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Safari is so behind in terms of lack of support for free media formats/codecs like webm, webp, and av1. You can't even switch browsers to view them, since it's

Safari is so behind in terms of lack of support for free media formats/codecs like webm, webp, and av1. You can't even switch browsers to view them, since it's all webkit

dmitriid 4y ago
> support for free media formats/codecs like webm, webp, and av1. You mean codecs developed exclusively by Google (often in rapid succession) and which Google aggressively pushes by abusing its dominant position https://www.protocol.com/youtube-tv-roku-issues https://www.protocol.com/youtube-tv-roku-issues
- woojoo666 4y ago
  What's an alternative free media format? Not everything Google does is bad. In fact if you're against companies abusing their dominant position, Apple is perhaps one of the worst. Worth noting that Safari is starting to roll out support for VP9, one of the formats by Google. Unfortunately this format is already rather outdated, and if Apple was going to support a free format now they should have gone for AV1. Which goes to show how slow they are
alwillis 4y ago
Safari is so behind in terms of lack of support for free media formats/codecs like webm, webp, and av1 Both WebM [1] and WebP [2] have been supported by Safari for nearly two years now. WebKit added support for AVIF (essentially the single-frame version of AV1) back in September [3]; AV1 is expected during the iOS 16/macOS Ventura release cycle. [1]: https://webkit.org/blog/11648/new-webkit-features-in-safari-14-1/ https://webkit.org/blog/11648/new-webkit-features-in-safari-... [2]: https://webkit.org/blog/11340/new-webkit-features-in-safari-14/ https://webkit.org/blog/11340/new-webkit-features-in-safari-... [3]: https://webkit.org/blog/13152/webkit-features-in-safari-16-0/ https://webkit.org/blog/13152/webkit-features-in-safari-16-0...
- woojoo666 4y ago
  > Both WebM [1] and WebP [2] have been supported by Safari for nearly two years now. Which was incredibly late. For example, Firefox had it since v28 [1], which was 8 years ago. Firefox has also supported AV1 for 3 years already. And obviously Chrome supported both for longer [1]: https://caniuse.com/webm https://caniuse.com/webm [2]: https://caniuse.com/av1 https://caniuse.com/av1
  - alwillis 4y ago
    Which was incredibly late So we’re doing this? Instead of acknowledging your statement was incorrect, now it’s about how supposedly late Apple was in supporting the formats you said they didn’t support. And no disrespect to Firefox, but them having WebP support 8 years ago (and AV1 support 3 years ago) in the big picture doesn’t matter that much outside of the web developer/HN/geek echo chamber and the single digit percent of market share Firefox represents. Nothing got held up; a properly designed site would fall back to JPEG or PNG if WebP wasn’t supported by a particular browser. Not the end of the world. But when your device is in a “billion pockets y’all” it matters. That was true a few years ago when Oprah said it; it’s closer to two billion pockets (and desks and backpacks). It’s pretty common on HN to trash Safari when it doesn't support web standards and then find another way to trash Safari when it does support those standards and then ignore Safari when it ships a feature first and pretend it didn’t happen or doesn’t matter. A quick list of web features shipped first: • first browser engine to implement the new color syntax defined in CSS Color Module Level 4 • first browser to support drawing shapes, text, gradients, and shadows with wide gamut CSS colors on Display P3 canvases • first browser to ship a proposed web standard for measuring advertising in a privacy-preserving way – Private Click Measurement • the only browser that supports lch() and lab() color functions (and probably the only browser to support these predefined color spaces: a98-rgb, prophoto-rgb, rec2020, xyz) • first browser to ship large, small and dynamic viewport units • first browser to ship :has() parent selector (March vs August 2022 and later for Google and Mozilla) There are more but these are the most current ones after a few minutes of Googling. Depending on the use case, some of these may be critical to some web developers. I get it—Safari being current and in some cases, ahead with their support of web standards that they, Google/Microsoft and Mozilla have agreed to—I’m discounting the proposals from Google when they ship stuff only they want/care about—doesn’t fit the prevailing HN narrative that “Safari is the new IE” and is holding the web back. Just objectively examining the state of the web back then would show how laughably ahistorical [1] this view is, but that’s where we are. [1]: ahistorical—lacking historical perspective or context

