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You’re talking as if the W3C or even Mozilla don’t exist. This isn’t an Apple vs Google thing. This is an Apple vs web standards thing. That’s why Safari is out

You’re talking as if the W3C or even Mozilla don’t exist. This isn’t an Apple vs Google thing. This is an Apple vs web standards thing. That’s why Safari is outdated for developers.

jolux 5y ago
For the most part W3C is where standards go when they’re finished (often long after developers expect them to be available everywhere, especially these days). WebUSB for example is currently a draft, not a standard. Many of these complaints are about technologies that Chrome implements that have yet to be fully standardized.
- berkes 5y ago
  > Many of these complaints are about technologies that Chrome implements The article mentions explicitely: WebRTC, VP9, WebP, notifications, home screen icon shortcut, Local data storage, camera, microphone, USB port, and some more. The only one in there that is not supported by w3c, as far as I know, is USB. All others are proper W3 standards yet unsupported by Apple WebKit/Safari. Many of these complaints are about technologies that are fully standardized and supported by all other mayor browsers.
  - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
    Notice how these are all Google technologies? That doesn't contradict your point per se, but it basically feels to me like Google is dictating the standards right now. So I'm not sure Apple needs to play along.
    - berkes 5y ago
      How is push notifications, local storage, camera, location, microphone and USB "Google tech"?
    - woojoo666 5y ago
      It seems like the bigger issue is that Apple isn't playing a bigger part in developing web standards. If Apple doesn't like certain features, they should fight to keep them from being standardized, instead of just refusing to implement them on their own browsers. Where else are web developers supposed to look towards when trying to figure out what's standard and what's not?
pjmlp 5y ago
For all pratical purposes they don't. W3C nowadays only retifies standards that are in widespread use, and Firefox is no longer relevant in our browser matrix for deliveries, with a single digit usage.
alwillis 5y ago
This isn’t an Apple vs Google thing. This is an Apple vs web standards thing. It’s actually and Apple vs. APIs and technologies that allow fingerprinting on the web thing. Nobody mentions that Mozilla has sided with Apple much of the time to not implement some of these same APIs and technologies.
- oaiey 5y ago
  Then apple should focus on improving the APIs to be privacy safe (how they successfully do in their own APIs). But they are not. It is not about privacy. It is about revenue.
  - alwillis 5y ago
    hen apple should focus on improving the APIs to be privacy safe (how they successfully do in their own APIs). If you follow some of the conversations on GitHub when a proposal comes up from Google, which I sometimes do, there’s no simple way to make some of these APIs private. And when Apple proposes ways to do so, Google balks at them because… their revenue is based on advertising that tracks users across the web. It’s not rocket science. Remember, Google is the only company that ships a mainstream browser that doesn’t come with privacy settings by default. There’s no features in Chrome to block trackers or limit how 3rd party cookies are used unlike Safari, Firefox and Edge. Apple’s market cap is around 2.5 trillion dollars; while they make revenue from apps, it’s a rounding error compared to their overall market cap or their iPhone revenue.
    - jsnell 5y ago
      I don't know why you think the market cap is relevant here. But Apple's net income in 2020 was about $60B. The total App Store revenue was about $64B, out of which Apple extracted $20B in rent. Not all of that $20B was profit, but based on what we know about the economics of running such stores, it was about $15B of profit. That is 25% of all of Apple's profit in 2020. Apple will do anything to protect that income stream. If the way to protect it is to cripple the web, well, you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.
- 5y ago
tasogare 5y ago
The fact web standards exist doesn't not mean they are to be used or implemented. If that were the case, the web would have became the semantic web by now given how much standards the W3C wrote about that.
coldtea 5y ago
>You’re talking as if the W3C The W3C doesn't exist, hasn't mattered for 15+ years, haven't you heard? It's not even the HTML WG that matters anymore (which took over from W3C in an ad-hoc way). It's basically Google, and that's that.
Devasta 5y ago
Web standards stopped mattering in 2004, these days they are just whatever Chrome implements, and like Mozilla they are kept around so that Google can pretend they don't control the web.
dmitriid 5y ago
Yes. From Google's point of view they don't exist. https://webapicontroversy.com/ https://webapicontroversy.com/ and WebHID timeline: https://twitter.com/dmitriid/status/1419436102373584905 https://twitter.com/dmitriid/status/1419436102373584905 There are countless other examples
tannhaeuser 5y ago
W3C hasn't been involved in HTML "standards" for over ten years now (they're hosting the CSS WG, though). Don't get me wrong. I think WHATWG (Domenic et al, and Hixie before) worked very hard to bring HTML forward. And the idea to have a loose workshop of "browser vendors" agree on how to evolve browsers might've looked like a good one at the time. But is nevertheless not what standards are about, especially when it drives "browser vendors" out of business or out of producing browsers alltogether (such as Opera, Hixie's original employer, and even Microsoft). Also, Mozilla lending credibility to such an effort hasn't helped Mozilla either when Firefox has fallen from its position as dominant and innovative browser to low 1-figure usage. At a certain point years ago, work done on "web standards" has become a Google stealth ops to own the Web even more than they already do. As it stands, WHATWG will be remembered as the ones to have killed the Web, and oddly enough, Apple as the last ones standing in opposition to a web owned by Google. Certainly not webdevs caring about fscking PWAs and push notifications that absolutely nobody wants.
mikl 5y ago
If we’re talking about mobile browsers, Mozilla functionally doesn’t exist. That space is just Safari vs. Chrome(ium). And Apple are not obliged to have 100% feature parity with Chrome.
- afavour 5y ago
  And if we’re talking about iOS browsers, Google doesn’t functionally exist. That space is just Safari. …hence why people complain about Apple’s neglect.
- unethical_ban 5y ago
  Why do you say that? Firefox on Mobile exists, and I was under the impression that on Android, it uses its own rendering engine.
  - mikl 5y ago
    It exists, but its market share is negligible. According to StatCounter, Firefox has a market share of 0.5% on mobile: https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/mobile/worldwide https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/mobile/world... Even on desktop, Firefox is sliding towards irrelevancy, with just 7% market share.
    - MiddleEndian 5y ago
      Honestly it's weird to me that more people don't use Firefox on Android. Only mobile browser that supports uBlock Origin.
      - alluro2 5y ago
        Apart from that, it's also fast, rock solid, has UI on the bottom, which is much easier to use, syncs with desktop (if you want that) etc...In general, it's excellent and I don't understand why it isn't hugely more used - unless I concede to the argument that people just don't care about privacy and Google's monopoly...

