And yet Apple extended the web platform with these APIs, shipped them in a production browser, documented them (without labeling them as experimental or proprie

And yet Apple extended the web platform with these APIs, shipped them in a production browser, documented them (without labeling them as experimental or proprietary), published web content that used them, and encouraged other web developers to do the same [1]. Other WebKit vendors followed suit and implemented Apple's APIs, including Android, BlackBerry, and Nokia. Then other browser vendors like Opera followed. Mozilla had our own independently-developed multitouch API [2] but earlier this year we implemented WebKit-style touch events in Gecko and helped lead the standardization process at the W3C. They were already a de-facto standard; we had to implement them if we wanted mobile Firefox to work with popular sites like Google Maps. If Apple had no intention of ever allowing other browsers to implement touch events, then they could at least have shipped them with a vendor prefix, as Mozilla did with our "MozTouchMove" events (and other experimental or pre-standard APIs). Instead they polluted the global namespace, created a de-facto standard, and never gave a word of feedback to the standards effort that emerged around their work. Only at the very end of the process, after supporting the API in their production browser for four years, did they suddenly act to block the acceptance of a de-jure standard based on the de-facto standard they created. Touch events are not just for novel multi-touch scenarios; in browsers like Safari they are necessary even for single-touch drag and drop handling that has been possible in desktop browsers for over a decade. If the W3C and Apple can't work out a royalty-free licensing arrangement for Apple's essential claims, then this seems very likely to fragment the mobile web even further by creating yet more "works only in Safari" pages. While we don't know the outcome yet, the path Apple has taken so far does not reflect the responsibility or stewardship toward the web that I'd like to see from a major browser vendor. The mobile web is already in terrible shape when it comes to pages working across browsers. Do you think Google would ever push an update to Gmail that makes it not work in Firefox? Well they did exactly that to mobile Gmail this year, and didn't fix it until a month later [3]. It's like the 1990s browser war all over again. Keeping the web platform based on open standards is essential to keep it open to new browsers and technologies. [1]: https://developer.apple.com/library/IOs/#documentation/AppleApplications/Reference/SafariWebContent/HandlingEvents/HandlingEvents.html https://developer.apple.com/library/IOs/#documentation/Apple... [2]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/DOM/Touch_events_%28Mozilla_experimental%29 https://developer.mozilla.org/en/DOM/Touch_events_%28Mozilla... [3]: http://bugzil.la/678150 http://bugzil.la/678150 (I work for Mozilla and I am co-editor of the W3C Touch Events spec, but these opinions are my own.) EDIT: I think your comment is an accurate reflection of Apple's priorities -- I'm arguing against Apple's actions, not against your comment.