17 ms·

WebKit Features in Safari 16.4

347 points by om2 4y ago

benkaiser 4y ago
If anyone finds themselves wanting to build a static site with cron-interval push notifications using the Web Push API announced here. I wrote a simple service that lets you get notifications on a cron interval without needing to write any backend code / host anything: https://benkaiser.dev/time-trigger-web-push-notifications/ https://benkaiser.dev/time-trigger-web-push-notifications/
explaininjs 4y ago
Looks like I might finally have a reason to upgrade my iPhone 7! Web Push is fantastic for developing useful applications without paying the apple tax, which necessarily results in the garbage-tier free apps dominating the App Store today (Want to do anything at all? Watch an ad every minute. Want functionality that's not the absolute bare minimum? Pay $5/month forever.)
- scarface74 4y ago
  Free apps are not using ads because they need to fund their $99 developer fee.
  - explaininjs 4y ago
    I ain’t publishing any utility apps for free if I have to pay. I have made plenty of utility websites I use as Home Screen apps though, all without ads.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      Do you not have any hobbies that you pay for? When I was deep in the C# ecosystem, I personally paid for my own JetBrain license. Do you also not pay someone to host your web apps?
      - sccxy 4y ago
        It is not only $99. It is $500+ (used) computer also. Cannot use your old PC do develop iOS apps. $99 may be nothing for most HN users, but for 3rd world developer...
        true_religion 4y ago
        I’m a third world developer. In the third world, at least in Ghana, iPhones are over represented in the middle class and by association many people have MacBooks. This means there is a glut of older models in second hand market or passed down to kids, cousins, and family friends. The problem with the 99 dollars is that it’s payable yearly. Yes someone might sponsor you once and give you enough for a single year but they won’t do it ever year. You have to make enough yourself and that’s a tall order of business if you are a student. Thus no one learns iOS development first.
        philistine 4y ago
        I get that PCs are more common but you can't classify that as a recurring cost. I mean, if your computer is a Mac than there's no cost. It's only if you're using a PC that you have to get a Mac to develop for iOS etc. But I totally get you, Apple is but one company and they've completely bungled reasonable prices in many countries, for example India.
      - explaininjs 4y ago
        I use Cloudflare free tier and am trialing Fly.up free tier for always-on servers as needed (websockets, etc.)
      - krono 4y ago
        Paying for the privilege of getting to fill gaps and solve problems on my device operating system that the recipient of those payments who also happens to control said device and operating system refuses to resolve or has even purposefully introduced. Yeah, no thanks.. I'll pass.
        scarface74 4y ago
    - lozenge 4y ago
      There are good apps out there written by casual people, they just can't spend the time and money on making their app easy to find.
    - pier25 4y ago
      I had a free password generator app on the Mac App Store. It wasn't super popular but had like 50-70 daily downloads. I didn't make any money from it. Just made the app because I needed it myself and wanted to learn a bit of macOS dev. After a couple of years I decided to stop paying $99 a year for hosting a little 5MB app.
      - scarface74 4y ago
        And that was your choice on the Mac. You could put the app on your own website and let users download it.
        pier25 4y ago
        Indeed. So? My point was not about distributing the app but about paying $99 every year to distribute a free app using the official app store.
        scarface74 4y ago
        If you don’t want to spend $99 to use the “official Mac App Store”. You have other options on the Mac. What’s there to complain about?
        pier25 4y ago
        Me: "X has this problem" You: "but you can use Y" Me: "I know, just saying X has this problem" You: "But you can use Y. Don't complain about X."
        scarface74 4y ago
        If my head hurts when I repeatedly hit myself over the head with a hammer, guess what I do?
      - conradfr 4y ago
        Does the app disappear from the store when you stop paying the yearly Apple tax or you just can't update it?
carlycue 4y ago
[flagged]
- zapt02 4y ago
  Do you see any problems with there only being one browser engine that is relevant?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- dimator 4y ago
  on the one hand, a browser engine monoculture is going to be a disaster for the standards-based internet (if it's not already a disaster). on the other hand, apple crippling webapps with a half-assed browser so that they can sell apps and rent-seek also sucks. i'm glad safari exists, but for the wrong reasons. it's such a tragedy that there are not more for-profit browser companies.
  - illiarian 4y ago
    > apple crippling webapps Of course apple isn't crippling them. On top of that you have the world's most popular OS with none of the perceived crippling, and we've yet to see a single amazing web app on that OS.
    - sccxy 4y ago
      Apple IS crippling webapps. They just released new Wake Lock API, but it only works in browser Safari. It is broken in PWA... QA cannot be that bad they do not test PWAs for new features.
      - illiarian 4y ago
