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Our group was initially formed by a group of people who develop for iOS Safari on daily basis. We have an exceptionally detailed understanding of the bugs and f

Our group was initially formed by a group of people who develop for iOS Safari on daily basis. We have an exceptionally detailed understanding of the bugs and functionality issues of the browser. The only reason google is in the conversation at all is their browser along with Firefox and Edge has vastly better functionality and stability. We’re trying to fix real world problems caused by anti-competitive behavior. Any debate needs to start with the premise that web apps are not competitively viable on iOS and that Safari is in a poor state. Then the next step is to discuss potential solutions.

dmitriid 4y ago
> Our group was initially formed by a group of people who develop for iOS Safari on daily basis. Yes, you keep copy-pasting that. As if that absolves you of factually incorrect statements. > We have an exceptionally detailed understanding of the bugs and functionality issues of the browser. And yet you fail to understand that hardware APIs are opposed by BOTH Safari AND Firefox. And yet you include them in your lists as if they were actual standards that Safari absolutely must implement. They are not. Same for a bunch of other Chrome non-standards. In a recent discussion it turned out that you didn't even know what actual objections BOTH Safari AND Firefox have against them. Same for pretending that Edge is different from Chrome because it removed Google-only services from it. It's not. It's a re-skin with very minor modifications. You've listed over thirty things that Edge removed from Chrome to make a "different browser". Can you name 10 or 5 of them that are actually relevant to actual web? Your entire OWA isn't arguing in good faith and is basically parroting Google's propaganda word for word. > Any debate needs to start with the premise that web apps are not competitively viable on iOS and that Safari is in a poor state. No. Any debate in good faith has to start with discussing the state of the open web and Chrome's utter dominance of it. As the top comment rightly said, "People keep arguing Apple is being anti-competitive. But no one seems to recon with the possible consequences of what they’re asking for." [1] Should Safari be better? Yes. Should it be "better" by blindly implementing whatever Google throws over the wall and gullible developers eat up as if it was heavenly manna? No. > Then the next step is to discuss potential solutions. Breaking the web forward: https://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2021/08/breaking_the_we.html https://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2021/08/breaking_th... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31895335 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31895335
- mtomweb 4y ago
  The issue is you are focusing on the specific APIs as a strawman argument which would require us to argue each and every API on its individual merits something neither of us has time for. Instead let’s focus on the core issues: 1. Severe underfunding of Safari 2. Bugs 3. Install Prompts/Banners 4. Push API 1. Apple has no incentive to fund their browser while they are not at any risk of losing market share to the competition on their primary OS. 2. Because of the underfunding and the fact users/developers can’t shift to other browsers, bugs that are either impossible to work around (or require a very high level of skills) have not been fixed. Some which were reported 7 years ago. 3. Users do not know web apps exist. They have no way to install them. 4. Notifications arrived for native apps in 2009, in 2022 they still are not available for web apps even though they are essential for many different types of apps. Apple has promised them in 2023 likely as a result of our advocacy work. Without a viable web ecosystem on iOS mobile web apps are dead and the entire ecosystem gets shifted to native apps and webkit applies no competitive pressure on chrome/edge or Firefox. The status quo is the worse case scenario. The fix for this scenario is competition. With a 60% market share on MacOS (the on my comparable market where Safari is the default), as long as apple meets developer needs then I can’t see them losing a majority market share on iOS. A highly funded Webkit be able to contribute to the web ecosystem instead of holding it back.
  - dmitriid 4y ago
    > The issue is you are focusing on the specific APIs as a strawman argument I focused on some APIs I know about. There's nothing strawman about facts that you misrepresented in your diatribe. How can I be sure that you represented everything else correctly? Oh. I can't. Because I also saw your section on "Edge differentiation". Should I go through everyting else and discover same misrepresentation and falseness? I think I won't, these two are quite enough, thank you. > Instead let’s focus on the core issues You keep skipping from goal post to goal post, and each next argument you make isn't made in good faith. > 1. 2. I'm not even going to dignify this speculation with an answer > 3. 4. And again and again all comes down to literally one or two standards. That's it. That's all you really have. Well, sometimes you have more, but then it's just a random dump of random standards that you are absolutely sure are actual standards (and not "Draft comunity reports" by Google) and that everyone must implement them now. > Without a viable web ecosystem on iOS mobile Please define a "viable web ecosystem". So far it looks like to you "a viable ecosystem" is "anything that Google implements, others be damned". > web apps are dead Yes, they are dead. For many reasons that have nothing to do with notifications. > The fix for this scenario is competition. With a 60% market share on MacOS Yes. Let's talk about competition. There is none, it's fully dominated by Google: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31905404 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31905404 Oh wait. You don't really care about that. > A highly funded Webkit be able to contribute to the web ecosystem instead of holding it back. Webkit is contributing to the web ecosystem, and isn't holding it back. For the obvious reason that your definition of a viable web is taken straight out of Google propaganda, and has nothing to do with making the web viable.

