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News from WWDC22: WebKit Features in Safari 16 Beta

114 points by monkin 4y ago

rektide 4y ago
> Just when you thought there weren’t enough different kinds of workers, there’s a new type of worker... SharedWorkers shipping Chrome 4 in January 2010[1]!! Firefox eventually shipped in 2014 (Firefox 29). > ...in Safari Haha yeah. Maybe re-do your marketing on this one. It took Apple well over a decade to support a basic, essential function required for webapps to be able to have elementary cross-tab capabilities. Apple kept the web down on this one, super super hard. Absolutely brutal punching down. They mercilessly said they would not do it, that it was not going to happen. And that kept the whole web down. iOS said no. The titan has spoken. [1] https://caniuse.com/sharedworkers https://caniuse.com/sharedworkers
- dmitriid 4y ago
  > Safari 16 introduces a re-architecture of WebKit’s accessibility support on macOS that delivers improved performance and increased responsiveness This is a magnitudes more important improvement and pushing the web forward than pretending that whateverworkers are a thing that is usable beyond very few convoluted examples (even if those examples end up running in production somewhere)
  - vorpalhex 4y ago
    Webworkers are a pretty critical foundational component of a lot of apps these days. You can probably skate by without them on simple cases but they are up there with ES6+, fetch, virtual DOM, etc.
    - coldtea 4y ago
      We had that functionality back in the 80s even, with anothe type of app, called a "native app". Those apps are not why the web was created, it's just using browsers as a poor man's cross platform sandboxed app delivery mechanism...
      - vorpalhex 4y ago
        The web was created to serve users. Users benefit from rich web apps.
        dmitriid 4y ago
        The web was created to share text documents with a few images here and there among the text. That's it. Sure, users benefit from rich apps. The web isn't a suitable platform for rich apps and will hardly ever be.
      - kazinator 4y ago
        Native apps is not why the web was created by Berners-Lee and gang, but a certain segment of the web has been chasing the desktop-like experience since, on, 1990-something. The obsession with the desktop experience, and the associated inferiority complex, are pretty much part of the web DNA.
        rektide 4y ago
        > The obsession with the desktop experience, The "obsession" is with having a good common platform for development. Powered by some of the fastest rendering engines on the planet, some of the fastest language runtimes out there. With an unbelievably joyous continuous development brought about by fantastic live tools. For over a decade, with ongoing & continuous & highly visible improvement. It's disgraceful what sad moaning & endless disdain people who like working here have to suffer, how berated we get for seeing potential & chasing it. Getting insulted & slandered is so common, this is so typical, so regular; endless dogpiles by the haters, and it's so cheap, such an expression of negativity & bias & cruelty. I never enjoyed writing Win32 or .NET. I never enjoyed writing Qt. I never enjoyed writing FLTK nor GTK. These systems did not spark joy. The native platforms always felt crap, were so much ceremony & encumbrance, and so controlled & crufty & verbose to work with. On the web, I had a live canvas of hypertext, with rich information, ready to go, with a couple lines of HTML. And then I could sprinkle in programmability, add some JavaScript & start to move & shake things. This was an endlessly rewarding loop, was pure joy. The web is joyful. It keeps bringing better & better capabilities, more and more joy. People can go play with WebMIDI now, we can work with Gamepads, or magnenometers or accelerometers. This is fun, this is amazing. It works on all devices (some iOS exceptions may apply). > the associated inferiority complex, News-flash: the web won. It's creaming everything else. It's where jobs & development are done today, the default-go-to. It's just better. Webapps like VSCode run stupid fast & do everything better than native did, and because they're built on JS & the web they have sick sick sickeningly awesome plugins that were fast & easy to build. It's a tragedy that there's so many grumpy hurt feeling abound, around this great & good rise, that such a wonderful fantastic capable & competent system has so many cranky sad mopey feelings. If there's anyone that feels an inferiority complex, it's definitely native people. They will not simmer down & chill the frak out with their endless bemoaning & whining & belittling of the web. The web is constantly endlessly dragged on, shat on, in thread after thread after thread, by people acting high & mighty & telling us, effectively, how dare we? I didn't give you permission to be awesome! My skills are the only ones that count! What you do isn't right! So again, > the desktop experience, This is a relic, ancient dust to us. Our medium is networked by default, can be reached instantly via any device. We have rich servers providing powerful capabilities behind our thick-client user interfaces. Network architectures & information design underpin & shape our implementation decisions, are considered as we model & extend. The word API? It basically means "web interface" more than it means "native library interface" for most people now- because the web is awesome, because what we do is visible & engageable & more a part of the world & active than any lonely, isolated, compiled-down desktop app ever can be. That we happen to also have buttons & click on things doesn't make us the same. I will try to insult your platform a little less in the future. But please ya'll, you too need to show a modicum of respect. Having nothing but degrading insults for the web is small, it's out of touch, and the complaining is seemingly bottomless: here ya'll are, in a submission about the web, once again complaining that it's advancing.
  - sumy23 4y ago
    When has accessibility pushed things forward? In my mind, accessibility is about parity with some existing standard, not about pushing the envelope forward.
    - SahAssar 4y ago
      Accessibility has made some sites and apps expose their data in more-easily understandable ways. In general if you need to make your interfaces accessible you will also make them easier to parse.
  - rektide 4y ago
    > [Accessibility performance improvements are] a magnitudes more important improvement and pushing the web forward than... I don't think zero-sum adversarial X vs Y thinking is helpful. Both of these have value. As a developer, it sounds like accessibility already worked, and that the benefit to the accessibilities-using features is speed, which is good, but likely not groundbreaking. But I also would like some of the many features of the web to be unlocked by this slow-to-implement browser, and SharedWorkers is over a decade old & sits in an important & unique spot. Trying to play favorites isn't in my interest, but recognizing the values of each I think is informative. > pretending that whateverworkers are a thing that is usable beyond very few convoluted examples If you don't even know what the thing is you probably aren't qualified to judge. You don't seem to be interested in learning or informing; you seem to be trying to score points, & doing so by mockery & cruelty. I hope we can find better manners, more appropriate for good, learned, engaged Hackers, than this.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- olkingcole 4y ago