        > Apple IS crippling webapps. Of course it isn't. Unless you can come up with a non-random list of things of what constitutes a PWA. Everytime someone screams about Apple not doing something in PWAs, that list is different. Meanwhile, as I said above, there's an OS that holds about 70% of the world's marketshare that has none of this "crippling" as you put it. And yet, there are literally none of these amazing PWAs there that Apple supposedly cripples on their OS. Something tells me, the problem doesn't lie with Apple.
kevincox 4y ago
That is a bunch of features that solve problems I have margin-trim, lh and :user-valid will all allow me to improve code in my projects. Unfortunately they aren't supported anywhere yet (except for :user-valid on Firefox). I would love to see the other browsers roll out support.
- 8n4vidtmkvmk 4y ago
  I tried :user-valid on Firefox and I can't see this supposed checkmark that's supposed to appear https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/:user-valid https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/:user-valid
  - chrismorgan 4y ago
    Remember you need to interact with it first (e.g. modify the value)—that’s the whole point of :user-valid. (That is: works for me, and this is all I can think of that would make it appear not to work.)
    - 8n4vidtmkvmk 4y ago
      I did modify it and blur https://i.imgur.com/D04xIia.png https://i.imgur.com/D04xIia.png No error on empty string either
      - chrismorgan 4y ago
        This is :user-valid and an email field.
thedanbob 4y ago
Nice to see Apple giving some love to web apps. One feature (bug fix?) that I've been wanting for a long time is the ability to autofill from my password manager in Home Screen web apps on my phone. Autofill works in Safari, but once I turn a site into a Home Screen app it no longer appears. But only on my phone, iPad it still works. Edit: Looks like someone may have already reported it 3 years ago: https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=210061 https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=210061 > The space for the saved accounts is there, yet the text is empty. There's nothing to select Sure sounds like what I'm seeing, except instead of being intermittent it's always like that.
rvz 4y ago
Here comes the web push notification spam avalanche going onto iOS. The SaaS grifters will metastasize, multiply and deliver their snake oil as they did to Android now onto iOS users only to degrade the platform further.
- tinus_hn 4y ago
  You can of course choose not to add web apps to your Home Screen.
  - gkbrk 4y ago
    Can't wait to see stuff like this everywhere. "To pay your phone bill, please add the T-Mobile web app to your Home Screen." "To read the rest of the article, please add the News web app to your Home Screen."
    - the_gipsy 4y ago
      You already have this, it's called native apps.
- CharlesW 4y ago
  Two thoughts: (1) For this to work at all, users will need to have added the app to their Home Screen. (2) Because they "work exactly like notifications from other apps", you can easily control when they're able to interrupt you, and also easily mute abusers.
- rabuse 4y ago
  Acting like most apps don't already bombard us with crap on the regular... this is not a webapp issue.
- s1k3s 4y ago
  All you have to do is click "No thanks".
EGreg 4y ago
What is the best way to maintain a session cookie when a web app is added to home screen? Right now I take people to a secret URL with long generated token so the web app will also have it and be able to correlate the two. Yes I can have the user re-sign-in with credentials, or webauthn, but seems overkill. Also can Apple add some sort of thing like Chrome has “beforeinstallprompt” to actually show an install promopt?
- judge2020 4y ago
  > beforeinstallprompt Apple's philosophy is that it needs to be on the home screen, and that popups prompting users to install the app were a mistake (many people will allow notifications and app installs just to dismiss prompts). Making people do a song and dance should reduce the potential for "your grandparents" accumulating an infinity gauntlet of spam notification PWAs.
yanis_t 4y ago
Pretty big deal for PWA. Now we can send push notifications, and update app badges. Now if we could get periodic background sync api, and vibration api, that would be perfect.
- sccxy 4y ago
  I tested some features on my PWAs. New wake lock API does not work in PWA, only works in Safari... Apple is making sure that nobody will use PWAs. https://whatpwacando.today/wake-lock https://whatpwacando.today/wake-lock
  - JayStavis 4y ago
    The release notes for 16.4 include "Added Support for the Screen Wake Lock API" https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safari-release-notes/safari-16_4-release-notes https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safari-release-not...
    - sccxy 4y ago
      Yeah, but "bugs" happen and this new wake lock only works in browser safari. Does NOT work in PWA. Bug or intentional road block?
      - CryZe 4y ago
        It does not work for me in browser Safari (iOS) either: undefined is not an object (evaluating 'navigator.wakeLock.request') Update: Turns out it's only available behind HTTPS. The PWA bug might be related.
        kevindees 4y ago
        I'd love to know if anyone discovers what is goin on with PWAs. I got wake lock working in the browser but not with the PWA.
  - illiarian 4y ago
ladon86 4y ago
I disagree with the Chrome comment, but how about decoupling Mobile Safari upgrades from OS upgrades? It would be nice for all users to get access to these new APIs via a simple app update. This would allow developers to actually start using them within days/months rather than years.
- yuters 4y ago
  For a developer, it exists already as a simple app update: https://developer.apple.com/safari/technology-preview/ https://developer.apple.com/safari/technology-preview/ Edit: Sorry, missed the part about the "mobile" safari. You're right, I don't think it's available for mobile.
