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Not if Apple has its way. They've consistently regressed, failed to implement standards, implemented them brokenly, delayed/delayed/delayed, stated that a featu

Not if Apple has its way. They've consistently regressed, failed to implement standards, implemented them brokenly, delayed/delayed/delayed, stated that a feature was bad for privacy|security|performance, etc. Just an endless stream of roadblocks. For example: photo and file uploads (yes, really! remember "iOS doesn't have a filesystem, so no uploads" which really damaged craigslist because Browse didn't work on iPhone for many years), webrtc, PWA add-to-home, sticky/fixed positioning, scrolling through notch (it worked, and then it didn't), service workers, push notifications, and so much more than I can't even remember (maybe someone else can list their favorites). Even when eventually we got the features, they were often broken in order to keep pushing people into the App Store. Does the author REALLY believe that Apple won't instantly drop support for any feature that could seriously disrupt the App Store? Not on your life.

judge2020 3y ago
> Browse didn't work on iPhone for many years The web API always allowed you to choose photos from your camera roll.
- hobobaggins 3y ago
  No, it did not, not until iOS 6 (!!) And Steve Jobs ensured that Flash uploaders popular at the time could never work on the iPhone, either. Example: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/4104/is-it-possible-to-upload-files-to-a-website-from-safari-on-iphone https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/4104/is-it-possibl... Ironically, Microsoft had tried to kill the web off with Internet Explorer just a few years before, but no one noticed what Apple was doing, because they did it so well... they got 400,000 and then a million apps in their app store, completely bypassing the web altogether. And as evidenced by your comment on this very technical forum, even now, people still might not have noticed what Apple was doing.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    You’re really complaining about something that was fixed over a decade ago? What next, complaining about 8.3 character filenames on Windows 3.1?
    - callalex 3y ago
      The point is that it was broken on purpose until they finally had to cave to pressure because it was such a pain in the butt. Being able to choose a picture to upload from a phone wasn’t new or hi-tech, and could be done just fine on feature phones where the number pad was 3x the size of the screen and WAP meant wireless application protocol instead of the new thing.
      - scarface_74 3y ago
        Yes and we all know how Apple “caves in to pressure” and knew they were going to lose sells to Android if they didn’t allow photo uploads from the browser
    - fsckboy 3y ago
      my beef with 8.3 was that THEY WERE ALL UPPERCASE when ASCII went from 6 bits to 7, they should have redefined 0x41-0x5A to lowercase. the 70s and 80s would have been so much nicer.
  - Klonoar 3y ago
    This is literally something from 10+ years ago.
    - mxkopy 3y ago
      IME WebSockets work fine on Firefox but not on Safari, at least not naively
    - TaylorAlexander 3y ago
      Yes. One person said "feature X always existed" and the reply was "not until iOS 6", which is corroborated by their link. Based on what people are saying in that link, iOS existed for something like 6 years before it got working web page picture uploads. Meaning the person saying the feature has always existed was incorrect.
      - bsdpufferfish 3y ago
        And iOS 3 introduced the App Store? And iOS 2 introduced copy paste? This doesn’t seem like much of a delay.
        wernercd 3y ago
        In the grand scheme of things. In a world billions of years old? 3 years isn't much of a delay. And those features, with the small "delay", still weren't "always" available - which was the claim ("the api always had those features").
  - arein3 3y ago
    >Microsoft had tried to kill the web off with Internet Explorer Why would they need that?
    - jraph 3y ago
      They wanted their own proprietary network they controlled (MSN). They also wanted people to develop Windows apps with their technologies, not things that worked everywhere.
scarface_74 3y ago
If the problem is just Apple, then why do modt companies make iOS apps, Android apps and web apps instead of telling Android users to just use the web apps? It came out in the Epic trial that 90% of App Store revenue came from in app purchases of play to win games. Those apps aren’t going to the web because it’s much easier to convince whales to buy coins and loot boxes using in app purchase than put a credit card on a website.
- visarga 3y ago
  > play to win games pay to win games, I can never find a game that has fixed cost and doesn't push advertising or self advertising, you know, an app safe for kids; they all have full screen ads with tricky close buttons BTW, why is App Store such a shit show? It's 99% crap. Where is the concept of pay to own.
  - tekchip 3y ago
    I understand you're referring to the Apple store but in case other non-apple users find this. On the Google Play store at least these are relatively easy to find. Pick your category, games, then scroll the tabs at the top to "Premium".
  - timknauf 3y ago
    No-Bullshit Games [1] is a good resource for finding quality fixed-cost / premium games. [1] https://nobsgames.stavros.io/ https://nobsgames.stavros.io/
    - supermatt 3y ago
      A great resource - It is VERY out of date though.
      - vvvvvvvvvvvv 3y ago
        Any good pick since then? I also hate IAP
manchego 3y ago