  Someone correct me if I'm wrong but isn't it just entirely about competition with the app store? That they don't want to invest in features for apps on a platform "owned" by their largest competitor that then compete with apps on their own platform? On the app store Apple makes 15%, on the web they make zero and Google likely gets whatever ad revenue. I'm not defending Apple, Safari causes has caused me professional pain in the past, but it seems predictable.
  - rektide 4y ago
    It's a mystery! Who knows? But it's not a mystery. There's definitely good people working to advance the web at Apple. That's clear. Apple's even hired up some. But there's still endless struggles, endless conflicts, huge huge parts of the map Apple insists are bad for users that they will not do. Like SharedWorkers, which until recently they insisted they would not do & were bad for users.
  - threeseed 4y ago
    > Someone correct me if I'm wrong but isn't it just entirely about competition with the app store At a previous WWDC they talked about service workers and how they have the potential to significantly impact the performance and battery life of devices if abused. And so a lot of effort has been made trying to isolate and optimise them.
- robotmlg 4y ago
  They did have it in Safari, and they took it out. There was a webkit bug open since 2015 asking them to put it back in, finally closed earlier this year.
- robertoandred 4y ago
  > basic, essential function Simply not true.
  - rektide 4y ago
    > a basic, essential function required for webapps to be able to have elementary cross-tab capabilities Simply get out of here. Clipping my argument down to fit a contrite cheezy meanspirited vacuous soundbite rebuttal is gross & lacks respect. My statement is absolutely true. Go spread empty misleading hate somewhere else.
    - robertoandred 4y ago
      "Cross-tab capabilities" are not basic or essential either.
      - rektide 4y ago
        I think the answer is, it depends. It's been a pretty common-sense part of the web for a decade, powers a lot of experience, & allows developing much better user experiences in many cases. If you have an experience that needs to work across tabs, the alternatives are barbaric & crude & difficult, fault prone, & often waste network traffic. As usual, the Apple fanboys show up to defend the prison they're locked into. By crudely rejecting basic longstanding technology. Typical. I'd like to see a little more high-road in some discussions, something beyond snide defensiveness.
        robertoandred 4y ago
        And what kind of experience needs to work across tabs?
        rektide 4y ago
        A spreadsheet. A chat app. A document editor. A map editor. Anything where information is on screen & needs to be live. Aka, what a huge part of the web today does.
skeletal88 4y ago
Well.. now Safari still is the hated browser to support, instead of IE, because of Apples backwardness
- rektide 4y ago
  IE maybe have been a default choice, but at least it was a choice.
  - freediver 4y ago
    There are over 100 browsers to choose from on iOS as well as on macOS?
    - rektide 4y ago
      Apple famously & longstandingly requires all "browsers" on iOS to use the builtin web views. There are Chrome and Firefox (and others), but they lack many many web platform capabilities & don't boast the far more more featureful render engine that either browser ships with on any other platform. It's all reskinned Safari, forever & ever. For a while the web view they were making apps use was lagging way way behind Safari itself- was just dog slow & utterly unaccelerated[1], but they finally at least ship moderately capable webviews in iOS now. That was a solid half decade of brutal tyranny- anything trying to use the web platform at all had a terrible time, & alternative browsers were a sick laggy disgusting joke. This is one of the biggest sorest points about Apple's complete dominion over iOS & their rule by app store (for many): this titan don't even allow healthy competition on the web. They hold the whole web back. Safari would feel like far less of a villianous poison if Apple didn't rule iOS with a bloody iron fist. [1] http://9to5mac.com/2014/06/03/ios-8-webkit-changes-finally-allow-all-apps-to-have-the-same-performance-as-safari/ http://9to5mac.com/2014/06/03/ios-8-webkit-changes-finally-a... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7843943 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7843943 (12 points, 8 years ago, 1 comments)
      - freediver 4y ago
        I understand the argument of being locked to a single rendering engine (WebKit), but there is just so much to a browser than a rendering engine. Chrome and Firefox on iOS both have the opportunity for their own sync, their own bookmarks/history/settings implementation, their own telemetry, choice to use native controls or not, to decide whether to block ads, trackers and respect user privacy - that is all at discretion of the actual browser app. The role of WebKit is just to render a web page - a modern browser is so much more than that. Now, would allowing other rendering engines be better for iOS? I ultimately think it would, but also can understand Apple's stance of wanting to enforce the most performant, secure and energy efficient rendering engine on something as sensitive to these parameters as a mobile phone.
scraplab 4y ago
Finally, push notifications in iOS coming in... oh, 2023. > "look for Web Push for iOS and iPadOS in 2023."
- google234123 4y ago
  That is just next year :P We are already halfway through this year, right? Anyway, I look forward to every shitty site asking for permission to send notifications adding to the trillions of requests a year...
  - corrral 4y ago
    All the denied sites shitting up my notification-apps list with noise isn't welcome, either. The whole thing's a mis-feature. If it must exist at all, sites shouldn't be able to prompt for it, but simply advertise the functionality and let browsers add a little button or something for the user to actively engage with if they want to see a permissions prompt. Like the way browsers used to handle sites that advertised RSS feeds.
    - dave5104 4y ago
      > Users opt into notifications by first indicating interest through a user gesture — such as clicking a button. Then, they’ll be prompted to give permission for your site or app to send notifications. Users will be able to view and manage notifications in Notifications Center, and customize styles and turn notifications off per website in Notifications Settings. Looks like there will be some interaction required to prompt it. That being said, hoping there's a browser-level option to just turn it off.
      - hbn 4y ago
        I came here to ask about that line. Is that user flow described actually a requirement somehow, or is that just an "ideal scenario"? Cause right after that it says "If you’ve already implemented Web Push for your web app or website using industry best practices, it will automatically work in Safari" and existing implementations don't require a button press that they used in their example. Facebook just pops up the browser prompts to allow or block as soon as you visit the page, as do many news sites and other stuff I don't want notifications from. Maybe the "using industry best practices" part is key, and they somehow will block implementations like Facebook.
