5 ms·

> I am glad that websites cannot play audio without the user first interacting with the page. I am also glad that websites can't play audio in the background >

by shkkmo 9y ago

> I am glad that websites cannot play audio without the user first interacting with the page. I am also glad that websites can't play audio in the background > These are higher-level permissions and should not be free for the taking. While they shouldn't be available to every site, these higher level permissions should be request-able by a PWA with the option to grant that permission indefinately. Apple is deciding they know better than me and providing me no choice. This sort of crap is why I don't own an iPhone. Requiring developer to buy a Mac and pay $99/year to play audio in the background is developer-hostile in a way that is not user-friendly at all.

saagarjha 9y ago
How are you going to stop every website requesting all the permissions upfront?
- danShumway 9y ago
  The same way we stop native apps from doing that? It used to be fairly common in Android for developers to just request everything. Developers still request too much, but it's gotten a bit better because in newer versions of Android you have to actually start using the API before the permission will be requested - so as a user if you request microphone access, I know it's because right now you intend to record sound. It's a very small improvement, but it helps, and it's pretty much copied wholesale from web's permission model. The web also allows you to grant parts of permissions. When a website asks you for location and camera, you can choose to give it just camera - or you can choose to give it camera for one session and then re-ask the next time the API is accessed. These are all small steps that make it cumbersome for developers to just say "give me everything or nothing works." The trick is to make it easier for app developers not to think about permissions; and then when you get an app that requests 3 permissions upfront, you know something shady is going on because there just aren't a lot of legitimate reasons to do that anymore.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - repsilat 9y ago
    Yeah, exactly. This works pretty well with location tracking -- few people request it, you can deny the request, and things almost always work fine when you do. (I've had one site lock me out for blocking location data, and some things work poorly on Facebook's mobile site without location tracking on, but I haven't noticed any other problems.)
  - imron 9y ago
    > Developers still request too much .. > it's gotten a bit better .. > It's a very small improvement, but it helps .. > These are all small steps Thereby illustrating the parent's point that developers will still ask for too much and that the power balance is in favour of the developer. Apple on the other hand heavily restricts what developers can do. It's developer-hostile, but user-friendly.
    - strangegecko 9y ago
      You can be just as user-friendly by giving the user a button "never let web pages ask me again for this / all permissions (you can undo this in settings)" when the first page asks for permissions.
      - fnordsensei 9y ago
        I disagree that this is usable enough. Every webpage and their dog has now started to ask for permissions to popup notifications. I find this really annoying. Sure, I can disable it for one site, but then the next one I visit pops up the same question if it's OK to spam me. I've turned it off browser-wide as a result. If asking for permissions is to be an option in the future, I hope it is a completely manual opt-in, available in some kind of site-specific settings thingie (that makes no effort to distract the user by noises, popups or red badges by itself). I think this is reasonable given the ratio of sites a user should be willing to grant any permissions to, vs the amount they should want as sandboxed as humanly possible.
- shkkmo 9y ago
  Why would you? If they want that permission before loading the page/app, they should ask. If they don't want to annoy their customers, they should wait until they need each permission.

by shkkmo 9y ago

saagarjha 9y ago

How are you going to stop every website requesting all the permissions upfront?

danShumway 9y ago
The same way we stop native apps from doing that? It used to be fairly common in Android for developers to just request everything. Developers still request too much, but it's gotten a bit better because in newer versions of Android you have to actually start using the API before the permission will be requested - so as a user if you request microphone access, I know it's because right now you intend to record sound. It's a very small improvement, but it helps, and it's pretty much copied wholesale from web's permission model. The web also allows you to grant parts of permissions. When a website asks you for location and camera, you can choose to give it just camera - or you can choose to give it camera for one session and then re-ask the next time the API is accessed. These are all small steps that make it cumbersome for developers to just say "give me everything or nothing works." The trick is to make it easier for app developers not to think about permissions; and then when you get an app that requests 3 permissions upfront, you know something shady is going on because there just aren't a lot of legitimate reasons to do that anymore.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- repsilat 9y ago
  Yeah, exactly. This works pretty well with location tracking -- few people request it, you can deny the request, and things almost always work fine when you do. (I've had one site lock me out for blocking location data, and some things work poorly on Facebook's mobile site without location tracking on, but I haven't noticed any other problems.)
- imron 9y ago
  > Developers still request too much .. > it's gotten a bit better .. > It's a very small improvement, but it helps .. > These are all small steps Thereby illustrating the parent's point that developers will still ask for too much and that the power balance is in favour of the developer. Apple on the other hand heavily restricts what developers can do. It's developer-hostile, but user-friendly.
  - strangegecko 9y ago
    You can be just as user-friendly by giving the user a button "never let web pages ask me again for this / all permissions (you can undo this in settings)" when the first page asks for permissions.
    - fnordsensei 9y ago
      I disagree that this is usable enough. Every webpage and their dog has now started to ask for permissions to popup notifications. I find this really annoying. Sure, I can disable it for one site, but then the next one I visit pops up the same question if it's OK to spam me. I've turned it off browser-wide as a result. If asking for permissions is to be an option in the future, I hope it is a completely manual opt-in, available in some kind of site-specific settings thingie (that makes no effort to distract the user by noises, popups or red badges by itself). I think this is reasonable given the ratio of sites a user should be willing to grant any permissions to, vs the amount they should want as sandboxed as humanly possible.
shkkmo 9y ago
Why would you? If they want that permission before loading the page/app, they should ask. If they don't want to annoy their customers, they should wait until they need each permission.