21 ms·
iOS 14 will let you change your default email and web browser apps
- Darmody 6y agoBut can you have a 3rd party browser or just an wrapper around Apple's Webkit?
- m-p-3 6y agoBaby steps I suppose. I still dream of the day you see an actual Mozilla Firefox browser with its own rendering engine and addons support.
- Klonoar 6y agoConsidering how poorly macOS runs Firefox, I'm actually quite glad that Webkit is enforced.
- kennywinker 6y ago*citation needed. Recently switched to FF on a 6 year old mac, only complaints so far are small ui quirks
- staycoolboy 6y agoI'm a FF user on macOS, but it is a power hog. They have been working on it for some time: https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2019/10/22/dramatically-reduced-power-usage-in-firefox-70-on-macos-with-core-animation/ https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2019/10/22/dramatically-red...
- eugeniub 6y agoLongtime user of Safari on macOS, switched about 2 years ago to Firefox and I've been in love ever since.
- Klonoar 6y agoAbysmal battery life in comparison to Safari, different font rendering than normal, lack of correct rubberband scrolling (a ~10 year old bug), and more. Let me be clear: I like Firefox. I've committed patches to Firefox on iOS. I'd use Firefox on any other platform, but it is not a good citizen of macOS. I don't believe it'd be good on iOS given the room to use its own rendering engine.
- rydre 6y agoWhat if I want the choice of using firefox with extensions on mac os?
- hpfr 6y agoI don’t use macOS, but I know there was a good amount of news about significant battery consumption improvements in a recent Firefox release. I don’t think any third-party browser can hope to compete with Safari on macOS, though. I don’t know how level the playing field is there.
- Klonoar 6y agoYou may be thinking of Core Animation usage, which is really good to see. As I understand it this is also a prerequisite for WebRender. The bug in question: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1429522 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1429522 A blog post breakdown: https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2019/10/22/dramatically-reduced-power-usage-in-firefox-70-on-macos-with-core-animation/ https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2019/10/22/dramatically-red... This does make a difference, but macOS is in many respects a "death by a thousand cuts" platform due to the UI/UX bar being fairly high. It notably clips in many areas where Chrome and Safari simply don't, which leads to a jarring experience. Scrolling and resizing is still not smooth, even after tweaking it behind the scenes - although to be fair, the post above calls out that they're aware they can make this smoother with CA. Firefox on macOS also still has issues with hardware acceleration. Comparing the following URL across browsers I can achieve 60fps, no drops, on Safari. Firefox on my Mac averages 45fps. https://webglsamples.org/aquarium/aquarium.html https://webglsamples.org/aquarium/aquarium.html I love Firefox (and the associated lineage) - I really do. I've kept it installed since the Mozilla Suite days. I still check every damn release to see if I could switch back. I'm sad every time I find I can't.
- lwansbrough 6y agoYou’re opposed to choice because..?
- zepto 6y agoIt wastes a huge amount of time when most of the choices are bad.
- lern_too_spel 6y agoThere are certain hypothetical cases where that is true. In this case, most of the choices are better than the app people are required to use today.
- zepto 6y agoAre they? Chrome is slower and sends more telemetry to Google. Firefox is more trustworthy, but also slower. I accept that there better options for many people than Apple Mail.
- lwansbrough 6y agoChoice does not necessitate an up-front decision to be made by the user. It simply means, at some point, I can choose an alternative. Safari fuckin’ sucks and I am forced to use it to have access to certain features on iOS - like webcam - which is bullshit.
- lern_too_spel 6y agoYes, Safari is far behind the other browsers in standards support, and at this point of being so far behind for so long, we can say that it will always be so just to kneecap the web as an alternative to the app store.
- zepto 6y agoI don’t think that’s a sound argument. iOS is behind android in terms of features, the top comment on the ios14 post points out that ‘it’s all just catchup to Android’. Clearly Apple isn’t trying to kneecap iOS as an alternative to Android, so why would be conclude that they are doing this with Safari? Their strategy has never been about rushing.