sccxy 4y ago
Just make it installable from App Store. Safari messes up rendering engine all the time and creates bugs in many websites. Usually fixes are fast, but it will take ages to get the fix to iOS update.
- corrral 4y ago
  Keeping Mobile Safari releases in step with OS releases is helpful for developers who use webviews in their apps—which is lots of them.
  - MichaelEstes 4y ago
    I’ve had to opposite experience as someone who’s worked extensively with platforms that utilize webviews, when Safari 15 released it broke a lot of WebGL things with their shift to using Metal and all I can say to users that are experiencing problems is update your OS or disable the experimental feature to use Metal with Safari, which both feel like awful answers. Safari has become the modern IE in my mind.
    - corrral 4y ago
      Meanwhile some other developer is really glad their software, that only supports iOS [previous-version] and hasn't been updated for the latest Safari, isn't generating shitloads of bug reports because some of their users updated the browser separate from the OS, and they aren't having to test multiple OS/webview combos. Your particular case might have worked out better, but in general being able to test on an OS version and not have that change out from under you is really helpful.
      - thawaya3113 4y ago
        Tying web browsers to the OS release was a disaster on the Mac and PCs, to the extent that both Apple and Microsoft have stopped doing that. I don’t understand why iOS would be any different.
ydnaclementine 4y ago
unfortunately no webm?
- corrral 4y ago
  Damn, that's the single feature I want them to add most. Literally only for porn—I doubt I'd ever have noticed the feature was missing, otherwise—but still.
- ArchOversight 4y ago
  WebM support is already in Safari... Visit https://dl8.webmfiles.org/big-buck-bunny_trailer.webm https://dl8.webmfiles.org/big-buck-bunny_trailer.webm for example and it will just play. From: https://www.webmfiles.org/demo-files/ https://www.webmfiles.org/demo-files/ (where its embedded with a JavaScript player) Also see: https://caniuse.com/?search=webm https://caniuse.com/?search=webm
  - sccxy 4y ago
    Your example confirms that it is NOT working on iOS 15.5 at the moment... It is not javascript player. It is plain old html video tag.
    - j1elo 4y ago
      Can confirm over here that iOS 15.5 (just recently updated a few days ago) doesn't open the WebM file in Safari. It just offers to download it.
    - ArchOversight 4y ago
      You mentioned Safari, and Safari exists on two platforms. It works on macOS.
- neighbour 4y ago
  I am able to play webm videos in iOS safari since yesterday. Not sure what changed but I assumed it was an overnight OS update.
sccxy 4y ago
Wishlist: * controllable PWA install prompt * Keep GPS working after screen lock or app change and then return * Wake lock
- thrusong 4y ago
  I would love a PWA install prompt. The typical iOS user finds it weird to go Share > Add to Home Screen.
  - lelandfe 4y ago
    s/finds it weird/does not know The PWA install rate on iOS is abysmal for this reason.
  - dmitriid 4y ago
    This is the go to button for all kinds of functionality, not just sharing. It's weird that Apple decided to cram everything there, but I'm thinking people are now used to just having everything there. On a personal level I'd rather not have any more banners on top of half a dozen or so that already plague a typical website.
- endisneigh 4y ago
  I’d be surprised if Apple implements the prompt since they’ve been careful to implement the bare minimum.
- etchalon 4y ago
  Absolutely not to continuous GPS tracking, and wake lock. No website should have that level of access to my device.
  - bastawhiz 4y ago
    You need to explicitly opt into location access. The site you use for tracking your run shouldn't stop working because your phone went to sleep. Sites already do "wake lock" by playing videos they you can't see. How many times have you tried to read a recipe and your phone shuts off while your hands are covered in flour, or you need to keep tapping your iPad screen while watching sports scores or election results? These are both incredibly useful APIs that you probably would enjoy if you didn't dismiss them outright.
productceo 4y ago
Still no abolition of policy suppressing PWAs to 50MB?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- mtomweb 4y ago
  is that still a thing? I'm sure i've stored more than 50mb in idb before...
bhouston 4y ago
WebXR please! Every one browser and platform has it including Oculus. Apple you are single handed holding back the AR industry here.
- astlouis44 4y ago
  This.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
astlouis44 4y ago
Was hoping to see WebXR and WebGPU show up, these two technologies are going to allow an alternative distribution channel for game and app developers, which comprises the vast majority of Apple's services revenue from their app store tax.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- 46Bit 4y ago
  Same - I’m often surprised how little attention this gets. They still don’t support OffscreenCanvas too. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/OffscreenCanvas https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/OffscreenCa...
- dwaite 4y ago
  These are both in development. https://webkit.org/status/#?search=web https://webkit.org/status/#?search=web
richardanaya 4y ago
My kingdom for OffscreenCanvas
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
endisneigh 4y ago
These are all very welcome. I’ll never understand why people don’t want choices and want their tech to be intentionally limited. The flag for web push has been available, albeit non functional since 15.3. Apple needs to hurry and simply allow for alternative app stores as well.
- threeseed 4y ago
  Because choices come with consequences. Web push whilst great for developers and some use cases has also meant dealing with spam and user hostile behaviour. I have 50+ websites that I have to block from sending me web push notifications. It's yet another thing making the web less enjoyable. Likewise alternative app stores mean that I will inevitably have dozens of companies to deal with for refunds, subscription cancellations etc. And many of them will be driven by the need to make money from the store and not the interests of end users.
  - djbusby 4y ago
    Don't you (and I and typical users) click Block each time a site asks? It's not like you click it 50 times a day or per site (is it?)
    - spartanatreyu 4y ago
      What websites are you going on that ask for notifications that you don't want? I only ever see it on tabloid websites that I accidentally mis-click on or the occasional marketing page.
      - djbusby 4y ago
        Zoom and Meet, Slack ... and all those news ones as well.
        spartanatreyu 4y ago
        You don't want notifications for your communication services? (Zoom, Meet, Slack, Teams, Discord, Messenger, etc...) Why not? I only have three reasons coming to my mind, and each of them have a nullifying factor: 1. You're already getting the same notifications from the app of the same communication service you have installed. But then why are you viewing the web version of the service? 2. There is at least one channel/room/whatever that has too much noise and would send a lot of notifications. But each of those services has a way to mute notifications per channel/room/whatever. 3. You don't want to be notified between certain times. But isn't that what the do not disturb mode on your device is for? You put in the times you don't want to be notified and it's done. As for "those news ones as well", I've only been asked if I wanted notifications per each news site once and never again since. I'm assuming you might be visiting a news site that's more spammy, but in that case, they're probably not a news source you really want to be following anyway. Edit: Formatting