  - benatkin 4y ago
    It also wouldn't matter much to me if developers could upgrade. What I would want is for users of my app to be able to upgrade when prompted. Fortunately the cutoff I've chosen for my current project isn't that bad - 15.4. It means some iPhone users won't be able to use it. Eventually I'll feel OK about requiring 16.4. But I second the request for being able to install a new version without upgrading the whole OS.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  The built-in webkit is used extensively in apps. Tying it to the OS release makes testing and development a whole lot easier.
  - mepian 4y ago
    Is it very difficult to ship two versions of it, one "stable" in the OS for embedding, and another in an app?
    - illiarian 4y ago
      That's what they originally did, and developers complained that in-app browser wasn't getting the same features as the main browser
pfista 4y ago
Apple releasing support for web push was a big reason I decided to build an API for sending push notifications to PWAs. Relatively easy to work with, though I hope their OS integration will add support for more native iOS notification features like actions. If you wanna try out native push notifications it's pretty fast to try out: https://alerty.dev https://alerty.dev
- jagged-chisel 4y ago
  Is there a trial or free tier to try out? I’m only seeing options to pay $5 to see if this could fit my workflow. Edit: on the account page, it says “You're currently on the free plan.” But I can’t do anything with notifications.
  - pfista 4y ago
    Sorry I missed this. Yes there is a free trial- right now you get 100 notifications to test while building your integration out. Also a promo on producthunt today for 20% off.
- unclet 4y ago
  it seems the WebPush on Safari does not play sound alert
  - pfista 4y ago
    The API also has support for things like custom vibrations, urgency, icons, and action URLs. But- these are minimally supported by Safari Desktop and Safari Mobile today. I hope Safari iOS adds support for actions and shortcut workflows when clicking a notification.
s1k3s 4y ago
Every time a non-chromium browser pushes updates it's good news. That being said, if you care about open standards, privacy and a fair market, you should just delete whatever you have and install Firefox right now.
- illiarian 4y ago
  > That being said, if you care about open standards, privacy and a fair market, you should just delete whatever you have and install Firefox right now. I wonder if you realize that these days Firefox is more often than not on Safari's side when it comes to all the things you've listed.
  - s1k3s 4y ago
    How's that?
    - illiarian 4y ago
      On privacy, APIs etc. Firefox backs Safari in their attempt to stop Chrome from just barging ahead
      - xcrunner529 4y ago
        [dead]
happybuy 4y ago
Yet another huge update of features to Safari, building upon the great progress they made last year in: - leading on the Interop 2022 dashboard results [1] - posting the best Speedometer score on the Mac [1] - changing their pace of innovation and releases to deliver newer API features in a quicker manner [1] https://www.magiclasso.co/insights/triumph-of-safari/ https://www.magiclasso.co/insights/triumph-of-safari/
- frankjr 4y ago
  I would really like to give Safari a chance but I just cannot get over the fact that there's no support for more advanced ad blockers. Sticking with Firefox/Brave for now.
  - pps 4y ago
    AdGuard (the full, paid version for MacOS) is the way. I don't use Safari anymore, but I'm still happy enough with it to not install anything else for other browsers. Unfortunately, the iOS version only works as an extension for Safari.
  - bni 4y ago
    Ka-Block! Open Source ad-blocker with silly name but its great. Vinegar Native video player on youtube, also means no ads. Hush Hides cookie consent dialogs (this sometimes break some sites, thanks EU)
  - omnimus 4y ago
    You might like Orion from Kagi. https://browser.kagi.com/ https://browser.kagi.com/
    - willmeyers 4y ago
      Got recommended Orion from one these threads and haven't looked back. Love Orion!
      - prophesi 4y ago
happybuy 4y ago
Am excited about the support for the :has() selector for Safari Content Blockers. It will enable a lot of sophisticated blocking of page elements based upon characteristics of the child elements. For example, in a feed of post where one post has a 'sponsored' text element, the :has() selector could be used to easily target the full sponsored post while leaving organic posts untouched.
lagrange77 4y ago
Still no WebXR support :(
- prophesi 4y ago
  Yep, that's what I was hoping for as well. :/
jjcm 4y ago
I've been waiting on that update to ElementInternals for years now - this was one of the main blockers to really allowing for accessible webcomponent form inputs. Really excited to see some cool custom form inputs, and for those will inevitably say "use the native form elements, dont make your own!" I agree when that's an option, but often times you do want custom form inputs (i.e. a video uploader form element that allows you to define crops / cuts / etc). This will open up the options for things like that, and will result in some great custom experiences that are also accessible.
david2ndaccount 4y ago
Simd128 for wasm is a big deal, safari was the last major browser to not support it.
- ericlewis 4y ago
  Yes, want to see if I can get whisper.cpp :P
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
musicale 4y ago
I hope they fix the "Never Auto-Play" setting some year. Obnoxious autoplaying video is a scourge.