- kup0 6y agoRuns absolutely fine in situations where battery isn't a concern (iMac)
- Klonoar 6y agoIt doesn't, as I noted in another comment - "absolutely fine" overlooks notable issues with the macOS system experiences. Furthermore, while this is a point to be debated... the thread here is not about Firefox on macOS, but on whether it'd run fine on iOS. Given the performance of Firefox on Macbooks in general, I maintain my position that it would not fare well. The iMac has little to do with this. Given that they'll eventually need to have this running well on Apple Silicon, though, I'd be happy to eventually be wrong.
- kup0 6y agoI don't think it's irrelevant to speak to the fact that the latest Firefox runs well on my 2013 iMac. Anecdotal, sure, but I'm tired of seeing the generic "Firefox is bad on macOS" complaints because I just don't think it's true across-the-board anymore. 10-15 versions ago? That was a different story. It has come a long way. I abandoned Firefox back in those days, but lately I returned to it as my browser of choice on macOS, Windows, and Linux. However, in terms of iOS, I am not certain how either of our experiences (both on macOS) would really be relevant at all to how Firefox would perform on iOS. As much as Apple has tried to make them similar lately, they are still different worlds.
- nixpulvis 6y agoBrowser enforcement is a path to the dying web.
- behnamoh 6y agoNot if it ensures web usability w/o battery/performance issues.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago> Considering how poorly macOS runs Firefox, I'm actually quite glad that Webkit is enforced. Given that Webkit is available either way, why? If you prefer Webkit you can use Safari independent of whether actual Firefox is available or not. Having the choice doesn't force you to choose it. But it gives other people with different priorities an option. And then more people use Firefox, and it gets better, and Mozilla ends up with more support and resources to address your concerns even before you actually start using it.
- shuckles 6y agoAn efficient browser engine needs to run with security privileges that I don't imagine Apple ever giving to 3rd party code.
- chongli 6y agoYou never know. Perhaps Apple is working on public APIs to mitigate those issues? What if Apple released APIs that let you write an all-new, high performance browser engine and let you publish your own browser on iOS, but the APIs weren’t compatible with Firefox or Chromium, so a rewrite would be required?
- cbzoiav 6y agoApple has all of the APIs needed. You can compile and run chromium on iOS today (or at least it used to be possible - I work for an enterprise that did it for internal apps) - it'll just never make it through AppStore review.
- tarkin2 6y agoDo you know of these security privileges? I've never heard either google or mozilla complain about them.
- JoshTriplett 6y agoA browser's JIT needs permission to dynamically generate code and then execute it, which is the primary permission Apple doesn't grant to third parties. Other browsers on iOS just wrap Safari's WebKit in a different UI.
- summerlight 6y agoAllowing a 3rd party browser engine will significantly undermine Apple's control on its ecosystem, so won't likely happen anytime soon. This is more of running a show for the recent on-going antitrust case against Apple.
- wayneftw 6y agoFinally! Now if someone will build a browser that will add the missing push notifications feature to PWAs, web apps on iOS might have some semblance of parity with Android.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- manquer 6y agoOther browsers still have to use Apple WebKit , I.e they just wrappers around safari so not much change in features
- compscistd 6y agoI feel like Apple is incentivized to move slowly on PWAs. The pros for bringing more features to PWAs: a small subset of users care, and an even a smaller subset of them care enough that they might leave the platform. The cons: a direct competitor to the app store (imagine Hey as a PWA), undercutting their 30%. For the independent developer, sure, the app store may be great distribution, but I can imagine paying for your own marketing beats the 30% you lose to Apple.
- osrec 6y agoApple will only add push notifications to PWAs if enough people move away from Apple devices for lack of PWA push notifications. Once the quality of PWAs improves to the point that they're indispensable (and I believe we're getting there slowly), Apple will have to comply. Till then, they're probably not going to do it.
- SergeAx 6y agoHighly unlikely. Apple will need to figure out how to get it's 30% cut from those PWAs first.
- wayneftw 6y agoI’ll give them $ for push notifications alone! Not 30% but it’s worth something if their servers suddenly now must process notifications from hundreds or thousands of new Web apps every year.
- cercatrova 6y agoWelcome to the 2010s, Apple.