Safari is so behind in terms of lack of support for free media formats/codecs like webm, webp, and av1. You can't even switch browsers to view them, since it's all webkit

dmitriid 4y ago

> support for free media formats/codecs like webm, webp, and av1. You mean codecs developed exclusively by Google (often in rapid succession) and which Google aggressively pushes by abusing its dominant position https://www.protocol.com/youtube-tv-roku-issues https://www.protocol.com/youtube-tv-roku-issues

woojoo666 4y ago
What's an alternative free media format? Not everything Google does is bad. In fact if you're against companies abusing their dominant position, Apple is perhaps one of the worst. Worth noting that Safari is starting to roll out support for VP9, one of the formats by Google. Unfortunately this format is already rather outdated, and if Apple was going to support a free format now they should have gone for AV1. Which goes to show how slow they are

alwillis 4y ago

Safari is so behind in terms of lack of support for free media formats/codecs like webm, webp, and av1 Both WebM [1] and WebP [2] have been supported by Safari for nearly two years now. WebKit added support for AVIF (essentially the single-frame version of AV1) back in September [3]; AV1 is expected during the iOS 16/macOS Ventura release cycle. [1]: https://webkit.org/blog/11648/new-webkit-features-in-safari-14-1/ https://webkit.org/blog/11648/new-webkit-features-in-safari-... [2]: https://webkit.org/blog/11340/new-webkit-features-in-safari-14/ https://webkit.org/blog/11340/new-webkit-features-in-safari-... [3]: https://webkit.org/blog/13152/webkit-features-in-safari-16-0/ https://webkit.org/blog/13152/webkit-features-in-safari-16-0...

woojoo666 4y ago
> Both WebM [1] and WebP [2] have been supported by Safari for nearly two years now. Which was incredibly late. For example, Firefox had it since v28 [1], which was 8 years ago. Firefox has also supported AV1 for 3 years already. And obviously Chrome supported both for longer [1]: https://caniuse.com/webm https://caniuse.com/webm [2]: https://caniuse.com/av1 https://caniuse.com/av1
- alwillis 4y ago
  Which was incredibly late So we’re doing this? Instead of acknowledging your statement was incorrect, now it’s about how supposedly late Apple was in supporting the formats you said they didn’t support. And no disrespect to Firefox, but them having WebP support 8 years ago (and AV1 support 3 years ago) in the big picture doesn’t matter that much outside of the web developer/HN/geek echo chamber and the single digit percent of market share Firefox represents. Nothing got held up; a properly designed site would fall back to JPEG or PNG if WebP wasn’t supported by a particular browser. Not the end of the world. But when your device is in a “billion pockets y’all” it matters. That was true a few years ago when Oprah said it; it’s closer to two billion pockets (and desks and backpacks). It’s pretty common on HN to trash Safari when it doesn't support web standards and then find another way to trash Safari when it does support those standards and then ignore Safari when it ships a feature first and pretend it didn’t happen or doesn’t matter. A quick list of web features shipped first: • first browser engine to implement the new color syntax defined in CSS Color Module Level 4 • first browser to support drawing shapes, text, gradients, and shadows with wide gamut CSS colors on Display P3 canvases • first browser to ship a proposed web standard for measuring advertising in a privacy-preserving way – Private Click Measurement • the only browser that supports lch() and lab() color functions (and probably the only browser to support these predefined color spaces: a98-rgb, prophoto-rgb, rec2020, xyz) • first browser to ship large, small and dynamic viewport units • first browser to ship :has() parent selector (March vs August 2022 and later for Google and Mozilla) There are more but these are the most current ones after a few minutes of Googling. Depending on the use case, some of these may be critical to some web developers. I get it—Safari being current and in some cases, ahead with their support of web standards that they, Google/Microsoft and Mozilla have agreed to—I’m discounting the proposals from Google when they ship stuff only they want/care about—doesn’t fit the prevailing HN narrative that “Safari is the new IE” and is holding the web back. Just objectively examining the state of the web back then would show how laughably ahistorical [1] this view is, but that’s where we are. [1]: ahistorical—lacking historical perspective or context