- lapcat 4y ago
  [self-promotion] Use my extension StopTheMadness: https://underpassapp.com/StopTheMadness/ https://underpassapp.com/StopTheMadness/
imbnwa 4y ago
Wake Lock API a godsend for music web apps
- sccxy 4y ago
  New wake lock api is broken. Passes feature detection but does not work in home screen. Just like in IE you need to add some extra if’s for Safari version and environment detection.
quyleanh 4y ago
With more and more update recently, it's seems that Apple doesn't want to get another EU compliance rule of default browser?
mmis1000 4y ago
Still no Fullscreen API and no Screen Orientation API(and also orientation in web manifest) on iPhone. Apple surely hate PWA right? Without these, you can't even make a simplest portrait pwa that didn't got rotate by user accidentally. It's even funnier that they shipped fullscreen api to iPad and intentionally ignore iPhone without a reason.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- gloosx 4y ago
  Why wouldn't they hate a direct competition for their precious Monopoly Store
dixie_land 4y ago
I'm a bit surprised no one has brought up the issue with App Library support (or rather, the lack thereof) yet. When you "install" an PWA, you can only keep it on the Home Screen, while native apps can be removed from Home Screen (not uninstalled) and only shown in the library
- w-ll 4y ago
  There's another place for apps other than home screens now? I guess what your saying makes sense uninstalling apps lately has been "Remove from home screen" and "Uninstall", but i have no clue where they are.
  - pilif 4y ago
    Drag to your rightmost home screen and then drag one more time
geenat 4y ago
Animated AVIF is nice.
scottlamb 4y ago
> Safari 16.4 adds support for the video portion of Web Codecs API. Interesting that they still don't support Media Source Extensions on iOS but are adding WebCodecs support. I keep hoping Safari will add MSE, as I'd like to support both live and historical content with one API on all browsers. WebRTC doesn't seem suitable for historical. Chrome and Firefox don't support HLS. Now WebCodecs seems the most likely option, by Firefox adding support. Fingers crossed that will happen... I haven't really played with WebCodecs but it seems nice in concept.
HotGarbage 4y ago
[dead]
benfrain 4y ago
I find the dev tools/Web Inspector in Safari incredibly flakey. Just trying to autocomplete a selector in the CSS styles pane often mangles the string and doesn’t autocomplete properties correctly. Hope that Web Inspector gets some significant improvements soon
- gloosx 4y ago
  This. Safari overall is incredibly insensitive to developers and web community, and it is not easy to make your generic Chromium website to render on Safari nicely. For me personally it's sad to see them packing dozen new features incompatible with any other browser, much like Microsoft's infamous embrace, extend, and extinguish philosophy. I would love them to work on some stability and consistency with the rest of the web.
corentin88 4y ago
Lazy loading iframe is finally supported! That will be a huge perf. improvement! Loading a YT embedded video requires 15 network requests and downloads ~1Mo.
jansan 4y ago
There obviously is still a long way to go for Safari to become "good", but I think they are on the right way. For example I have one weird bug than only occurs on an M1 machine. For some reason getComputeStyle() returns wrong values for cx, cy and r of an SVG ellipse/circle. No idea what is going on and what must go wrong internally for this to happen, and I cannot even extract a test case, because the bug is not reproducible outside the app. Just hoping that it will be fixed eventually "by accident".
preezer 4y ago
Web Share Target still missing :/
eitland 4y ago
And with this, finally certain people can stop saying Safari is the new IE6 because it is lagging badly. Because that title is reserved for a certain behemoth that enjoys the same popularity as IE6 once had and which IMO is probably more dangerous to the free web than IE6 was when EU reacted.
- sam_goody 4y ago
  It is sad to watch MS (Windows as a whole; they seem to have forgotten they should be an OS) and Google (Chrome in particular*) compete for title of "most widely deployed spyware". But IE6 was not spyware, it was a browser that was maddening to use, and purposely anti standards. That title, currently, is theirs alone. * It is really no contest - Chrome is king. But even Google's little things - G-Fonts loads JS to track users on websites, and Android SDK installs an updater that also spawns nameless DLLs that run in the background and regularly send info home, would be impressive for any other spyware app...
- Rapzid 4y ago
  It's not about it lagging behind it's about it requiring more special consideration compared to the other big players. Like styling scroll bars in FireFox. But more often it feels like Safari is the special needs browser. Sometimes it's because it lags on features. Sometimes it implements a spec differently. Maybe it's the websocket bug of 2021/2022 that took forever to fix(was it?!) because their weird update cycles. It all adds up.
  - stephenr 4y ago
    If you're developing for Chrome first, it's hardly surprising that a browser made by a company which takes a much more conservative approach with user privacy and device efficiency isn't going to just adopt every half-baked API the Chrome team throws out there. Does Safari lack support for some actual standards? Sure. No browser is "feature complete". The difference is, a good chunk of what people complain about, are draft features, made available in Chrome because Google's whole business model is "put everything in a browser, and track the bajeezus out of it".