- gberger 6y agoWelcome to 1998 [] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp.#:~:text=In%20October%201998%2C%20the%20U.S.,the%20installation%20of%20Windows%20software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
- alexcroox 6y agoAren't third party browsers still just gimped webkit webviews? I'm not sure the worse performance is worth having a different browser chrome around the web page?
- snazz 6y agoSyncing autofill, history, tabs, and passwords with desktop Chrome or Firefox is nice.
- noir_lord 6y agoI just want Ublock Origin. The existing adblockers for iOS are OK but they aren't comparable, it's mostly OK since I use my iPad's at home and control the network but it's (one) of the reasons I won't be buying an iPhone SE even though it's price (~£400) makes it almost interesting to me. The only option would be to VPN into my home network and filter that way but yeah that seems silly when I can just install Firefox on Android which I like well enough anyway.
- snazz 6y agoI'm curious: what websites have ads that an iOS adblocker can't block? I've had very good luck with Ka-Block! on my iPhone. There are some others with user-editable blocklists.
- noir_lord 6y agoTV Streaming ones mostly, worse than porn sites these days since those kinda went more legit. There are a tonne of technical solutions to the above if I could be bothered to set them up on the linux mediaPC but honestly, I don't watch a lot and most of what I do is on Netflix and Prime anyway.
- bad_user 6y agoI've worked on anti-ad-blocking tech previously. Safari's content blocking is the weakest on the market and can be easily circumvented. And I'm an iOS user and the ads on the websites I visit are unbearable and have tried many content blockers. Nothing worked until I switched to DNS blocking. Not perfect but better than what Safari can do.
- sneak 6y agoNot having real extensions for privacy and adblocking and other layout/js modifications/tweaks on mobile browsers has been a gigantic hassle for a decade. Hopefully this opens up the market for someone to make an actually great browser for iOS.
- briandear 6y agoiOS Safari already supports adblocking.
- rimliu 6y agoHuh? They have dedicated API.
- anonymousab 6y agoThey have an API that lets you block some static rules. It's way better than nothing but it is not a true substitute for the kinds of things and dynamic filtering you can (for now) currently do in web browser extensions. It also appears to have a rather low rule limit.
- scarface74 6y agoSo I want to give a random third party complete access to my browsing history like most ad blockers do?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- anoncake 6y agoIf Apple is literally the only entity on the planet you trust, that might be a problem.
- scarface74 6y agoYou already have to trust your OS vendor.
- rydre 6y agoNow only if they allow competing browser engine...
- neuronic 6y agoYES. I think Safari is great but for several reasons I use Firefox. Thank you, Tim Apple!
- tarkin2 6y agoWill others browsers be allowed to use their browser engines?
- diegoperini 6y agoAside from ToS and legal stuff, what API roadblocks are there that make developing a browser impossible?
- entropicdrifter 6y agoApp Store terms and conditions
- anoncake 6y agoaka ToS and legal stuff
- anaisbetts 6y agoA lot of internal text editing APIs, a lot of accessibility stuff - you can see Electron having to rip it out every release for the Mac App Store version. iOS will likely be even worse in this regard
- AA-BA-94-2A-56 6y agoOr better, depending on your perspective.
- anaisbetts 6y agoNope, being forced to explicitly make apps less usable and more frustrating for people who are disabled is strictly Worse
- Nextgrid 6y agoI believe JIT is impossible due to memory access restrictions which significantly impacts JavaScript performance.
- pentae 6y agoAnything but sideloading
- smnrchrds 6y agoWhat about Maps?
- scarlac 6y agoDisclaimer: I'm speculating on the reason: There may not be a standardized URL scheme for mapping applications whereas both e-mail and browsers have it already (http(s): and mailto:). It's possible though! Apple could define a standard and say "that's how you can open maps" but currently it's a moving target as mapping applications support varying features like directions with waypoints, POI searches, general searches, area selections, etc. They'd have to settle on some standard that Apple Maps support which almost is guaranteed to not support several Google Maps features.
- fortran77 6y agoWhat if you want Hey email!?
- ciarannolan 6y agoIt's been approved: https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1275066259801923584 https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1275066259801923584
- threeseed 6y agoLooks like after they complied with Apple policies.
