiny subset of Android devices. From what I see on Android apps, most are using the standard OS webview not Chrome.
        lern_too_spel 9y ago
        The standard OS WebView (used prior to Android 7.0) is also updated via the Play Store. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.webview https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and... This has been updated automatically without an OS update for years, and Apple still can't get it right. Worse, Apple requires apps to use their broken, rarely updated implementation. On Android, even Firefox can render pages for other apps with Gecko if the user prefers. On the topic of Android One and Google vs. the rest, the smart user knows which phone they are getting, and the smart user prefers Android One and Google phones to iPhones and other rarely updated phones. It is not a choice between an Android phone selected uniformly at random (which in expectation is partially updated quickly and partially updated very slowly) and an iPhone (entirely updated slowly). That is a false dichotomy.
oneplane 9y ago
It is a system resource to Apple. There are a set of basic "protected" system resources you are not allowed to touch. You can debate if that is an ecosystem you want, but that is what it currently is. You cannot replace the phone dialer, you cannot replace the SMS interface, you cannot modify buttons etc. It's mostly for two design reasons: maintain a consistent UX, and, protect users from themselves. And yes, users need that, and no, it's not forced upon them, you are free to not buy it. The thing is, that for 99% of the users, the defaults work wonderfully and allow them to be super productive without having to toy with their device like they used to have to in the Windows Mobile and Palm days.
- lern_too_spel 9y ago
  While I think it's stupid that I can't use real Firefox or Chrome on iPhone, GP's point is that it's stupid that even Apple (forgetting third parties) can't update its browser without an OS update, and he understandably can't believe that people are defending this.
  - oneplane 9y ago
    I suppose the reasoning is that it doesn't matter when you have a WebKit-flaw. It doesn't matter if the browser gets an update if the average user is using 3-5 apps every day that use WebKit themselves and are still vulnerable. For example, StackExchange has a built-in browser using WebKit, as do Twitter and Facebook. Updating Apple's Browser (is it called Safari on iOS as well?) separately would fix about 20% of the attack surface, totally not enough for any sensible company.
    - lern_too_spel 9y ago
      Then they should update both simultaneously, like Android has done for years. But not even being able to update even the browser by itself shows an extreme level of incompetence.

seba_dos1 9y ago

Or, it would simply mean providing updates to system WebKit, just like it's done on Android.

favorited 9y ago
Isn't releasing new versions of shared system code what an OS update is? Not trying to be snarky or anything, it just seems like that's what this is.
- JohnTHaller 9y ago
  The underlying blink engine on Android is basically a shared app library. It's updated as often as Chrome is via automatic updates from the Play Store. It gets updated even on phones running older versions of Android or Android versions the OEM isn't updating in a timely manner.
- d1zzy 9y ago
  No matter how it's called it shouldn't take multiple months to test and release updates to single shared components, especially when the point is that you introduced a regression in a previous update.