347 points by om2 4y ago

If anyone finds themselves wanting to build a static site with cron-interval push notifications using the Web Push API announced here. I wrote a simple service that lets you get notifications on a cron interval without needing to write any backend code / host anything: https://benkaiser.dev/time-trigger-web-push-notifications/ https://benkaiser.dev/time-trigger-web-push-notifications/

explaininjs 4y ago

Looks like I might finally have a reason to upgrade my iPhone 7! Web Push is fantastic for developing useful applications without paying the apple tax, which necessarily results in the garbage-tier free apps dominating the App Store today (Want to do anything at all? Watch an ad every minute. Want functionality that's not the absolute bare minimum? Pay $5/month forever.)

scarface74 4y ago
Free apps are not using ads because they need to fund their $99 developer fee.
- explaininjs 4y ago
  I ain’t publishing any utility apps for free if I have to pay. I have made plenty of utility websites I use as Home Screen apps though, all without ads.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    Do you not have any hobbies that you pay for? When I was deep in the C# ecosystem, I personally paid for my own JetBrain license. Do you also not pay someone to host your web apps?
    - sccxy 4y ago
      It is not only $99. It is $500+ (used) computer also. Cannot use your old PC do develop iOS apps. $99 may be nothing for most HN users, but for 3rd world developer...
      - true_religion 4y ago
        I’m a third world developer. In the third world, at least in Ghana, iPhones are over represented in the middle class and by association many people have MacBooks. This means there is a glut of older models in second hand market or passed down to kids, cousins, and family friends. The problem with the 99 dollars is that it’s payable yearly. Yes someone might sponsor you once and give you enough for a single year but they won’t do it ever year. You have to make enough yourself and that’s a tall order of business if you are a student. Thus no one learns iOS development first.
      - philistine 4y ago
        I get that PCs are more common but you can't classify that as a recurring cost. I mean, if your computer is a Mac than there's no cost. It's only if you're using a PC that you have to get a Mac to develop for iOS etc. But I totally get you, Apple is but one company and they've completely bungled reasonable prices in many countries, for example India.
    - explaininjs 4y ago
      I use Cloudflare free tier and am trialing Fly.up free tier for always-on servers as needed (websockets, etc.)
    - krono 4y ago
      Paying for the privilege of getting to fill gaps and solve problems on my device operating system that the recipient of those payments who also happens to control said device and operating system refuses to resolve or has even purposefully introduced. Yeah, no thanks.. I'll pass.
      - scarface74 4y ago
  - lozenge 4y ago
    There are good apps out there written by casual people, they just can't spend the time and money on making their app easy to find.
  - pier25 4y ago
    I had a free password generator app on the Mac App Store. It wasn't super popular but had like 50-70 daily downloads. I didn't make any money from it. Just made the app because I needed it myself and wanted to learn a bit of macOS dev. After a couple of years I decided to stop paying $99 a year for hosting a little 5MB app.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      And that was your choice on the Mac. You could put the app on your own website and let users download it.
      - pier25 4y ago
        Indeed. So? My point was not about distributing the app but about paying $99 every year to distribute a free app using the official app store.
        scarface74 4y ago
        If you don’t want to spend $99 to use the “official Mac App Store”. You have other options on the Mac. What’s there to complain about?
        pier25 4y ago
        Me: "X has this problem" You: "but you can use Y" Me: "I know, just saying X has this problem" You: "But you can use Y. Don't complain about X."
        scarface74 4y ago
        If my head hurts when I repeatedly hit myself over the head with a hammer, guess what I do?
    - conradfr 4y ago
      Does the app disappear from the store when you stop paying the yearly Apple tax or you just can't update it?

carlycue 4y ago

[flagged]

zapt02 4y ago
Do you see any problems with there only being one browser engine that is relevant?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
dimator 4y ago
on the one hand, a browser engine monoculture is going to be a disaster for the standards-based internet (if it's not already a disaster). on the other hand, apple crippling webapps with a half-assed browser so that they can sell apps and rent-seek also sucks. i'm glad safari exists, but for the wrong reasons. it's such a tragedy that there are not more for-profit browser companies.
- illiarian 4y ago
  > apple crippling webapps Of course apple isn't crippling them. On top of that you have the world's most popular OS with none of the perceived crippling, and we've yet to see a single amazing web app on that OS.
  - sccxy 4y ago
    Apple IS crippling webapps. They just released new Wake Lock API, but it only works in browser Safari. It is broken in PWA... QA cannot be that bad they do not test PWAs for new features.
    - illiarian 4y ago
      > Apple IS crippling webapps. Of course it isn't. Unless you can come up with a non-random list of things of what constitutes a PWA. Everytime someone screams about Apple not doing something in PWAs, that list is different. Meanwhile, as I said above, there's an OS that holds about 70% of the world's marketshare that has none of this "crippling" as you put it. And yet, there are literally none of these amazing PWAs there that Apple supposedly cripples on their OS. Something tells me, the problem doesn't lie with Apple.

kevincox 4y ago

That is a bunch of features that solve problems I have margin-trim, lh and :user-valid will all allow me to improve code in my projects. Unfortunately they aren't supported anywhere yet (except for :user-valid on Firefox). I would love to see the other browsers roll out support.