You’re talking as if the W3C or even Mozilla don’t exist. This isn’t an Apple vs Google thing. This is an Apple vs web standards thing. That’s why Safari is outdated for developers.

jolux 5y ago

For the most part W3C is where standards go when they’re finished (often long after developers expect them to be available everywhere, especially these days). WebUSB for example is currently a draft, not a standard. Many of these complaints are about technologies that Chrome implements that have yet to be fully standardized.

berkes 5y ago
> Many of these complaints are about technologies that Chrome implements The article mentions explicitely: WebRTC, VP9, WebP, notifications, home screen icon shortcut, Local data storage, camera, microphone, USB port, and some more. The only one in there that is not supported by w3c, as far as I know, is USB. All others are proper W3 standards yet unsupported by Apple WebKit/Safari. Many of these complaints are about technologies that are fully standardized and supported by all other mayor browsers.
- Wowfunhappy 5y ago
  Notice how these are all Google technologies? That doesn't contradict your point per se, but it basically feels to me like Google is dictating the standards right now. So I'm not sure Apple needs to play along.
  - berkes 5y ago
    How is push notifications, local storage, camera, location, microphone and USB "Google tech"?
  - woojoo666 5y ago
    It seems like the bigger issue is that Apple isn't playing a bigger part in developing web standards. If Apple doesn't like certain features, they should fight to keep them from being standardized, instead of just refusing to implement them on their own browsers. Where else are web developers supposed to look towards when trying to figure out what's standard and what's not?

pjmlp 5y ago

For all pratical purposes they don't. W3C nowadays only retifies standards that are in widespread use, and Firefox is no longer relevant in our browser matrix for deliveries, with a single digit usage.

alwillis 5y ago

This isn’t an Apple vs Google thing. This is an Apple vs web standards thing. It’s actually and Apple vs. APIs and technologies that allow fingerprinting on the web thing. Nobody mentions that Mozilla has sided with Apple much of the time to not implement some of these same APIs and technologies.

