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Safari has become the new IE in a lot of ways as far as compatibility. A good first step would be to stop gating Safari updates behind OSX updates.

by Rapzid 6y ago

tppiotrowski 6y ago
Isn't this what Safari Technology Preview is supposed to be? Although even that release cadence is sluggish compared to Chromium/Firefox... https://developer.apple.com/safari/download/ https://developer.apple.com/safari/download/
unilynx 6y ago
Gating? Safari 14 was released sep 16, Big Sur came in november
- Rapzid 6y ago
  Safari 14 only supports webp in Big Sur. If you want that "update" you have to upgrade OSX. Sometimes it's version number, sometimes like in this case it's just the feature. From a browser compatibility perspective though it's not much different. We are waiting on lagging support for certain browser features because Apple is gating them behind OSX upgrades.
dmitriid 6y ago
It really hasn't. Most of the shiny new features that Chrome pushes are actively objected by both Mozilla and Webkit teams.
- Rapzid 6y ago
  Yeah, but there are a growing number of areas where Chrome and Firefox have nearly identical behavior and Safari is the odd one out. Text overflow ellipsis inheritence handling and sticky elements in a scrolling flex container off the top of my head. But there seems to be lots of those things where it works fine in FF and Chrome but not Safari. Further, Apple seems to show little interest in improving. About what you'd expect from somebody high on their own market position(dominant on OSX and exclusive on IOS until recently). So, a lot like IE back in the day IMHO.
  - dmitriid 6y ago
    We can pick and chose whatever area we decide to view identical or diverging. The fact of the matter is this: https://web-confluence.appspot.com/#!/confluence https://web-confluence.appspot.com/#!/confluence - Chrome: 7602 web APIs - Firefox: 6572 web APIs - Safari: 6335 web APIs (Web APIs include everything, including CSS, see API catalog at the top right of the page). If anything, Firefox is identical to Safari. This is especially evident if you look at the "browser-specific" tag Safari is adding 150 to 400 new APIs with each release. It's harder to see this because their cadence has historically been tied to new OS releases (so, yearly, and really wish they'd increase the cadence). Meanwhile, in the latest version alone Chrome released 75 new APIs. And they release 20 to 70 new APIs in every version which they release monthly [1]. Yes, Safari may be less prioritized than other teams at Apple, but in no conceivable way, shape, or form are they "the new IE6". [1] https://www.chromestatus.com/features/schedule https://www.chromestatus.com/features/schedule
    - jorams 6y ago
      I agree "the new IE6" is a tad much, but this... > there are a growing number of areas where Chrome and Firefox have nearly identical behavior and Safari is the odd one out. ...is definitely true for me when developing relatively simple sites. I develop in Firefox and it's been a long time since I've had to change any CSS to make it work in Chrome. Meanwhile Safari has had broken default SVG sizing for years now (unless they fixed it recently), ignores padding on <select> (so you need to set the height) and other things like that. It's all minor, but it's annoying to deal with. Especially considering you need Apple hardware to test with. But I can't complain too much, since I also still need to support IE11.

Safari has become the new IE in a lot of ways as far as compatibility. A good first step would be to stop gating Safari updates behind OSX updates.

by Rapzid 6y ago

Safari has become the new IE in a lot of ways as far as compatibility. A good first step would be to stop gating Safari updates behind OSX updates.

tppiotrowski 6y ago

Isn't this what Safari Technology Preview is supposed to be? Although even that release cadence is sluggish compared to Chromium/Firefox... https://developer.apple.com/safari/download/ https://developer.apple.com/safari/download/

unilynx 6y ago

Gating? Safari 14 was released sep 16, Big Sur came in november

Rapzid 6y ago
Safari 14 only supports webp in Big Sur. If you want that "update" you have to upgrade OSX. Sometimes it's version number, sometimes like in this case it's just the feature. From a browser compatibility perspective though it's not much different. We are waiting on lagging support for certain browser features because Apple is gating them behind OSX upgrades.

dmitriid 6y ago

It really hasn't. Most of the shiny new features that Chrome pushes are actively objected by both Mozilla and Webkit teams.

Rapzid 6y ago
Yeah, but there are a growing number of areas where Chrome and Firefox have nearly identical behavior and Safari is the odd one out. Text overflow ellipsis inheritence handling and sticky elements in a scrolling flex container off the top of my head. But there seems to be lots of those things where it works fine in FF and Chrome but not Safari. Further, Apple seems to show little interest in improving. About what you'd expect from somebody high on their own market position(dominant on OSX and exclusive on IOS until recently). So, a lot like IE back in the day IMHO.
- dmitriid 6y ago
  We can pick and chose whatever area we decide to view identical or diverging. The fact of the matter is this: https://web-confluence.appspot.com/#!/confluence https://web-confluence.appspot.com/#!/confluence - Chrome: 7602 web APIs - Firefox: 6572 web APIs - Safari: 6335 web APIs (Web APIs include everything, including CSS, see API catalog at the top right of the page). If anything, Firefox is identical to Safari. This is especially evident if you look at the "browser-specific" tag Safari is adding 150 to 400 new APIs with each release. It's harder to see this because their cadence has historically been tied to new OS releases (so, yearly, and really wish they'd increase the cadence). Meanwhile, in the latest version alone Chrome released 75 new APIs. And they release 20 to 70 new APIs in every version which they release monthly [1]. Yes, Safari may be less prioritized than other teams at Apple, but in no conceivable way, shape, or form are they "the new IE6". [1] https://www.chromestatus.com/features/schedule https://www.chromestatus.com/features/schedule
  - jorams 6y ago
    I agree "the new IE6" is a tad much, but this... > there are a growing number of areas where Chrome and Firefox have nearly identical behavior and Safari is the odd one out. ...is definitely true for me when developing relatively simple sites. I develop in Firefox and it's been a long time since I've had to change any CSS to make it work in Chrome. Meanwhile Safari has had broken default SVG sizing for years now (unless they fixed it recently), ignores padding on <select> (so you need to set the height) and other things like that. It's all minor, but it's annoying to deal with. Especially considering you need Apple hardware to test with. But I can't complain too much, since I also still need to support IE11.