tiffanyh 4y ago
It’s so strange to see how many of these features not in Safari Tech Preview. I’m so confused why Safari Tech Preview exists. It’s seems like features in Preview rarely graduate to mainline Safari - yet mainline Safari will get features that were never tested in Preview.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- pvg 4y ago
  Tech Preview is typically a preview of what's coming up for Safari on the current version of macOS. So Tech Preview doesn't 'spoil' the major OS releases and I imagine it's also not really technically possible given the integration between Safari and the OS. Most major OS releases come with things that Safari makes use of.
  - tiffanyh 4y ago
    How do you explain then why so few features in Tech Preview graduate to mainline Safari?
    - pvg 4y ago
      I don't really track it that closely, the impression I had was most (or at least many?) of them do. Do you have some particular set of features in mind?
      - tiffanyh 4y ago
        See things like: https://caniuse.com/link-rel-prefetch https://caniuse.com/link-rel-prefetch Been in Preview since 13.4, never graduated to mainline Safari. Another thread here as well: https://twitter.com/Dieulot/status/1473247987790921728#m https://twitter.com/Dieulot/status/1473247987790921728#m
- paradite 4y ago
  It's used for debugging webview in iOS apps.
saurik 4y ago
I am confused... wasn't Web Push already supported on macOS?
- navanchauhan 4y ago
  I believe this is for iOS/iPadOS
  - saurik 4y ago
    The website says it is for macOS--"Web Push is coming to Safari 16 on macOS Ventura"--and that we should look forward to it on iOS in 2023.
- brewmarche 4y ago
  I remember receiving push notifications from Reddit on macOS Safari quite some time ago. Is this maybe another push mechanism?
  - brewmarche 4y ago
    On second thought maybe the notifications weren’t push per se and it was just using the regular notification API with some web socket or long polling in the background.
arecurrence 4y ago
"Container Queries" WOW! This is a KILLER feature. Chrome doesn't even have this yet.
- rektide 4y ago
  Well, this is a Safari beta. There's a flag in Chrome. It seems to have landed in early December. https://chromestatus.com/feature/6525308435955712 https://chromestatus.com/feature/6525308435955712
- stimpson_j_cat 4y ago
  As a Chrome apologist really this pisses me off but I've been waiting for this forever and applaud the team (especially if they beat Chrome to landing this in a stable release)
- joshstrange 4y ago
  I know it might be year or more after this releases that this will be actually usable (due to adoption) but I cannot wait for this. I hate having to do math/calculations based on viewport height/width to decide how a container should behave at different sizes. There are just so many things that have to be taken into account and all your math/logic falls apart when you change almost anything else that affects the container.
raminf 4y ago
Still no support for Web Bluetooth in Webkit: https://caniuse.com/web-bluetooth https://caniuse.com/web-bluetooth Only major browser not to support it. If they enable it and put hooks for BLE event callbacks, we would no longer need a custom app per-device. Also, if BLE support was there, you could provision your WiFi-connected device without having to go do the whole AP-mode dance: push button on device, toggle WiFi on your phone, set it up on WiFi, etc. It's a big usability blocker for consumer devices. That whole sequence could be automated by visiting a URL on your phone or desktop. They've announced they won't support it, ostensibly because of fingerprinting and privacy concerns. But that could be tackled the same way they've blocked all the other fingerprinting methods (fuzzing, threat of blocking, etc.) Also: WebXR please.
- K0nserv 4y ago
  Only major browser not to support it? Firefox doesn’t either and every other browser just does so because they all use the same engine. A better characterisation of the situation might be: “Web Bluetooth is a non-standard feature supported only by one of the three modern browser engines”. I’m so tired of Google inventing arbitrary stuff for the web, implementing it, and everyone then expecting Mozilla and Apple to just follow suit.
  - rektide 4y ago
    > I'm so tired of Google inventing arbitrary stuff for the web, implementing it, and everyone then expecting Mozilla and Apple to just follow suit. I agree, the situation is awful. It'd be so nice to have a more diverse & robust community of web browsers. The jury pool for "voting" on stnadards is way too small. I'd also point out that Microsoft is still very much here. They may be using Chrome's engine, but they're under no obligation to enable all the features, to stick exactly to what Google is doing. If Edge agrees, it's at least somewhat of a vote. Right now, either Apple & Mozilla have effective veto power on the web. Mozilla is deeply understaffed & barely if at all able to keep up with development. They thankfully started answering request-for-positions a bit back, but I see a lot of specs now-a-days with no response. There's so much web-hating about that things are really tough. There's so many people for whom the web is joy & amazingness, & this feels like a hard condescension to face. Push back feels like broad push back against doing good things, feels like a desire to keep what feels great to us from growing. Tools like VSCode are superpowered badasses, fast & capable with great easy-to-write extensions; true blood of the web. But we can't escape Slack being a dog, and people's long & deep feelings of dislike. Apple has long (well over a decade) been the foot dragging, complaining, miserable laggard, with lots of their own ideas & little willingness to play with others. They invested so little into their webtech for decades, just absolutely miniscule, and the teams had heavy bias, strong ways of thinking they wouldn't bend on. Mozilla recently seems to have switched sides: having given up on WebOS & an rich web platform, they now seem to spend more time claiming to be "pro-privacy" & fighting against really good new capabilities (eg WebMIDI) than working things forwards. Apple and Mozilla both know Google is widely reviled & mistrusted, and are marketing the shit out of their anti-web-platform stances; 'any risk to users is too great!'. Thankfully we see a ton of really really good work happening on https://wicg.io https://wicg.io. It's a good neutral territory to make the platform better. Tons of the web improvements happening are vendor-neutral, are just people with good ideas, that eventually, with support & community, stand a chance of getting sensible improvements implemented in 1 or 2, very occasionally 3 browsers. Alas, there's Apple. :'( Anyhow, yes.
move-on-by 4y ago
What do I have to do to get SVG favicons?
- dwaite 4y ago
  Likely a very low priority and security-impacting feature. I wouldn't hold my breath.
fomine3 4y ago
No Media Source Extension for iOS; long live with HLS