- xwowsersx 6y agoNot trying to start a flame war, but as an Android user I can't help but find it shocking and funny that something this basic is a headline in 2020
- g-garron 6y agoAndroid gives one more freedom here and there, but tracks you more. At the very end we are tied to Google or Apple, and that is bad.
- ragnese 6y ago1. We don't really know what Apple is or isn't collecting from you. 2. You can run de-Googled Android and still do the important 80% of things that a smart-phone is good for.
- jjcon 6y ago1. Sure we do, they spell it out very clearly here: https://www.apple.com/privacy/ https://www.apple.com/privacy/ 2. I beg to differ. A completely de-googled phone is not only extremely difficult to achieve but about as useful as a 2009 blackberry. Yeah it runs and will maybe let you check your email with 5+ hours of work just to get push notifications running but it is so completely impractical for anyone that doesn’t want to devote serious amounts of time to it. With Apple you a good balance of privacy and utility imo.
- ragnese 6y agoMy intention here isn't necessarily to tell you what to use or buy. 1. There is nothing legally binding here, as far as I can tell. Apple software is almost entirely closed source. Zoom told us they were encrypting our stuff, too. I know that Apple can't get away with too much because of their size, but I have a very strong distrust of big tech companies that I'll likely never shake because of the disgusting track record silicon valley has toward privacy and short-sighted profit-making. Take this text for example: "Apple can’t read your iMessages while they’re being sent between you and the person you’re texting." What does it mean that it can't see them while they're being sent? Can they see them once they're at rest? Is this just innocent vagueness of the English language, or sneaky shit? Similarly, they say they can't see your location in Maps. They make no promise with the browser. In fact, they don't promise they aren't snooping on 100% of the stuff in Safari- they only say they try to protect you from other companies tracking you. 2. I don't disagree with you. And I'm just kind of a Luddite because I just don't care if I can run SnapChat or whatever on my phone. I can browse the web with a solid, privacy-respecting, browser (Firefox) with all of the privacy addons I want. I can use that browser to access the things I care about. I do use a closed-source navigation app, unfortunately, but it isn't Google and doesn't require Play services. I lock down its permissions as best I can. I use Signal for most of my messaging needs, which works fine. The one thing I actually do miss is ride-sharing apps when I travel. That's a major inconvenience. But some shitty game or social media app whose entire purpose is to track you (whether you use/trust Apple/Google's OSes or not...)? No thanks, anyway. In fact, I think there's another point in here that most of these apps are tracking the hell out of you, regardless if you trust your phone's OS.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jedberg 6y agoCan I change my default phone app? I'd really like phone numbers to come up in Google Voice. Yes, I know I can long-press and sometimes that lets me choose GV, but it doesn't always work. What about my default maps app? That would be nice too.
- jakebellacera 6y agoIt seems like this is something that Apple plans to relinquish control over time with. I hope that Apple finds the move to be a net positive for their ecosystem and decides to make more "defaults" changeable in the following releases.
- dariusj18 6y agoSecond the default map app. I hate when I click a map link and it opens in Apple's map app, it looks just enough like Google maps that I don't immediately close it, then once I realize it's worse that I remember, I say, "oh, they tricked me again!"
- ryanisnan 6y agoWhat about that really annoying feature where, if you open a link from say, Amazon, and it forcefully opens the link in an app. I hate this behaviour.
- mathieubordere 6y agoAmen, that drives me insane.
- saagarjha 6y agoThat's actually a "feature" that you can enable for your app…
- GloriousKoji 6y agoBrowsers other than safari will give you a prompt to either open as webpage or in the dedicated app. But then you have the 2nd stage problem of the web page with an obstructive in page pop up asking you to download the app or open it in the app.
- charwalker 6y agoI don't actually now how that works on iOS. With Android, it will ask first time if I want to use the specific app or my browser always (or a just this time option), push me to Android settings/app manager to enable that within the app settings itself, then let me go back and try the link again. I'd prefer if it remembered the link and went forward but I'm surprised there isn't similar options on iOS. I guess its closed-ness is one reason I'm on Android.
- javagram 6y agoYou can fix this today. Hold down on the link and choose to open in a new tab. It will remember the behavior and stop opening the link in the app, until you hold down another future link and choose “open in Amazon” or the equivalent. Not very discoverable but it does exist.
