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I would love to be able to ship apps in this, with a code bundle, so we don't need to ship a full Electron engine for every app. Even better, I wish someone wou

I would love to be able to ship apps in this, with a code bundle, so we don't need to ship a full Electron engine for every app. Even better, I wish someone would standardise it so we could still write one, ship to all platforms.

Hamuko 3y ago
I imagine most developers will still elect to ship their apps using Electron for the usual Safari issues: Safari is only on macOS, very slow to adapt new web technologies and Safari updates are largely tied to macOS updates.
- garblegarble 3y ago
  >very slow to adapt new web technologies I'm not sure this argument holds water given the shockingly old versions of Electron that vendors ship (WhatsApp is using 13.6.9, Slack 24.2.0, Skype 19.0.9, Discord 22.3.2...) Separately, is Safari actually slow to adopt new web technologies, or do they wait for standardisation and not simply accept the latest half-baked api of the week that Google builds for Chromium, uses across their websites, and then proclaims a New Web Standard?
  - tough 3y ago
    Push notifications where a chromium thing?
    - garblegarble 3y ago
      Remembering that this thread is in the context of using native browser engines for desktop apps vs Electron, and the original poster's suggestion was quite measured (i.e. we don't need electron for every desktop app). I don't think your point about push notifications is particularly relevant in this use case (personally I don't want desktop apps sending me any push notifications when they're closed - am I in a minority?) A review comparing the bleeding edge versions of Chrome, Edge, Safari, and Firefox on caniuse.com shows that Safari is doing quite well: https://caniuse.com/?compare=chrome+117,edge+114,safari+TP,firefox+115&compareCats=all https://caniuse.com/?compare=chrome+117,edge+114,safari+TP,f... Many of the areas of "no" for Safari are also "no" for Firefox, suggesting Chrome/Chromium features without a consensus amongst browser vendors, and many don't make any sense for desktop apps (e.g. Vibration/Gyro/Accelerometer APIs). The GP made a fairly broad statement about web technology support which is what I was responding to - I know they've lagged behind on Push Notifications but what I'm arguing is that I think the narrative of "Safari is slow to adopt new web tech" is more a perception driven by Chromium constantly pushing new features into their browser (and them being regarded as 'web tech' rather than 'chrome tech' simply by nature of their position in the market) than Safari actually lagging behind standards implementation generally. P.S. On Web Push, I don't think anybody whose older relatives use Android and get regular advert-laden push notifications (from sites they didn't realise they were accepting push notifications from, and often aren't sure how to stop them) would disagree that Google's attitude on Web Push was foolhardy, and Apple taking a more thought out approach is welcome (although I agree that it should have happened faster)
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
- threeseed 3y ago
  > very slow Cautious. Chrome often adds features that are used to track you or have a negative impact on performance and battery life.
- brundolf 3y ago
  They recently added a bunch of long-awaited PWA features to mobile safari, and now this. I think Apple's stance is changing
breckenedge 3y ago
It is standardized and Safari isn’t the first. Edge already supports this on Windows, Chrome does everywhere, and they’re all using the same “manifest.json” declaration whenever display is set to “standalone”. These all require a service worker, so that’s the destination of your pack and, conveniently, a cache for downloaded assets.
whartung 3y ago
There’s that Tauri project that is pretty close to exactly this. It’s Rust code using a browser UI layer, but unlike Electron, it uses the native Web control for the platform. That way you don’t ship the browser portion, just your business logic and UI experience. You’ll have some cross browser issues but save on footprint.

Hamuko 3y ago

I imagine most developers will still elect to ship their apps using Electron for the usual Safari issues: Safari is only on macOS, very slow to adapt new web technologies and Safari updates are largely tied to macOS updates.

garblegarble 3y ago
>very slow to adapt new web technologies I'm not sure this argument holds water given the shockingly old versions of Electron that vendors ship (WhatsApp is using 13.6.9, Slack 24.2.0, Skype 19.0.9, Discord 22.3.2...) Separately, is Safari actually slow to adopt new web technologies, or do they wait for standardisation and not simply accept the latest half-baked api of the week that Google builds for Chromium, uses across their websites, and then proclaims a New Web Standard?
- tough 3y ago
  Push notifications where a chromium thing?
  - garblegarble 3y ago
    Remembering that this thread is in the context of using native browser engines for desktop apps vs Electron, and the original poster's suggestion was quite measured (i.e. we don't need electron for every desktop app). I don't think your point about push notifications is particularly relevant in this use case (personally I don't want desktop apps sending me any push notifications when they're closed - am I in a minority?) A review comparing the bleeding edge versions of Chrome, Edge, Safari, and Firefox on caniuse.com shows that Safari is doing quite well: https://caniuse.com/?compare=chrome+117,edge+114,safari+TP,firefox+115&compareCats=all https://caniuse.com/?compare=chrome+117,edge+114,safari+TP,f... Many of the areas of "no" for Safari are also "no" for Firefox, suggesting Chrome/Chromium features without a consensus amongst browser vendors, and many don't make any sense for desktop apps (e.g. Vibration/Gyro/Accelerometer APIs). The GP made a fairly broad statement about web technology support which is what I was responding to - I know they've lagged behind on Push Notifications but what I'm arguing is that I think the narrative of "Safari is slow to adopt new web tech" is more a perception driven by Chromium constantly pushing new features into their browser (and them being regarded as 'web tech' rather than 'chrome tech' simply by nature of their position in the market) than Safari actually lagging behind standards implementation generally. P.S. On Web Push, I don't think anybody whose older relatives use Android and get regular advert-laden push notifications (from sites they didn't realise they were accepting push notifications from, and often aren't sure how to stop them) would disagree that Google's attitude on Web Push was foolhardy, and Apple taking a more thought out approach is welcome (although I agree that it should have happened faster)
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
threeseed 3y ago
> very slow Cautious. Chrome often adds features that are used to track you or have a negative impact on performance and battery life.
brundolf 3y ago
They recently added a bunch of long-awaited PWA features to mobile safari, and now this. I think Apple's stance is changing

breckenedge 3y ago

It is standardized and Safari isn’t the first. Edge already supports this on Windows, Chrome does everywhere, and they’re all using the same “manifest.json” declaration whenever display is set to “standalone”. These all require a service worker, so that’s the destination of your pack and, conveniently, a cache for downloaded assets.

whartung 3y ago

There’s that Tauri project that is pretty close to exactly this. It’s Rust code using a browser UI layer, but unlike Electron, it uses the native Web control for the platform. That way you don’t ship the browser portion, just your business logic and UI experience. You’ll have some cross browser issues but save on footprint.