8n4vidtmkvmk 4y ago
I tried :user-valid on Firefox and I can't see this supposed checkmark that's supposed to appear https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/:user-valid https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/:user-valid
- chrismorgan 4y ago
  Remember you need to interact with it first (e.g. modify the value)—that’s the whole point of :user-valid. (That is: works for me, and this is all I can think of that would make it appear not to work.)
  - 8n4vidtmkvmk 4y ago
    I did modify it and blur https://i.imgur.com/D04xIia.png https://i.imgur.com/D04xIia.png No error on empty string either
    - chrismorgan 4y ago
      This is :user-valid and an email field.

thedanbob 4y ago

Nice to see Apple giving some love to web apps. One feature (bug fix?) that I've been wanting for a long time is the ability to autofill from my password manager in Home Screen web apps on my phone. Autofill works in Safari, but once I turn a site into a Home Screen app it no longer appears. But only on my phone, iPad it still works. Edit: Looks like someone may have already reported it 3 years ago: https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=210061 https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=210061 > The space for the saved accounts is there, yet the text is empty. There's nothing to select Sure sounds like what I'm seeing, except instead of being intermittent it's always like that.

rvz 4y ago

Here comes the web push notification spam avalanche going onto iOS. The SaaS grifters will metastasize, multiply and deliver their snake oil as they did to Android now onto iOS users only to degrade the platform further.

tinus_hn 4y ago
You can of course choose not to add web apps to your Home Screen.
- gkbrk 4y ago
  Can't wait to see stuff like this everywhere. "To pay your phone bill, please add the T-Mobile web app to your Home Screen." "To read the rest of the article, please add the News web app to your Home Screen."
  - the_gipsy 4y ago
    You already have this, it's called native apps.
CharlesW 4y ago
Two thoughts: (1) For this to work at all, users will need to have added the app to their Home Screen. (2) Because they "work exactly like notifications from other apps", you can easily control when they're able to interrupt you, and also easily mute abusers.
rabuse 4y ago
Acting like most apps don't already bombard us with crap on the regular... this is not a webapp issue.
s1k3s 4y ago
All you have to do is click "No thanks".

EGreg 4y ago

What is the best way to maintain a session cookie when a web app is added to home screen? Right now I take people to a secret URL with long generated token so the web app will also have it and be able to correlate the two. Yes I can have the user re-sign-in with credentials, or webauthn, but seems overkill. Also can Apple add some sort of thing like Chrome has “beforeinstallprompt” to actually show an install promopt?

judge2020 4y ago
> beforeinstallprompt Apple's philosophy is that it needs to be on the home screen, and that popups prompting users to install the app were a mistake (many people will allow notifications and app installs just to dismiss prompts). Making people do a song and dance should reduce the potential for "your grandparents" accumulating an infinity gauntlet of spam notification PWAs.

yanis_t 4y ago

Pretty big deal for PWA. Now we can send push notifications, and update app badges. Now if we could get periodic background sync api, and vibration api, that would be perfect.

sccxy 4y ago
I tested some features on my PWAs. New wake lock API does not work in PWA, only works in Safari... Apple is making sure that nobody will use PWAs. https://whatpwacando.today/wake-lock https://whatpwacando.today/wake-lock
- JayStavis 4y ago
  The release notes for 16.4 include "Added Support for the Screen Wake Lock API" https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safari-release-notes/safari-16_4-release-notes https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safari-release-not...
  - sccxy 4y ago
    Yeah, but "bugs" happen and this new wake lock only works in browser safari. Does NOT work in PWA. Bug or intentional road block?
    - CryZe 4y ago
      It does not work for me in browser Safari (iOS) either: undefined is not an object (evaluating 'navigator.wakeLock.request') Update: Turns out it's only available behind HTTPS. The PWA bug might be related.
      - kevindees 4y ago
        I'd love to know if anyone discovers what is goin on with PWAs. I got wake lock working in the browser but not with the PWA.
- illiarian 4y ago

ladon86 4y ago

I disagree with the Chrome comment, but how about decoupling Mobile Safari upgrades from OS upgrades? It would be nice for all users to get access to these new APIs via a simple app update. This would allow developers to actually start using them within days/months rather than years.