My wife has had to listen to me complain for the last week about what a pain it is to get the absolute orientation of an iPhone from the browser. On Android you can use AbsoluteOrientationSensor or deviceorientationabsolute event. These will provide a quaternion or Euler angles describing how to rotate the device from the default orientation (flat on the ground, screen up, with the top pointing north) to its current orientation. The situation on the iPhone has almost reduced me to tears. As far as I can tell, it only provides Euler angles relative to some implementation defined reference frame, along with the actual compass heading. In practice, the Euler angles given are absolute with respect to gravity, but always treat north as the direction the phone was pointed when the first sensor reading took place. To deal with this, you can use the actual compass heading to rotate the relative orientation to the absolute orientation. But this will have problems near the poles, as the Euler angles and heading will give conflicting values. Beyond this the compass heading field is really weird. If you want to experience its behavior for yourself, take the iPhone compass app and starting from flat, rotate the phone 360 degrees through the pitch axis. Notice at what points the heading flips between its start heading and start heading+180. I bet it will surprise you!
- mips_r4300i 3y ago
  Are you saying you have to fight gimbal lock just to find which way to rotate the screen on iPhone? That was a problem on the 1960s lunar missions, no idea it'd happen in such a mundane application
  - manchego 3y ago
    Pretty much. The iPhone browser api only exposes compass data in one dimension, around the z-axis. So there is indeed gimbal lock-like behavior near the axis. Which is crazy since the magnetometer is 3 dimensional.
  - jacobolus 3y ago
    This is why orientation should always be reported as a unit quaternion (or if you strongly care about using only 3 vs. 4 numbers, using "modified Rodrigues parameters", the stereographic projection of a unit quaternion).
lnxg33k1 3y ago
maybe at a certain point subjects will stop spending money to enrich the king and will pick something where they at least can install whatever they want
- puchatek 3y ago
  The overwhelming majority of users couldn't care less about this stuff as long as their phones play the content that they and their peers are into right now. If the alternative works well, is easy to switch to and is affordable then maybe they can be persuaded by their more tech savvy friends but if any of those three are compromised then you won't get much adoption.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
Vinnl 3y ago
> Does the author REALLY believe that Apple won't instantly drop support for any feature that could seriously disrupt the App Store? I'm fairly sure that he doesn't have particularly much faith in Apple, no: https://infrequently.org/2022/06/apple-is-not-defending-browser-engine-choice/ https://infrequently.org/2022/06/apple-is-not-defending-brow... But they're not counting on Apple's good heart; they're counting on regulators. From the article: > Apple will, of course, attempt to delay the entry of competing browsers through as-yet-unknown strategies, but the clock is ticking.
flakiness 3y ago
You're overlooking the important point of the post: He's suggesting that Apple should allow non-Safari browsers (with different engines) to make the browser space more competitive, and media should push the narrative in that direction. That's exactly because Safari not being competitive enough. I'm not surprised if Microsoft (the author's employer) is quietly preparing Edge for iOS with a non-Safari engine (ex. Chromium.)
- close04 3y ago
  Safari's iOS exclusivity and resulting ~18% market share is probably the only reason Chromium based browsers don't have 95+% of the market. Some stick to whatever default they get but I think most would just immediately jump to Chrome(ium), with a very, very small minority like me going for Firefox. The mobile segment doesn't concentrate techy users like the desktop does so Firefox would see even lower (that the current ~3%) figures there. A world absolutely dominated by Google's control over the browser scares me more than Apple's control over the AppStore.
  - ThatPlayer 3y ago
    The solution is better anti-trust, not giving Apple a real monopoly because of Google's potential monopoly. Good anti-trust will handle both.
    - nsagent 3y ago
      If you are correct, let's ensure the browser duopoly is broken up first, rather than forcing Apple to open the market for Google to corner it. Then it will truly be a monopoly and all consumers lose.
      - manderley 3y ago
        Why would the Chrome engine being dominant be all that problematic? And as a user, I'd like to make that choice for myself. Also, Safari wouldn't vanish just because you'd be able to use a different browser engine. I strongly disagree with your "scary" (not scary) scenario: Only a small percentage of users is ever going to change defaults.
taf2 3y ago
SharedWorkers too
wernercd 3y ago
To add to this... it's not just that they've failed to implement standards: They have actively denied the ability to install alternatives. It's one thing if Chrome was Chromium and was simply blocked from low level stuff because "reasons"... but that's not where we are. Chrome, for example, is at its core on the Apple Store a reskinned Safari because alternatives simply aren't allowed. This isn't a regression and failure to implement standards... this is active activity to lock people into a lesser experience while actively blocking better. This is worse than IE on Windows as at least with IE on Windows you could install alternatives.

