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1. How do you get away with not supporting the second-most popular browser? [1] 2. > help users stuck on old versions of the OS use a normal browser Funny, i

1. How do you get away with not supporting the second-most popular browser? [1] 2. > help users stuck on old versions of the OS use a normal browser Funny, iOS tends to be upgraded further back (ie support older devices), and faster [2], than (say) Android [3], because Apple is aggressive about updating users. [1] https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share [2] https://gs.statcounter.com/ios-version-market-share https://gs.statcounter.com/ios-version-market-share [3] https://gs.statcounter.com/android-version-market-share https://gs.statcounter.com/android-version-market-share

tpush 4y ago
If you're developing a desktop browser app for a non-English speaking market, you can ignore Safari oftentimes. E.g. in Germany desktop Firefox has roughly double the market share of Safari.
- djxfade 4y ago
  But supporting mobile Safari usually gives you desktop Safari support for "free". Not many first world markets you can ignore Safari mobile in.
Kwpolska 4y ago
If you cater to the Windows-heavy corporate market, and if your software is meant to be used at a desk, the market share of Safari goes down to 0%.
- a3w 4y ago
  This. Why is there not a billion devices using QQBrowser or something other obscure at place two? Mobile IMHO is different - not every website will work. Which really sucks on iPads, because not real free adblockers, faulty SVG rending in safari for a project I ran two years ago, and less support for browser features (PWA features mostly, so classical web often kinda works) makes browsing the web with touch often easy, yet very hard, when something is broken or nagging.
- carlosjobim 4y ago
  Don't these corporate people all have iPhones and want to quickly take care of something while on the run?
  - Kwpolska 4y ago
    Depends on the industry and use-case. Some line-of-business apps might be designed without caring about any mobile/responsive usage. Others might be meant to be used at a specific workstation that has a computer as part of it (for example, the app might be controlling some equipment), or in some other environment in which mobile usage makes no sense.
  - jeroenhd 4y ago
    Luckily, the corporate people usually only need to view the marketing site on their phones!
trollied 4y ago
> 1. How do you get away with not supporting the second-most popular browser? [1] Not speaking for the OP, but the internal tools I work on only supprt Chrome - you can only login to these systems using Single Sign On, which is only possible to login via Chrome (Google SSO). Makes devving loads easier!
jeroenhd 4y ago
> 1. How do you get away with not supporting the second-most popular browser? Quite easily: desktop SaaS web application; no Macs in the office and no interest in buying them specifically for iOS; no customers using Macs. Also, Safari works Well Enough (TM) for people not to complain about the minor CSS offsets and if they do they can always install Firefox. I don't work there anymore, but I doubt any customer will even try to switch to Macs in the next five years. For my personal use cases: if my site doesn't work on Safari, I can't legally test it on any of my devices so I don't bother. Even Microsoft published a cross-platform browser, I'll care about Safari the moment I can apt-install safari-dev/winget install safari. > Funny, iOS tends to be upgraded further back (ie support older devices), and faster [2], than (say) Android [3], because Apple is aggressive about updating users. Yes, iOS updates devices faster. However, Chrome isn't tied to the OS. I've said it before and I'll say it again: my perfectly good iPad 2 is useless despite its quite competent CPU purely because there are no browsers for it. Had it run Android, I could just install Chrome and use it for slower but quite usable browsing; with the Safari lockdown the device became useless. You can't install an up-to-date version of Safari onto iOS 15 because of Apple's architecture decisions, despite iOS 15 still receiving plenty of other updates, which means you're restricted in features if you can't install the latest major upgrade. Google decoupled WebKit from the system image years ago and has always allowed alternative browser engines like Firefox, which means you can install the latest version of Firefox on Android 5.0 (November 2014) or Chrome on Android 7.0 (March 2016), but not Safari 16 on iOS 8 (September 2014) or iOS 10 (September 2016). My Oneplus One (April 2014) still browses the web fine, and it's a mere budget device compared to something like an iPhone!

tpush 4y ago

If you're developing a desktop browser app for a non-English speaking market, you can ignore Safari oftentimes. E.g. in Germany desktop Firefox has roughly double the market share of Safari.

djxfade 4y ago
But supporting mobile Safari usually gives you desktop Safari support for "free". Not many first world markets you can ignore Safari mobile in.

Kwpolska 4y ago

If you cater to the Windows-heavy corporate market, and if your software is meant to be used at a desk, the market share of Safari goes down to 0%.

a3w 4y ago
This. Why is there not a billion devices using QQBrowser or something other obscure at place two? Mobile IMHO is different - not every website will work. Which really sucks on iPads, because not real free adblockers, faulty SVG rending in safari for a project I ran two years ago, and less support for browser features (PWA features mostly, so classical web often kinda works) makes browsing the web with touch often easy, yet very hard, when something is broken or nagging.
carlosjobim 4y ago
Don't these corporate people all have iPhones and want to quickly take care of something while on the run?
- Kwpolska 4y ago
  Depends on the industry and use-case. Some line-of-business apps might be designed without caring about any mobile/responsive usage. Others might be meant to be used at a specific workstation that has a computer as part of it (for example, the app might be controlling some equipment), or in some other environment in which mobile usage makes no sense.
- jeroenhd 4y ago
  Luckily, the corporate people usually only need to view the marketing site on their phones!

trollied 4y ago

> 1. How do you get away with not supporting the second-most popular browser? [1] Not speaking for the OP, but the internal tools I work on only supprt Chrome - you can only login to these systems using Single Sign On, which is only possible to login via Chrome (Google SSO). Makes devving loads easier!

jeroenhd 4y ago

> 1. How do you get away with not supporting the second-most popular browser? Quite easily: desktop SaaS web application; no Macs in the office and no interest in buying them specifically for iOS; no customers using Macs. Also, Safari works Well Enough (TM) for people not to complain about the minor CSS offsets and if they do they can always install Firefox. I don't work there anymore, but I doubt any customer will even try to switch to Macs in the next five years. For my personal use cases: if my site doesn't work on Safari, I can't legally test it on any of my devices so I don't bother. Even Microsoft published a cross-platform browser, I'll care about Safari the moment I can apt-install safari-dev/winget install safari. > Funny, iOS tends to be upgraded further back (ie support older devices), and faster [2], than (say) Android [3], because Apple is aggressive about updating users. Yes, iOS updates devices faster. However, Chrome isn't tied to the OS. I've said it before and I'll say it again: my perfectly good iPad 2 is useless despite its quite competent CPU purely because there are no browsers for it. Had it run Android, I could just install Chrome and use it for slower but quite usable browsing; with the Safari lockdown the device became useless. You can't install an up-to-date version of Safari onto iOS 15 because of Apple's architecture decisions, despite iOS 15 still receiving plenty of other updates, which means you're restricted in features if you can't install the latest major upgrade. Google decoupled WebKit from the system image years ago and has always allowed alternative browser engines like Firefox, which means you can install the latest version of Firefox on Android 5.0 (November 2014) or Chrome on Android 7.0 (March 2016), but not Safari 16 on iOS 8 (September 2014) or iOS 10 (September 2016). My Oneplus One (April 2014) still browses the web fine, and it's a mere budget device compared to something like an iPhone!