yuters 4y ago
For a developer, it exists already as a simple app update: https://developer.apple.com/safari/technology-preview/ https://developer.apple.com/safari/technology-preview/ Edit: Sorry, missed the part about the "mobile" safari. You're right, I don't think it's available for mobile.
- benatkin 4y ago
  It also wouldn't matter much to me if developers could upgrade. What I would want is for users of my app to be able to upgrade when prompted. Fortunately the cutoff I've chosen for my current project isn't that bad - 15.4. It means some iPhone users won't be able to use it. Eventually I'll feel OK about requiring 16.4. But I second the request for being able to install a new version without upgrading the whole OS.
yamtaddle 4y ago
The built-in webkit is used extensively in apps. Tying it to the OS release makes testing and development a whole lot easier.
- mepian 4y ago
  Is it very difficult to ship two versions of it, one "stable" in the OS for embedding, and another in an app?
  - illiarian 4y ago
    That's what they originally did, and developers complained that in-app browser wasn't getting the same features as the main browser

pfista 4y ago

Apple releasing support for web push was a big reason I decided to build an API for sending push notifications to PWAs. Relatively easy to work with, though I hope their OS integration will add support for more native iOS notification features like actions. If you wanna try out native push notifications it's pretty fast to try out: https://alerty.dev https://alerty.dev

jagged-chisel 4y ago
Is there a trial or free tier to try out? I’m only seeing options to pay $5 to see if this could fit my workflow. Edit: on the account page, it says “You're currently on the free plan.” But I can’t do anything with notifications.
- pfista 4y ago
  Sorry I missed this. Yes there is a free trial- right now you get 100 notifications to test while building your integration out. Also a promo on producthunt today for 20% off.
unclet 4y ago
it seems the WebPush on Safari does not play sound alert
- pfista 4y ago
  The API also has support for things like custom vibrations, urgency, icons, and action URLs. But- these are minimally supported by Safari Desktop and Safari Mobile today. I hope Safari iOS adds support for actions and shortcut workflows when clicking a notification.

s1k3s 4y ago

Every time a non-chromium browser pushes updates it's good news. That being said, if you care about open standards, privacy and a fair market, you should just delete whatever you have and install Firefox right now.

illiarian 4y ago
> That being said, if you care about open standards, privacy and a fair market, you should just delete whatever you have and install Firefox right now. I wonder if you realize that these days Firefox is more often than not on Safari's side when it comes to all the things you've listed.
- s1k3s 4y ago
  How's that?
  - illiarian 4y ago
    On privacy, APIs etc. Firefox backs Safari in their attempt to stop Chrome from just barging ahead
    - xcrunner529 4y ago
      [dead]

happybuy 4y ago

Yet another huge update of features to Safari, building upon the great progress they made last year in: - leading on the Interop 2022 dashboard results [1] - posting the best Speedometer score on the Mac [1] - changing their pace of innovation and releases to deliver newer API features in a quicker manner [1] https://www.magiclasso.co/insights/triumph-of-safari/ https://www.magiclasso.co/insights/triumph-of-safari/

frankjr 4y ago
I would really like to give Safari a chance but I just cannot get over the fact that there's no support for more advanced ad blockers. Sticking with Firefox/Brave for now.
- pps 4y ago
  AdGuard (the full, paid version for MacOS) is the way. I don't use Safari anymore, but I'm still happy enough with it to not install anything else for other browsers. Unfortunately, the iOS version only works as an extension for Safari.
- bni 4y ago
  Ka-Block! Open Source ad-blocker with silly name but its great. Vinegar Native video player on youtube, also means no ads. Hush Hides cookie consent dialogs (this sometimes break some sites, thanks EU)
- omnimus 4y ago
  You might like Orion from Kagi. https://browser.kagi.com/ https://browser.kagi.com/
  - willmeyers 4y ago
    Got recommended Orion from one these threads and haven't looked back. Love Orion!
    - prophesi 4y ago

happybuy 4y ago

Am excited about the support for the :has() selector for Safari Content Blockers. It will enable a lot of sophisticated blocking of page elements based upon characteristics of the child elements. For example, in a feed of post where one post has a 'sponsored' text element, the :has() selector could be used to easily target the full sponsored post while leaving organic posts untouched.

lagrange77 4y ago

Still no WebXR support :(

prophesi 4y ago
Yep, that's what I was hoping for as well. :/

jjcm 4y ago

I've been waiting on that update to ElementInternals for years now - this was one of the main blockers to really allowing for accessible webcomponent form inputs. Really excited to see some cool custom form inputs, and for those will inevitably say "use the native form elements, dont make your own!" I agree when that's an option, but often times you do want custom form inputs (i.e. a video uploader form element that allows you to define crops / cuts / etc). This will open up the options for things like that, and will result in some great custom experiences that are also accessible.

david2ndaccount 4y ago

Simd128 for wasm is a big deal, safari was the last major browser to not support it.

ericlewis 4y ago
Yes, want to see if I can get whisper.cpp :P

deleted 4y ago

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musicale 4y ago

I hope they fix the "Never Auto-Play" setting some year. Obnoxious autoplaying video is a scourge.

