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A lot of comments here trying to explain this away but let me point out that Apple disabled autoplaying unmuted videos in moble Safari years ago (it's not even

A lot of comments here trying to explain this away but let me point out that Apple disabled autoplaying unmuted videos in moble Safari years ago (it's not even behind a setting as far as I know) and I can't imagine them backing off of that any time soon. On the contrary, Apple will savage decades old APIs just to marginally improve privacy [0]. Which is what Google would do if users were the customer. Apple is problematic in many ways, but I'm glad there's at least one mega-corporation that's really staked out privacy and user experience as a selling point for paying customers. [0] https://webkit.org/blog/10218/full-third-party-cookie-blocking-and-more/ https://webkit.org/blog/10218/full-third-party-cookie-blocki...

ehsankia 6y ago
> autoplaying unmuted videos autoplaying unmuted videos have been disabled on almost every browser, on desktop and on mobile, for years. This isn't unique to Safari and Apple. This is specifically about autoplaying muted videos, which gifs and canvas can replace.
- hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
  So block autoplaying animated gifs and canvas animations?
  - untog 6y ago
    In the canvas case it wouldn’t block the huge downloads, it would just stop them being visible.
    - kikokikokiko 6y ago
      Just by not being visible it would already be a better experience for the user.
      - esperent 6y ago
        You might be surprised how few users agree with you on this point - or rather, care enough to engage in the conversation at all. Blocking non-muted video is something most people are happy about. Blocking mute animations, I don't think many people are gonna waste much energy caring about it.
- deleted 6y ago
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swiley 6y ago
This. I’ve just gotten my pine phone and am going through all the trouble of recompiling basic software just to have a working phone that isn’t a “smartphone” and even I appreciated what apple did with mobile safari.
- dmitryminkovsky 6y ago
  Hadn't heard of Pine or Pinephone before. Thanks looks really neat.
ncr100 6y ago
Can we get safari on android? (Rhetorical question.)
jasonkester 6y ago
Apple was also the one who invented this terrible “individual video frames on a canvas” technique for their next device launch homepage, six months later. It was literally to work around their own restriction: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4531088 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4531088
deleted 6y ago
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ehsankia 6y ago

> autoplaying unmuted videos autoplaying unmuted videos have been disabled on almost every browser, on desktop and on mobile, for years. This isn't unique to Safari and Apple. This is specifically about autoplaying muted videos, which gifs and canvas can replace.

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
So block autoplaying animated gifs and canvas animations?
- untog 6y ago
  In the canvas case it wouldn’t block the huge downloads, it would just stop them being visible.
  - kikokikokiko 6y ago
    Just by not being visible it would already be a better experience for the user.
    - esperent 6y ago
      You might be surprised how few users agree with you on this point - or rather, care enough to engage in the conversation at all. Blocking non-muted video is something most people are happy about. Blocking mute animations, I don't think many people are gonna waste much energy caring about it.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

swiley 6y ago

This. I’ve just gotten my pine phone and am going through all the trouble of recompiling basic software just to have a working phone that isn’t a “smartphone” and even I appreciated what apple did with mobile safari.

dmitryminkovsky 6y ago
Hadn't heard of Pine or Pinephone before. Thanks looks really neat.

ncr100 6y ago

Can we get safari on android? (Rhetorical question.)

jasonkester 6y ago

Apple was also the one who invented this terrible “individual video frames on a canvas” technique for their next device launch homepage, six months later. It was literally to work around their own restriction: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4531088 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4531088

deleted 6y ago

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