114 points by monkin 4y ago

> Just when you thought there weren’t enough different kinds of workers, there’s a new type of worker... SharedWorkers shipping Chrome 4 in January 2010[1]!! Firefox eventually shipped in 2014 (Firefox 29). > ...in Safari Haha yeah. Maybe re-do your marketing on this one. It took Apple well over a decade to support a basic, essential function required for webapps to be able to have elementary cross-tab capabilities. Apple kept the web down on this one, super super hard. Absolutely brutal punching down. They mercilessly said they would not do it, that it was not going to happen. And that kept the whole web down. iOS said no. The titan has spoken. [1] https://caniuse.com/sharedworkers https://caniuse.com/sharedworkers

dmitriid 4y ago
> Safari 16 introduces a re-architecture of WebKit’s accessibility support on macOS that delivers improved performance and increased responsiveness This is a magnitudes more important improvement and pushing the web forward than pretending that whateverworkers are a thing that is usable beyond very few convoluted examples (even if those examples end up running in production somewhere)
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  Webworkers are a pretty critical foundational component of a lot of apps these days. You can probably skate by without them on simple cases but they are up there with ES6+, fetch, virtual DOM, etc.
  - coldtea 4y ago
    We had that functionality back in the 80s even, with anothe type of app, called a "native app". Those apps are not why the web was created, it's just using browsers as a poor man's cross platform sandboxed app delivery mechanism...
    - vorpalhex 4y ago
      The web was created to serve users. Users benefit from rich web apps.
      - dmitriid 4y ago
        The web was created to share text documents with a few images here and there among the text. That's it. Sure, users benefit from rich apps. The web isn't a suitable platform for rich apps and will hardly ever be.
    - kazinator 4y ago
      Native apps is not why the web was created by Berners-Lee and gang, but a certain segment of the web has been chasing the desktop-like experience since, on, 1990-something. The obsession with the desktop experience, and the associated inferiority complex, are pretty much part of the web DNA.
      - rektide 4y ago
        > The obsession with the desktop experience, The "obsession" is with having a good common platform for development. Powered by some of the fastest rendering engines on the planet, some of the fastest language runtimes out there. With an unbelievably joyous continuous development brought about by fantastic live tools. For over a decade, with ongoing & continuous & highly visible improvement. It's disgraceful what sad moaning & endless disdain people who like working here have to suffer, how berated we get for seeing potential & chasing it. Getting insulted & slandered is so common, this is so typical, so regular; endless dogpiles by the haters, and it's so cheap, such an expression of negativity & bias & cruelty. I never enjoyed writing Win32 or .NET. I never enjoyed writing Qt. I never enjoyed writing FLTK nor GTK. These systems did not spark joy. The native platforms always felt crap, were so much ceremony & encumbrance, and so controlled & crufty & verbose to work with. On the web, I had a live canvas of hypertext, with rich information, ready to go, with a couple lines of HTML. And then I could sprinkle in programmability, add some JavaScript & start to move & shake things. This was an endlessly rewarding loop, was pure joy. The web is joyful. It keeps bringing better & better capabilities, more and more joy. People can go play with WebMIDI now, we can work with Gamepads, or magnenometers or accelerometers. This is fun, this is amazing. It works on all devices (some iOS exceptions may apply). > the associated inferiority complex, News-flash: the web won. It's creaming everything else. It's where jobs & development are done today, the default-go-to. It's just better. Webapps like VSCode run stupid fast & do everything better than native did, and because they're built on JS & the web they have sick sick sickeningly awesome plugins that were fast & easy to build. It's a tragedy that there's so many grumpy hurt feeling abound, around this great & good rise, that such a wonderful fantastic capable & competent system has so many cranky sad mopey feelings. If there's anyone that feels an inferiority complex, it's definitely native people. They will not simmer down & chill the frak out with their endless bemoaning & whining & belittling of the web. The web is constantly endlessly dragged on, shat on, in thread after thread after thread, by people acting high & mighty & telling us, effectively, how dare we? I didn't give you permission to be awesome! My skills are the only ones that count! What you do isn't right! So again, > the desktop experience, This is a relic, ancient dust to us. Our medium is networked by default, can be reached instantly via any device. We have rich servers providing powerful capabilities behind our thick-client user interfaces. Network architectures & information design underpin & shape our implementation decisions, are considered as we model & extend. The word API? It basically means "web interface" more than it means "native library interface" for most people now- because the web is awesome, because what we do is visible & engageable & more a part of the world & active than any lonely, isolated, compiled-down desktop app ever can be. That we happen to also have buttons & click on things doesn't make us the same. I will try to insult your platform a little less in the future. But please ya'll, you too need to show a modicum of respect. Having nothing but degrading insults for the web is small, it's out of touch, and the complaining is seemingly bottomless: here ya'll are, in a submission about the web, once again complaining that it's advancing.
- sumy23 4y ago
  When has accessibility pushed things forward? In my mind, accessibility is about parity with some existing standard, not about pushing the envelope forward.
  - SahAssar 4y ago
    Accessibility has made some sites and apps expose their data in more-easily understandable ways. In general if you need to make your interfaces accessible you will also make them easier to parse.
- rektide 4y ago
  > [Accessibility performance improvements are] a magnitudes more important improvement and pushing the web forward than... I don't think zero-sum adversarial X vs Y thinking is helpful. Both of these have value. As a developer, it sounds like accessibility already worked, and that the benefit to the accessibilities-using features is speed, which is good, but likely not groundbreaking. But I also would like some of the many features of the web to be unlocked by this slow-to-implement browser, and SharedWorkers is over a decade old & sits in an important & unique spot. Trying to play favorites isn't in my interest, but recognizing the values of each I think is informative. > pretending that whateverworkers are a thing that is usable beyond very few convoluted examples If you don't even know what the thing is you probably aren't qualified to judge. You don't seem to be interested in learning or informing; you seem to be trying to score points, & doing so by mockery & cruelty. I hope we can find better manners, more appropriate for good, learned, engaged Hackers, than this.
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olkingcole 4y ago
Someone correct me if I'm wrong but isn't it just entirely about competition with the app store? That they don't want to invest in features for apps on a platform "owned" by their largest competitor that then compete with apps on their own platform? On the app store Apple makes 15%, on the web they make zero and Google likely gets whatever ad revenue. I'm not defending Apple, Safari causes has caused me professional pain in the past, but it seems predictable.
- rektide 4y ago
  It's a mystery! Who knows? But it's not a mystery. There's definitely good people working to advance the web at Apple. That's clear. Apple's even hired up some. But there's still endless struggles, endless conflicts, huge huge parts of the map Apple insists are bad for users that they will not do. Like SharedWorkers, which until recently they insisted they would not do & were bad for users.
- threeseed 4y ago
  > Someone correct me if I'm wrong but isn't it just entirely about competition with the app store At a previous WWDC they talked about service workers and how they have the potential to significantly impact the performance and battery life of devices if abused. And so a lot of effort has been made trying to isolate and optimise them.
robotmlg 4y ago
They did have it in Safari, and they took it out. There was a webkit bug open since 2015 asking them to put it back in, finally closed earlier this year.
robertoandred 4y ago
> basic, essential function Simply not true.
- rektide 4y ago
  > a basic, essential function required for webapps to be able to have elementary cross-tab capabilities Simply get out of here. Clipping my argument down to fit a contrite cheezy meanspirited vacuous soundbite rebuttal is gross & lacks respect. My statement is absolutely true. Go spread empty misleading hate somewhere else.
  - robertoandred 4y ago
    "Cross-tab capabilities" are not basic or essential either.
    - rektide 4y ago
      I think the answer is, it depends. It's been a pretty common-sense part of the web for a decade, powers a lot of experience, & allows developing much better user experiences in many cases. If you have an experience that needs to work across tabs, the alternatives are barbaric & crude & difficult, fault prone, & often waste network traffic. As usual, the Apple fanboys show up to defend the prison they're locked into. By crudely rejecting basic longstanding technology. Typical. I'd like to see a little more high-road in some discussions, something beyond snide defensiveness.
      - robertoandred 4y ago
        And what kind of experience needs to work across tabs?
        rektide 4y ago
        A spreadsheet. A chat app. A document editor. A map editor. Anything where information is on screen & needs to be live. Aka, what a huge part of the web today does.

