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You are correct that Safari has major compatibility issues, but incorrect that the problem is simply that developers target Chrome (it happens sometimes, sure).
by Hasu 5y ago
You are correct that Safari has major compatibility issues, but incorrect that the problem is simply that developers target Chrome (it happens sometimes, sure). Most things that work in Chrome also work in Firefox, but WebKit is ~10 years behind both Firefox and Chrome because Apple hasn't invested in keeping up to date with web APIs where their competitors have. Hell, even Edge (before it adopted Chromium) was more compatible than Safari.
Personally, I view Safari in 2022 the same way I viewed IE in 2012 - as a backwards browser holding back web development because the company developing it just doesn't care about the web. The compatibility issues aren't as bad, but I have to care about Safari because iOS still won't let any browser use anything other than WebKit, where there was a point where saying "Anyone choosing to use IE11 deserves a bad experience" made a certain amount of sense. No one gets a choice on their iPhone, so Apple makes things harder for web developers, probably because they want them all to be iOS app developers instead.
- fault1 5y agoPersonally, I think the last few versions of Safari have caught up a lot. Safari development does seem to go through spurts, depending on who is working at Apple. Let's not forget that in the past, it's been a major driver of web innovation, particularly in the late 2000s to early 2010s.