lapcat 4y ago
[self-promotion] Use my extension StopTheMadness: https://underpassapp.com/StopTheMadness/ https://underpassapp.com/StopTheMadness/

imbnwa 4y ago

Wake Lock API a godsend for music web apps

sccxy 4y ago
New wake lock api is broken. Passes feature detection but does not work in home screen. Just like in IE you need to add some extra if’s for Safari version and environment detection.

quyleanh 4y ago

With more and more update recently, it's seems that Apple doesn't want to get another EU compliance rule of default browser?

mmis1000 4y ago

Still no Fullscreen API and no Screen Orientation API(and also orientation in web manifest) on iPhone. Apple surely hate PWA right? Without these, you can't even make a simplest portrait pwa that didn't got rotate by user accidentally. It's even funnier that they shipped fullscreen api to iPad and intentionally ignore iPhone without a reason.

deleted 4y ago
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gloosx 4y ago
Why wouldn't they hate a direct competition for their precious Monopoly Store

dixie_land 4y ago

I'm a bit surprised no one has brought up the issue with App Library support (or rather, the lack thereof) yet. When you "install" an PWA, you can only keep it on the Home Screen, while native apps can be removed from Home Screen (not uninstalled) and only shown in the library

w-ll 4y ago
There's another place for apps other than home screens now? I guess what your saying makes sense uninstalling apps lately has been "Remove from home screen" and "Uninstall", but i have no clue where they are.
- pilif 4y ago
  Drag to your rightmost home screen and then drag one more time

geenat 4y ago

Animated AVIF is nice.

scottlamb 4y ago

> Safari 16.4 adds support for the video portion of Web Codecs API. Interesting that they still don't support Media Source Extensions on iOS but are adding WebCodecs support. I keep hoping Safari will add MSE, as I'd like to support both live and historical content with one API on all browsers. WebRTC doesn't seem suitable for historical. Chrome and Firefox don't support HLS. Now WebCodecs seems the most likely option, by Firefox adding support. Fingers crossed that will happen... I haven't really played with WebCodecs but it seems nice in concept.

HotGarbage 4y ago

[dead]

benfrain 4y ago

I find the dev tools/Web Inspector in Safari incredibly flakey. Just trying to autocomplete a selector in the CSS styles pane often mangles the string and doesn’t autocomplete properties correctly. Hope that Web Inspector gets some significant improvements soon

gloosx 4y ago
This. Safari overall is incredibly insensitive to developers and web community, and it is not easy to make your generic Chromium website to render on Safari nicely. For me personally it's sad to see them packing dozen new features incompatible with any other browser, much like Microsoft's infamous embrace, extend, and extinguish philosophy. I would love them to work on some stability and consistency with the rest of the web.

corentin88 4y ago

Lazy loading iframe is finally supported! That will be a huge perf. improvement! Loading a YT embedded video requires 15 network requests and downloads ~1Mo.

jansan 4y ago

There obviously is still a long way to go for Safari to become "good", but I think they are on the right way. For example I have one weird bug than only occurs on an M1 machine. For some reason getComputeStyle() returns wrong values for cx, cy and r of an SVG ellipse/circle. No idea what is going on and what must go wrong internally for this to happen, and I cannot even extract a test case, because the bug is not reproducible outside the app. Just hoping that it will be fixed eventually "by accident".

preezer 4y ago

Web Share Target still missing :/

eitland 4y ago

And with this, finally certain people can stop saying Safari is the new IE6 because it is lagging badly. Because that title is reserved for a certain behemoth that enjoys the same popularity as IE6 once had and which IMO is probably more dangerous to the free web than IE6 was when EU reacted.

sam_goody 4y ago
It is sad to watch MS (Windows as a whole; they seem to have forgotten they should be an OS) and Google (Chrome in particular*) compete for title of "most widely deployed spyware". But IE6 was not spyware, it was a browser that was maddening to use, and purposely anti standards. That title, currently, is theirs alone. * It is really no contest - Chrome is king. But even Google's little things - G-Fonts loads JS to track users on websites, and Android SDK installs an updater that also spawns nameless DLLs that run in the background and regularly send info home, would be impressive for any other spyware app...
Rapzid 4y ago
It's not about it lagging behind it's about it requiring more special consideration compared to the other big players. Like styling scroll bars in FireFox. But more often it feels like Safari is the special needs browser. Sometimes it's because it lags on features. Sometimes it implements a spec differently. Maybe it's the websocket bug of 2021/2022 that took forever to fix(was it?!) because their weird update cycles. It all adds up.
- stephenr 4y ago
  If you're developing for Chrome first, it's hardly surprising that a browser made by a company which takes a much more conservative approach with user privacy and device efficiency isn't going to just adopt every half-baked API the Chrome team throws out there. Does Safari lack support for some actual standards? Sure. No browser is "feature complete". The difference is, a good chunk of what people complain about, are draft features, made available in Chrome because Google's whole business model is "put everything in a browser, and track the bajeezus out of it".