skeletal88 4y ago

Well.. now Safari still is the hated browser to support, instead of IE, because of Apples backwardness

rektide 4y ago
IE maybe have been a default choice, but at least it was a choice.
- freediver 4y ago
  There are over 100 browsers to choose from on iOS as well as on macOS?
  - rektide 4y ago
    Apple famously & longstandingly requires all "browsers" on iOS to use the builtin web views. There are Chrome and Firefox (and others), but they lack many many web platform capabilities & don't boast the far more more featureful render engine that either browser ships with on any other platform. It's all reskinned Safari, forever & ever. For a while the web view they were making apps use was lagging way way behind Safari itself- was just dog slow & utterly unaccelerated[1], but they finally at least ship moderately capable webviews in iOS now. That was a solid half decade of brutal tyranny- anything trying to use the web platform at all had a terrible time, & alternative browsers were a sick laggy disgusting joke. This is one of the biggest sorest points about Apple's complete dominion over iOS & their rule by app store (for many): this titan don't even allow healthy competition on the web. They hold the whole web back. Safari would feel like far less of a villianous poison if Apple didn't rule iOS with a bloody iron fist. [1] http://9to5mac.com/2014/06/03/ios-8-webkit-changes-finally-allow-all-apps-to-have-the-same-performance-as-safari/ http://9to5mac.com/2014/06/03/ios-8-webkit-changes-finally-a... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7843943 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7843943 (12 points, 8 years ago, 1 comments)
    - freediver 4y ago
      I understand the argument of being locked to a single rendering engine (WebKit), but there is just so much to a browser than a rendering engine. Chrome and Firefox on iOS both have the opportunity for their own sync, their own bookmarks/history/settings implementation, their own telemetry, choice to use native controls or not, to decide whether to block ads, trackers and respect user privacy - that is all at discretion of the actual browser app. The role of WebKit is just to render a web page - a modern browser is so much more than that. Now, would allowing other rendering engines be better for iOS? I ultimately think it would, but also can understand Apple's stance of wanting to enforce the most performant, secure and energy efficient rendering engine on something as sensitive to these parameters as a mobile phone.

scraplab 4y ago

Finally, push notifications in iOS coming in... oh, 2023. > "look for Web Push for iOS and iPadOS in 2023."

google234123 4y ago
That is just next year :P We are already halfway through this year, right? Anyway, I look forward to every shitty site asking for permission to send notifications adding to the trillions of requests a year...
- corrral 4y ago
  All the denied sites shitting up my notification-apps list with noise isn't welcome, either. The whole thing's a mis-feature. If it must exist at all, sites shouldn't be able to prompt for it, but simply advertise the functionality and let browsers add a little button or something for the user to actively engage with if they want to see a permissions prompt. Like the way browsers used to handle sites that advertised RSS feeds.
  - dave5104 4y ago
    > Users opt into notifications by first indicating interest through a user gesture — such as clicking a button. Then, they’ll be prompted to give permission for your site or app to send notifications. Users will be able to view and manage notifications in Notifications Center, and customize styles and turn notifications off per website in Notifications Settings. Looks like there will be some interaction required to prompt it. That being said, hoping there's a browser-level option to just turn it off.
    - hbn 4y ago
      I came here to ask about that line. Is that user flow described actually a requirement somehow, or is that just an "ideal scenario"? Cause right after that it says "If you’ve already implemented Web Push for your web app or website using industry best practices, it will automatically work in Safari" and existing implementations don't require a button press that they used in their example. Facebook just pops up the browser prompts to allow or block as soon as you visit the page, as do many news sites and other stuff I don't want notifications from. Maybe the "using industry best practices" part is key, and they somehow will block implementations like Facebook.

sccxy 4y ago

Just make it installable from App Store. Safari messes up rendering engine all the time and creates bugs in many websites. Usually fixes are fast, but it will take ages to get the fix to iOS update.

