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My hypothesis is that Apple is probably getting enough money from companies having to buy their devs Macbooks that they don't feel like releasing Safari on Wind

My hypothesis is that Apple is probably getting enough money from companies having to buy their devs Macbooks that they don't feel like releasing Safari on Windows/Linux (much less Xcode).

pndy 6y ago
I think it's because at some point they start to rely on features solely available in OSX and at the same time repeating somehow what Microsoft did in dominant years of IE on Windows but without all that predatory tactics. The times obviously change; today companies give their users ecosystems of software and services successfully trapping them within these; Safari is the browser for Apple ecosystem, just like Edge tries to be for Microsoft one. Safari on Windows was left alone in time Chrome was in the process of being bundled with various software installers as an additional option - which is the way how this browser become popular. I doubt it will be ever pushed forward with development, simply because Microsoft and Windows it's not Apple's subject of interest. Sure, they do offer iCloud services for Windows but it's a rather basic stuff that allows to use different platform from time to time, not on everyday basis (as in, you aren't buying just to remove OSX and install Windows). Of course, would be great to have more options but we're living in almost homogeneous web browser world - it's all about Chromium/Blink, even Microsoft abandon their engine and took Chromium. There's of course Firefox but honestly, I don't think it's gonna last long - not will all these decisions that has been made and how Mozilla treated its (power)users. We're all dependent on Chromium, its devteam and what Google decides is "best" for the whole world and the Internet. Which I believe, is certainly a bad thing.
- JohnBooty 6y ago
  I think it's because at some point they start to rely on features solely available in OSX This is the only answer that really makes sense to me. I think it tightly couples with MacOS stuff like sandboxing, whatever codec stuff they're doing, and whatever perf stuff they're doing to make Safari "feel" so fast on the Mac. I think they feel that replicating all of that in Win32 would just be impossible/unsustainable. Still, I wish they'd just make it some kind of "developer edition" thing. It could be a bit janky, even... as long as it was clearly labeled "for developers" or whatever I don't really see it giving the company a black eye. We're all dependent on Chromium, its devteam and what Google decides is "best" for the whole world and the Internet. Which I believe, is certainly a bad thing. I agree wholeheartedly, and Apple seems to agree! That's what's so f'ing baffling to me. Clearly they feel that Safari is an extremely important project; the only thing standing between Google utterly 100% owning the web in every sense that matters. A thing that would clearly be bad for Apple. Accordingly, Safari on Mac gets a ton of investment from Apple. And clearly Apple feels Safari is so important that it's the only browser engine allowed on iOS. But, I can tell you from experience, a hell of a lot of B2B stuff and stuff cranked out by small shops is just never tested on Safari. And one reason is that a lot of small shops just don't have a Mac sitting around. And experience tells us that this is the death of a browser. Nobody wants to stick with browser XYZ once some percentage of their stuff stops working. They don't want to run multiple different browsers. It's a pain. They eventually follow the path of least resistance and just use the browser where 100% of their stuff works.
JohnBooty 6y ago
Apple sells about 20 million Macs a year according to this: https://www.statista.com/statistics/263444/sales-of-apple-mac-computers-since-first-quarter-2006/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/263444/sales-of-apple-ma... What percentage of that is possibly due to folks buying Macs just to run Safari? Pure speculation on my part but I don't believe it can be more than a percentage of a percentage. Was there a sudden increase when the Windows version of Safari was discontinued in 2010? It's hard to say exactly, because there are an awful lot of factors involves in sales numbers, but I don't see any evidence to suggest that's the case. Also: think about your average dev or dev shop that buys a Mac just to make sure their stuff works on Safari. Are they buying a shiny new high-margin Mac? Oh heck no. They're buying the cheapest possible new Mac or, more likely, they're getting some cheapo preowned Mac. Or perhaps even more likely, they're using a service like Browserstack. They wouldn't shoot their entire web strategy in the foot just to sell some negligible additional amount of Macs per year.

My hypothesis is that Apple is probably getting enough money from companies having to buy their devs Macbooks that they don't feel like releasing Safari on Windows/Linux (much less Xcode).

pndy 6y ago

I think it's because at some point they start to rely on features solely available in OSX and at the same time repeating somehow what Microsoft did in dominant years of IE on Windows but without all that predatory tactics. The times obviously change; today companies give their users ecosystems of software and services successfully trapping them within these; Safari is the browser for Apple ecosystem, just like Edge tries to be for Microsoft one. Safari on Windows was left alone in time Chrome was in the process of being bundled with various software installers as an additional option - which is the way how this browser become popular. I doubt it will be ever pushed forward with development, simply because Microsoft and Windows it's not Apple's subject of interest. Sure, they do offer iCloud services for Windows but it's a rather basic stuff that allows to use different platform from time to time, not on everyday basis (as in, you aren't buying just to remove OSX and install Windows). Of course, would be great to have more options but we're living in almost homogeneous web browser world - it's all about Chromium/Blink, even Microsoft abandon their engine and took Chromium. There's of course Firefox but honestly, I don't think it's gonna last long - not will all these decisions that has been made and how Mozilla treated its (power)users. We're all dependent on Chromium, its devteam and what Google decides is "best" for the whole world and the Internet. Which I believe, is certainly a bad thing.

JohnBooty 6y ago
I think it's because at some point they start to rely on features solely available in OSX This is the only answer that really makes sense to me. I think it tightly couples with MacOS stuff like sandboxing, whatever codec stuff they're doing, and whatever perf stuff they're doing to make Safari "feel" so fast on the Mac. I think they feel that replicating all of that in Win32 would just be impossible/unsustainable. Still, I wish they'd just make it some kind of "developer edition" thing. It could be a bit janky, even... as long as it was clearly labeled "for developers" or whatever I don't really see it giving the company a black eye. We're all dependent on Chromium, its devteam and what Google decides is "best" for the whole world and the Internet. Which I believe, is certainly a bad thing. I agree wholeheartedly, and Apple seems to agree! That's what's so f'ing baffling to me. Clearly they feel that Safari is an extremely important project; the only thing standing between Google utterly 100% owning the web in every sense that matters. A thing that would clearly be bad for Apple. Accordingly, Safari on Mac gets a ton of investment from Apple. And clearly Apple feels Safari is so important that it's the only browser engine allowed on iOS. But, I can tell you from experience, a hell of a lot of B2B stuff and stuff cranked out by small shops is just never tested on Safari. And one reason is that a lot of small shops just don't have a Mac sitting around. And experience tells us that this is the death of a browser. Nobody wants to stick with browser XYZ once some percentage of their stuff stops working. They don't want to run multiple different browsers. It's a pain. They eventually follow the path of least resistance and just use the browser where 100% of their stuff works.

JohnBooty 6y ago

Apple sells about 20 million Macs a year according to this: https://www.statista.com/statistics/263444/sales-of-apple-mac-computers-since-first-quarter-2006/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/263444/sales-of-apple-ma... What percentage of that is possibly due to folks buying Macs just to run Safari? Pure speculation on my part but I don't believe it can be more than a percentage of a percentage. Was there a sudden increase when the Windows version of Safari was discontinued in 2010? It's hard to say exactly, because there are an awful lot of factors involves in sales numbers, but I don't see any evidence to suggest that's the case. Also: think about your average dev or dev shop that buys a Mac just to make sure their stuff works on Safari. Are they buying a shiny new high-margin Mac? Oh heck no. They're buying the cheapest possible new Mac or, more likely, they're getting some cheapo preowned Mac. Or perhaps even more likely, they're using a service like Browserstack. They wouldn't shoot their entire web strategy in the foot just to sell some negligible additional amount of Macs per year.