dmitriid 4y ago

> Our group was initially formed by a group of people who develop for iOS Safari on daily basis. Yes, you keep copy-pasting that. As if that absolves you of factually incorrect statements. > We have an exceptionally detailed understanding of the bugs and functionality issues of the browser. And yet you fail to understand that hardware APIs are opposed by BOTH Safari AND Firefox. And yet you include them in your lists as if they were actual standards that Safari absolutely must implement. They are not. Same for a bunch of other Chrome non-standards. In a recent discussion it turned out that you didn't even know what actual objections BOTH Safari AND Firefox have against them. Same for pretending that Edge is different from Chrome because it removed Google-only services from it. It's not. It's a re-skin with very minor modifications. You've listed over thirty things that Edge removed from Chrome to make a "different browser". Can you name 10 or 5 of them that are actually relevant to actual web? Your entire OWA isn't arguing in good faith and is basically parroting Google's propaganda word for word. > Any debate needs to start with the premise that web apps are not competitively viable on iOS and that Safari is in a poor state. No. Any debate in good faith has to start with discussing the state of the open web and Chrome's utter dominance of it. As the top comment rightly said, "People keep arguing Apple is being anti-competitive. But no one seems to recon with the possible consequences of what they’re asking for." [1] Should Safari be better? Yes. Should it be "better" by blindly implementing whatever Google throws over the wall and gullible developers eat up as if it was heavenly manna? No. > Then the next step is to discuss potential solutions. Breaking the web forward: https://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2021/08/breaking_the_we.html https://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2021/08/breaking_th... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31895335 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31895335

mtomweb 4y ago
The issue is you are focusing on the specific APIs as a strawman argument which would require us to argue each and every API on its individual merits something neither of us has time for. Instead let’s focus on the core issues: 1. Severe underfunding of Safari 2. Bugs 3. Install Prompts/Banners 4. Push API 1. Apple has no incentive to fund their browser while they are not at any risk of losing market share to the competition on their primary OS. 2. Because of the underfunding and the fact users/developers can’t shift to other browsers, bugs that are either impossible to work around (or require a very high level of skills) have not been fixed. Some which were reported 7 years ago. 3. Users do not know web apps exist. They have no way to install them. 4. Notifications arrived for native apps in 2009, in 2022 they still are not available for web apps even though they are essential for many different types of apps. Apple has promised them in 2023 likely as a result of our advocacy work. Without a viable web ecosystem on iOS mobile web apps are dead and the entire ecosystem gets shifted to native apps and webkit applies no competitive pressure on chrome/edge or Firefox. The status quo is the worse case scenario. The fix for this scenario is competition. With a 60% market share on MacOS (the on my comparable market where Safari is the default), as long as apple meets developer needs then I can’t see them losing a majority market share on iOS. A highly funded Webkit be able to contribute to the web ecosystem instead of holding it back.
- dmitriid 4y ago
  > The issue is you are focusing on the specific APIs as a strawman argument I focused on some APIs I know about. There's nothing strawman about facts that you misrepresented in your diatribe. How can I be sure that you represented everything else correctly? Oh. I can't. Because I also saw your section on "Edge differentiation". Should I go through everyting else and discover same misrepresentation and falseness? I think I won't, these two are quite enough, thank you. > Instead let’s focus on the core issues You keep skipping from goal post to goal post, and each next argument you make isn't made in good faith. > 1. 2. I'm not even going to dignify this speculation with an answer > 3. 4. And again and again all comes down to literally one or two standards. That's it. That's all you really have. Well, sometimes you have more, but then it's just a random dump of random standards that you are absolutely sure are actual standards (and not "Draft comunity reports" by Google) and that everyone must implement them now. > Without a viable web ecosystem on iOS mobile Please define a "viable web ecosystem". So far it looks like to you "a viable ecosystem" is "anything that Google implements, others be damned". > web apps are dead Yes, they are dead. For many reasons that have nothing to do with notifications. > The fix for this scenario is competition. With a 60% market share on MacOS Yes. Let's talk about competition. There is none, it's fully dominated by Google: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31905404 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31905404 Oh wait. You don't really care about that. > A highly funded Webkit be able to contribute to the web ecosystem instead of holding it back. Webkit is contributing to the web ecosystem, and isn't holding it back. For the obvious reason that your definition of a viable web is taken straight out of Google propaganda, and has nothing to do with making the web viable.