corrral 4y ago
Keeping Mobile Safari releases in step with OS releases is helpful for developers who use webviews in their apps—which is lots of them.
- MichaelEstes 4y ago
  I’ve had to opposite experience as someone who’s worked extensively with platforms that utilize webviews, when Safari 15 released it broke a lot of WebGL things with their shift to using Metal and all I can say to users that are experiencing problems is update your OS or disable the experimental feature to use Metal with Safari, which both feel like awful answers. Safari has become the modern IE in my mind.
  - corrral 4y ago
    Meanwhile some other developer is really glad their software, that only supports iOS [previous-version] and hasn't been updated for the latest Safari, isn't generating shitloads of bug reports because some of their users updated the browser separate from the OS, and they aren't having to test multiple OS/webview combos. Your particular case might have worked out better, but in general being able to test on an OS version and not have that change out from under you is really helpful.
    - thawaya3113 4y ago
      Tying web browsers to the OS release was a disaster on the Mac and PCs, to the extent that both Apple and Microsoft have stopped doing that. I don’t understand why iOS would be any different.

ydnaclementine 4y ago

unfortunately no webm?

corrral 4y ago
Damn, that's the single feature I want them to add most. Literally only for porn—I doubt I'd ever have noticed the feature was missing, otherwise—but still.
ArchOversight 4y ago
WebM support is already in Safari... Visit https://dl8.webmfiles.org/big-buck-bunny_trailer.webm https://dl8.webmfiles.org/big-buck-bunny_trailer.webm for example and it will just play. From: https://www.webmfiles.org/demo-files/ https://www.webmfiles.org/demo-files/ (where its embedded with a JavaScript player) Also see: https://caniuse.com/?search=webm https://caniuse.com/?search=webm
- sccxy 4y ago
  Your example confirms that it is NOT working on iOS 15.5 at the moment... It is not javascript player. It is plain old html video tag.
  - j1elo 4y ago
    Can confirm over here that iOS 15.5 (just recently updated a few days ago) doesn't open the WebM file in Safari. It just offers to download it.
  - ArchOversight 4y ago
    You mentioned Safari, and Safari exists on two platforms. It works on macOS.
neighbour 4y ago
I am able to play webm videos in iOS safari since yesterday. Not sure what changed but I assumed it was an overnight OS update.

sccxy 4y ago

Wishlist: * controllable PWA install prompt * Keep GPS working after screen lock or app change and then return * Wake lock

thrusong 4y ago
I would love a PWA install prompt. The typical iOS user finds it weird to go Share > Add to Home Screen.
- lelandfe 4y ago
  s/finds it weird/does not know The PWA install rate on iOS is abysmal for this reason.
- dmitriid 4y ago
  This is the go to button for all kinds of functionality, not just sharing. It's weird that Apple decided to cram everything there, but I'm thinking people are now used to just having everything there. On a personal level I'd rather not have any more banners on top of half a dozen or so that already plague a typical website.
endisneigh 4y ago
I’d be surprised if Apple implements the prompt since they’ve been careful to implement the bare minimum.
etchalon 4y ago
Absolutely not to continuous GPS tracking, and wake lock. No website should have that level of access to my device.
- bastawhiz 4y ago
  You need to explicitly opt into location access. The site you use for tracking your run shouldn't stop working because your phone went to sleep. Sites already do "wake lock" by playing videos they you can't see. How many times have you tried to read a recipe and your phone shuts off while your hands are covered in flour, or you need to keep tapping your iPad screen while watching sports scores or election results? These are both incredibly useful APIs that you probably would enjoy if you didn't dismiss them outright.

productceo 4y ago

Still no abolition of policy suppressing PWAs to 50MB?

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mtomweb 4y ago
is that still a thing? I'm sure i've stored more than 50mb in idb before...

bhouston 4y ago

WebXR please! Every one browser and platform has it including Oculus. Apple you are single handed holding back the AR industry here.

astlouis44 4y ago
This.
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astlouis44 4y ago

Was hoping to see WebXR and WebGPU show up, these two technologies are going to allow an alternative distribution channel for game and app developers, which comprises the vast majority of Apple's services revenue from their app store tax.

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46Bit 4y ago
Same - I’m often surprised how little attention this gets. They still don’t support OffscreenCanvas too. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/OffscreenCanvas https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/OffscreenCa...
dwaite 4y ago
These are both in development. https://webkit.org/status/#?search=web https://webkit.org/status/#?search=web

richardanaya 4y ago

My kingdom for OffscreenCanvas

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endisneigh 4y ago

These are all very welcome. I’ll never understand why people don’t want choices and want their tech to be intentionally limited. The flag for web push has been available, albeit non functional since 15.3. Apple needs to hurry and simply allow for alternative app stores as well.

threeseed 4y ago
Because choices come with consequences. Web push whilst great for developers and some use cases has also meant dealing with spam and user hostile behaviour. I have 50+ websites that I have to block from sending me web push notifications. It's yet another thing making the web less enjoyable. Likewise alternative app stores mean that I will inevitably have dozens of companies to deal with for refunds, subscription cancellations etc. And many of them will be driven by the need to make money from the store and not the interests of end users.
- djbusby 4y ago
  Don't you (and I and typical users) click Block each time a site asks? It's not like you click it 50 times a day or per site (is it?)
  - spartanatreyu 4y ago
    What websites are you going on that ask for notifications that you don't want? I only ever see it on tabloid websites that I accidentally mis-click on or the occasional marketing page.
    - djbusby 4y ago
      Zoom and Meet, Slack ... and all those news ones as well.
      - spartanatreyu 4y ago
        You don't want notifications for your communication services? (Zoom, Meet, Slack, Teams, Discord, Messenger, etc...) Why not? I only have three reasons coming to my mind, and each of them have a nullifying factor: 1. You're already getting the same notifications from the app of the same communication service you have installed. But then why are you viewing the web version of the service? 2. There is at least one channel/room/whatever that has too much noise and would send a lot of notifications. But each of those services has a way to mute notifications per channel/room/whatever. 3. You don't want to be notified between certain times. But isn't that what the do not disturb mode on your device is for? You put in the times you don't want to be notified and it's done. As for "those news ones as well", I've only been asked if I wanted notifications per each news site once and never again since. I'm assuming you might be visiting a news site that's more spammy, but in that case, they're probably not a news source you really want to be following anyway. Edit: Formatting

tiffanyh 4y ago

It’s so strange to see how many of these features not in Safari Tech Preview. I’m so confused why Safari Tech Preview exists. It’s seems like features in Preview rarely graduate to mainline Safari - yet mainline Safari will get features that were never tested in Preview.