oaiey 5y ago
Then apple should focus on improving the APIs to be privacy safe (how they successfully do in their own APIs). But they are not. It is not about privacy. It is about revenue.
- alwillis 5y ago
  hen apple should focus on improving the APIs to be privacy safe (how they successfully do in their own APIs). If you follow some of the conversations on GitHub when a proposal comes up from Google, which I sometimes do, there’s no simple way to make some of these APIs private. And when Apple proposes ways to do so, Google balks at them because… their revenue is based on advertising that tracks users across the web. It’s not rocket science. Remember, Google is the only company that ships a mainstream browser that doesn’t come with privacy settings by default. There’s no features in Chrome to block trackers or limit how 3rd party cookies are used unlike Safari, Firefox and Edge. Apple’s market cap is around 2.5 trillion dollars; while they make revenue from apps, it’s a rounding error compared to their overall market cap or their iPhone revenue.
  - jsnell 5y ago
    I don't know why you think the market cap is relevant here. But Apple's net income in 2020 was about $60B. The total App Store revenue was about $64B, out of which Apple extracted $20B in rent. Not all of that $20B was profit, but based on what we know about the economics of running such stores, it was about $15B of profit. That is 25% of all of Apple's profit in 2020. Apple will do anything to protect that income stream. If the way to protect it is to cripple the web, well, you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.
5y ago

tasogare 5y ago

The fact web standards exist doesn't not mean they are to be used or implemented. If that were the case, the web would have became the semantic web by now given how much standards the W3C wrote about that.

coldtea 5y ago

>You’re talking as if the W3C The W3C doesn't exist, hasn't mattered for 15+ years, haven't you heard? It's not even the HTML WG that matters anymore (which took over from W3C in an ad-hoc way). It's basically Google, and that's that.

Devasta 5y ago

Web standards stopped mattering in 2004, these days they are just whatever Chrome implements, and like Mozilla they are kept around so that Google can pretend they don't control the web.

dmitriid 5y ago

Yes. From Google's point of view they don't exist. https://webapicontroversy.com/ https://webapicontroversy.com/ and WebHID timeline: https://twitter.com/dmitriid/status/1419436102373584905 https://twitter.com/dmitriid/status/1419436102373584905 There are countless other examples

tannhaeuser 5y ago

W3C hasn't been involved in HTML "standards" for over ten years now (they're hosting the CSS WG, though). Don't get me wrong. I think WHATWG (Domenic et al, and Hixie before) worked very hard to bring HTML forward. And the idea to have a loose workshop of "browser vendors" agree on how to evolve browsers might've looked like a good one at the time. But is nevertheless not what standards are about, especially when it drives "browser vendors" out of business or out of producing browsers alltogether (such as Opera, Hixie's original employer, and even Microsoft). Also, Mozilla lending credibility to such an effort hasn't helped Mozilla either when Firefox has fallen from its position as dominant and innovative browser to low 1-figure usage. At a certain point years ago, work done on "web standards" has become a Google stealth ops to own the Web even more than they already do. As it stands, WHATWG will be remembered as the ones to have killed the Web, and oddly enough, Apple as the last ones standing in opposition to a web owned by Google. Certainly not webdevs caring about fscking PWAs and push notifications that absolutely nobody wants.

mikl 5y ago

If we’re talking about mobile browsers, Mozilla functionally doesn’t exist. That space is just Safari vs. Chrome(ium). And Apple are not obliged to have 100% feature parity with Chrome.

afavour 5y ago
And if we’re talking about iOS browsers, Google doesn’t functionally exist. That space is just Safari. …hence why people complain about Apple’s neglect.
unethical_ban 5y ago
Why do you say that? Firefox on Mobile exists, and I was under the impression that on Android, it uses its own rendering engine.
- mikl 5y ago
  It exists, but its market share is negligible. According to StatCounter, Firefox has a market share of 0.5% on mobile: https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/mobile/worldwide https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/mobile/world... Even on desktop, Firefox is sliding towards irrelevancy, with just 7% market share.
  - MiddleEndian 5y ago
    Honestly it's weird to me that more people don't use Firefox on Android. Only mobile browser that supports uBlock Origin.
    - alluro2 5y ago
      Apart from that, it's also fast, rock solid, has UI on the bottom, which is much easier to use, syncs with desktop (if you want that) etc...In general, it's excellent and I don't understand why it isn't hugely more used - unless I concede to the argument that people just don't care about privacy and Google's monopoly...