- ryanisnan 6y agoOh wow! I'll try this out.
- gorgoiler 6y agoPhone! I want first class support for SIP so I can hook up my VOIP app of choice)f( straight into the OS! )f(: just kidding, there are no good VOIP apps in iOS :/
- syshum 6y agoHmm someone is concerned about Anti-Trust
- nyxtom 6y agoGlad to see that antitrust and bringing them into court has finally pressured them into building a feature that should of been standard for a long time.
- vesinisa 6y agoYup, the timing would certainly seem to indicate Apple hedging their position for the upcoming antitrust prosecution.
- sequoia 6y agoYeah, "Apple Scrambles to Head Off Antitrust Prosecution" is the shadow-headline here.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- m463 6y agoBut their software is always on the backend of this. I suspect they're letting it happen because webkit (with all their hooks) will be an integral part of all the apps they allow.
- fudged71 6y agoIf you miss how Android shares links between apps, check out the app Opener on iOS, I couldn’t live without it
- charwalker 6y agoYes let me pay $2 for a feature that should be standard or will likey be built in by Apple eventually after they remove this app from the store. Same with MacOS. I don't want to pay for a window snapping app so I can quickly send windows to the sides or corners. Windows has done that well for years and upgraded it in 10. Expand that tool, make it built in, and I'll give this old macbook someone gave me another try. Honestly this was a breaking point when I gave OSX a shot last year for a few days. That MacBook is awesome but it just sucks to use coming from Windows navigation, even with Windows search often borked.
- fudged71 6y agoI agree that the situation with Apple sucks, but they haven't changed their stance since the start of their app platform. So I'd rather pay $2 to fix my own workflows than to withhold my money in protest of Apple's long term platform vision. I like iOS for the most part and wouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
- doorty 6y agoAnd Maps? And Calendar?
- unilynx 6y agoDear Google. If I promise to set Gmail as my default email client on iOS, will you then let me keep Safari as my default browser when clicking a link in that app?
- batmenace 6y agoNo.
- zepto 6y agoOf course not. This is why Apple didn’t allow it until now.
- lern_too_spel 6y agoThis is possible on Android today and has been possible since Android launched. I use Firefox as my default browser, and Gmail opens links in there. It is up to iOS to provide APIs that make this possible.
- unilynx 6y agoiOS may not have a central browser setting yet, but apps can still invoke other apps directly. Gmail on iOS uses that to offer a choice between Chrome and Safari, and offers to save your choice. It just tends to regularly forget that I told it to save my choice of Safari.
- lern_too_spel 6y agoOn iOS, it also has no way of knowing that you have installed Firefox to give you that choice, which makes using Firefox on iOS even more of a nonstarter than it already is.
- imkieren 6y agoI can select Safari as default in Gmail?
- bad_user 6y ago
- keith__talent 6y agoFinally! Now which email client to use that promotes security and great features?
- zeroimpl 6y agoWould be great to change the default calendar and contacts apps as well. There’s a large list of 3rd-party calendar apps, but the user often gets redirected back to the built-in apps, eg when interacting with invitation emails or notification center.
- jacurtis 6y agoDefault maps could also be added to that list
- garysahota93 6y agoI agree! I would love calendar, contacts, maps, notes, & reminders. All things I use super frequently. I'd ask for default messages/vid chat change (to WhatsApp or Google Duo) but that'd be asking for too much haha
- zeroDivisible 6y agoI know that this is stupid pet peeve but my number one thing to fix is not being able to change the extension of a file with the standard iOS tools. (or is there a way to do this?) The length to which I needed to go to when I needed to do this recently on a video which was shared with me was mind boggling. I'm not sure if this is because the video was in Files and not in Gallery, but it shouldn't really matter. If anything, that would be exactly where I'd expect to have such a feature.
- jonny_eh 6y agoI assume the browsers are still stuck using Safari's rendering and JavaScript engine.
- sendilkumarn 6y agoThe App library feature looks more like, I will use "on-device" intelligence to show all the apps that I want you to use.
- stjohnswarts 6y agoNow that's some innovation!