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pvg 4y ago
Tech Preview is typically a preview of what's coming up for Safari on the current version of macOS. So Tech Preview doesn't 'spoil' the major OS releases and I imagine it's also not really technically possible given the integration between Safari and the OS. Most major OS releases come with things that Safari makes use of.
- tiffanyh 4y ago
  How do you explain then why so few features in Tech Preview graduate to mainline Safari?
  - pvg 4y ago
    I don't really track it that closely, the impression I had was most (or at least many?) of them do. Do you have some particular set of features in mind?
    - tiffanyh 4y ago
      See things like: https://caniuse.com/link-rel-prefetch https://caniuse.com/link-rel-prefetch Been in Preview since 13.4, never graduated to mainline Safari. Another thread here as well: https://twitter.com/Dieulot/status/1473247987790921728#m https://twitter.com/Dieulot/status/1473247987790921728#m
paradite 4y ago
It's used for debugging webview in iOS apps.

saurik 4y ago

I am confused... wasn't Web Push already supported on macOS?

navanchauhan 4y ago
I believe this is for iOS/iPadOS
- saurik 4y ago
  The website says it is for macOS--"Web Push is coming to Safari 16 on macOS Ventura"--and that we should look forward to it on iOS in 2023.
brewmarche 4y ago
I remember receiving push notifications from Reddit on macOS Safari quite some time ago. Is this maybe another push mechanism?
- brewmarche 4y ago
  On second thought maybe the notifications weren’t push per se and it was just using the regular notification API with some web socket or long polling in the background.

arecurrence 4y ago

"Container Queries" WOW! This is a KILLER feature. Chrome doesn't even have this yet.

rektide 4y ago
Well, this is a Safari beta. There's a flag in Chrome. It seems to have landed in early December. https://chromestatus.com/feature/6525308435955712 https://chromestatus.com/feature/6525308435955712
stimpson_j_cat 4y ago
As a Chrome apologist really this pisses me off but I've been waiting for this forever and applaud the team (especially if they beat Chrome to landing this in a stable release)
joshstrange 4y ago
I know it might be year or more after this releases that this will be actually usable (due to adoption) but I cannot wait for this. I hate having to do math/calculations based on viewport height/width to decide how a container should behave at different sizes. There are just so many things that have to be taken into account and all your math/logic falls apart when you change almost anything else that affects the container.

raminf 4y ago

Still no support for Web Bluetooth in Webkit: https://caniuse.com/web-bluetooth https://caniuse.com/web-bluetooth Only major browser not to support it. If they enable it and put hooks for BLE event callbacks, we would no longer need a custom app per-device. Also, if BLE support was there, you could provision your WiFi-connected device without having to go do the whole AP-mode dance: push button on device, toggle WiFi on your phone, set it up on WiFi, etc. It's a big usability blocker for consumer devices. That whole sequence could be automated by visiting a URL on your phone or desktop. They've announced they won't support it, ostensibly because of fingerprinting and privacy concerns. But that could be tackled the same way they've blocked all the other fingerprinting methods (fuzzing, threat of blocking, etc.) Also: WebXR please.

K0nserv 4y ago
Only major browser not to support it? Firefox doesn’t either and every other browser just does so because they all use the same engine. A better characterisation of the situation might be: “Web Bluetooth is a non-standard feature supported only by one of the three modern browser engines”. I’m so tired of Google inventing arbitrary stuff for the web, implementing it, and everyone then expecting Mozilla and Apple to just follow suit.
- rektide 4y ago
  > I'm so tired of Google inventing arbitrary stuff for the web, implementing it, and everyone then expecting Mozilla and Apple to just follow suit. I agree, the situation is awful. It'd be so nice to have a more diverse & robust community of web browsers. The jury pool for "voting" on stnadards is way too small. I'd also point out that Microsoft is still very much here. They may be using Chrome's engine, but they're under no obligation to enable all the features, to stick exactly to what Google is doing. If Edge agrees, it's at least somewhat of a vote. Right now, either Apple & Mozilla have effective veto power on the web. Mozilla is deeply understaffed & barely if at all able to keep up with development. They thankfully started answering request-for-positions a bit back, but I see a lot of specs now-a-days with no response. There's so much web-hating about that things are really tough. There's so many people for whom the web is joy & amazingness, & this feels like a hard condescension to face. Push back feels like broad push back against doing good things, feels like a desire to keep what feels great to us from growing. Tools like VSCode are superpowered badasses, fast & capable with great easy-to-write extensions; true blood of the web. But we can't escape Slack being a dog, and people's long & deep feelings of dislike. Apple has long (well over a decade) been the foot dragging, complaining, miserable laggard, with lots of their own ideas & little willingness to play with others. They invested so little into their webtech for decades, just absolutely miniscule, and the teams had heavy bias, strong ways of thinking they wouldn't bend on. Mozilla recently seems to have switched sides: having given up on WebOS & an rich web platform, they now seem to spend more time claiming to be "pro-privacy" & fighting against really good new capabilities (eg WebMIDI) than working things forwards. Apple and Mozilla both know Google is widely reviled & mistrusted, and are marketing the shit out of their anti-web-platform stances; 'any risk to users is too great!'. Thankfully we see a ton of really really good work happening on https://wicg.io https://wicg.io. It's a good neutral territory to make the platform better. Tons of the web improvements happening are vendor-neutral, are just people with good ideas, that eventually, with support & community, stand a chance of getting sensible improvements implemented in 1 or 2, very occasionally 3 browsers. Alas, there's Apple. :'( Anyhow, yes.

move-on-by 4y ago

What do I have to do to get SVG favicons?

dwaite 4y ago
Likely a very low priority and security-impacting feature. I wouldn't hold my breath.

fomine3 4y ago

No Media Source Extension for iOS; long live with HLS