4 ms·

Because Apple still doesn't support WebGL2 (similar to OpenGL ES 3.0) after all these years. Apple is involved with WebGPU, but they still won't even support We

Because Apple still doesn't support WebGL2 (similar to OpenGL ES 3.0) after all these years. Apple is involved with WebGPU, but they still won't even support WebGL2, which kinda pisses me off. No matter what people say, Chrome is not the new IE, Safari is; and thank god it's so unpopular.

giancarlostoro 7y ago
You misunderstand the term Chrome is the new IE. IE used to be the dominating browser on the web. Whatever standards IE supported were reverse engineered by other browsers such as AJAX. IE eventually got overshadowed by the open web and fell behind. There used to be websites that only worked on IE, well there still might be. There's too many websites coded and tested with Chrome now using features only in Chrome, breaking other sites, or worse checking if Chrome is being used and ignoring if the browser supports the feature, or worse Chrome implements it before a formal spec, which breaks other browsers who comply with the spec.
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  “There used to be websites that only worked on IE, well there still might be” Work in a large corporation and you will see plenty of these.
  - scumbert 7y ago
    or Microsoft Silverlight, and soon Flash will be finally deprecated too, and I'm sure it will still be present in enterprise training modules and other nonsense
- untog 7y ago
  I think both Chrome and Safari have negative connections with memories of IE. For Safari it's the stagnation of IE6: installed everywhere but rarely updated with new features that other browsers have. That's not so much of a problem on desktop because people can always install another browser, but on iOS you're literally not allowed to use any other browser engine.
  - qubex 7y ago
    The issue is that major updates to Safari follow the same cycle as updates to the MacOS and iOS operating systems, meaning once per year at the current rate. Adding major features once per year (and even then, only once they have been in use on other platforms for at least a year or two) means that Safari can lag by three years in terms of features (case in point: WebRTC).
    - microcolonel 7y ago
      > means that Safari can lag by three years in terms of features (case in point: WebRTC). In the case of WebRTC, it's even worse than that: public stable releases of Firefox and Chrome supported WebRTC by early 2013, but Safari took until late 2017. That's more than five years for an extremely popular feature (I had three professional engagements where we had to integrate a native WebRTC client component into a Cordova application, and couldn't support that feature on iOS through the browser, before they finally released it).
qubex 7y ago
As my123 kindly pointed out above, it is possible to enable experimental support for WebGL2 in the current version of Safari. I presume this is something they are cooking up for the next release of MacOS.
- microcolonel 7y ago
  > it is possible to enable experimental support for WebGL2 in the current version of Safari. I presume this is something they are cooking up for the next release of MacOS. No, they have had the same level of support (it fails almost a quarter of the conformance tests, lacks a majority of the new APIs entirely, and doesn't even reliably take in GLSL ES 3.0 shaders without crashing even more than the GLES 2.0 implementation) for four years, without further activity. It is not conformant in the TP, and I don't think they plan to ever make it conformant or actually release it. They have the resources and the expertise in house to make this a thing, they could literally just use ANGLE, but they choose not to.
jmull 7y ago
At least in regard to WebGL, "X is the new IE" isn't the best way to look at it. WebGL2 is based on OpenGL patterns. I don't think it makes sense to invest new development in that, whether you're Apple, a framework developer or an app/game developer. I think the writing was on the wall for OpenGL even before WebGL 2 was finalized, so a reluctance to embrace it makes sense. I can see how it would be negative in the short term, but I think we're at the point where web apis should be considering the long-term strongly, and in the long term webgl 2 support isn't good.

giancarlostoro 7y ago

You misunderstand the term Chrome is the new IE. IE used to be the dominating browser on the web. Whatever standards IE supported were reverse engineered by other browsers such as AJAX. IE eventually got overshadowed by the open web and fell behind. There used to be websites that only worked on IE, well there still might be. There's too many websites coded and tested with Chrome now using features only in Chrome, breaking other sites, or worse checking if Chrome is being used and ignoring if the browser supports the feature, or worse Chrome implements it before a formal spec, which breaks other browsers who comply with the spec.

Ididntdothis 7y ago
“There used to be websites that only worked on IE, well there still might be” Work in a large corporation and you will see plenty of these.
- scumbert 7y ago
  or Microsoft Silverlight, and soon Flash will be finally deprecated too, and I'm sure it will still be present in enterprise training modules and other nonsense
untog 7y ago
I think both Chrome and Safari have negative connections with memories of IE. For Safari it's the stagnation of IE6: installed everywhere but rarely updated with new features that other browsers have. That's not so much of a problem on desktop because people can always install another browser, but on iOS you're literally not allowed to use any other browser engine.
- qubex 7y ago
  The issue is that major updates to Safari follow the same cycle as updates to the MacOS and iOS operating systems, meaning once per year at the current rate. Adding major features once per year (and even then, only once they have been in use on other platforms for at least a year or two) means that Safari can lag by three years in terms of features (case in point: WebRTC).
  - microcolonel 7y ago
    > means that Safari can lag by three years in terms of features (case in point: WebRTC). In the case of WebRTC, it's even worse than that: public stable releases of Firefox and Chrome supported WebRTC by early 2013, but Safari took until late 2017. That's more than five years for an extremely popular feature (I had three professional engagements where we had to integrate a native WebRTC client component into a Cordova application, and couldn't support that feature on iOS through the browser, before they finally released it).

qubex 7y ago

As my123 kindly pointed out above, it is possible to enable experimental support for WebGL2 in the current version of Safari. I presume this is something they are cooking up for the next release of MacOS.

microcolonel 7y ago
> it is possible to enable experimental support for WebGL2 in the current version of Safari. I presume this is something they are cooking up for the next release of MacOS. No, they have had the same level of support (it fails almost a quarter of the conformance tests, lacks a majority of the new APIs entirely, and doesn't even reliably take in GLSL ES 3.0 shaders without crashing even more than the GLES 2.0 implementation) for four years, without further activity. It is not conformant in the TP, and I don't think they plan to ever make it conformant or actually release it. They have the resources and the expertise in house to make this a thing, they could literally just use ANGLE, but they choose not to.

jmull 7y ago

At least in regard to WebGL, "X is the new IE" isn't the best way to look at it. WebGL2 is based on OpenGL patterns. I don't think it makes sense to invest new development in that, whether you're Apple, a framework developer or an app/game developer. I think the writing was on the wall for OpenGL even before WebGL 2 was finalized, so a reluctance to embrace it makes sense. I can see how it would be negative in the short term, but I think we're at the point where web apis should be considering the long-term strongly, and in the long term webgl 2 support isn't good.