judge2020 3y ago

> Browse didn't work on iPhone for many years The web API always allowed you to choose photos from your camera roll.

hobobaggins 3y ago
No, it did not, not until iOS 6 (!!) And Steve Jobs ensured that Flash uploaders popular at the time could never work on the iPhone, either. Example: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/4104/is-it-possible-to-upload-files-to-a-website-from-safari-on-iphone https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/4104/is-it-possibl... Ironically, Microsoft had tried to kill the web off with Internet Explorer just a few years before, but no one noticed what Apple was doing, because they did it so well... they got 400,000 and then a million apps in their app store, completely bypassing the web altogether. And as evidenced by your comment on this very technical forum, even now, people still might not have noticed what Apple was doing.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  You’re really complaining about something that was fixed over a decade ago? What next, complaining about 8.3 character filenames on Windows 3.1?
  - callalex 3y ago
    The point is that it was broken on purpose until they finally had to cave to pressure because it was such a pain in the butt. Being able to choose a picture to upload from a phone wasn’t new or hi-tech, and could be done just fine on feature phones where the number pad was 3x the size of the screen and WAP meant wireless application protocol instead of the new thing.
    - scarface_74 3y ago
      Yes and we all know how Apple “caves in to pressure” and knew they were going to lose sells to Android if they didn’t allow photo uploads from the browser
  - fsckboy 3y ago
    my beef with 8.3 was that THEY WERE ALL UPPERCASE when ASCII went from 6 bits to 7, they should have redefined 0x41-0x5A to lowercase. the 70s and 80s would have been so much nicer.
- Klonoar 3y ago
  This is literally something from 10+ years ago.
  - mxkopy 3y ago
    IME WebSockets work fine on Firefox but not on Safari, at least not naively
  - TaylorAlexander 3y ago
    Yes. One person said "feature X always existed" and the reply was "not until iOS 6", which is corroborated by their link. Based on what people are saying in that link, iOS existed for something like 6 years before it got working web page picture uploads. Meaning the person saying the feature has always existed was incorrect.
    - bsdpufferfish 3y ago
      And iOS 3 introduced the App Store? And iOS 2 introduced copy paste? This doesn’t seem like much of a delay.
      - wernercd 3y ago
        In the grand scheme of things. In a world billions of years old? 3 years isn't much of a delay. And those features, with the small "delay", still weren't "always" available - which was the claim ("the api always had those features").
- arein3 3y ago
  >Microsoft had tried to kill the web off with Internet Explorer Why would they need that?
  - jraph 3y ago
    They wanted their own proprietary network they controlled (MSN). They also wanted people to develop Windows apps with their technologies, not things that worked everywhere.

scarface_74 3y ago

If the problem is just Apple, then why do modt companies make iOS apps, Android apps and web apps instead of telling Android users to just use the web apps? It came out in the Epic trial that 90% of App Store revenue came from in app purchases of play to win games. Those apps aren’t going to the web because it’s much easier to convince whales to buy coins and loot boxes using in app purchase than put a credit card on a website.

visarga 3y ago
> play to win games pay to win games, I can never find a game that has fixed cost and doesn't push advertising or self advertising, you know, an app safe for kids; they all have full screen ads with tricky close buttons BTW, why is App Store such a shit show? It's 99% crap. Where is the concept of pay to own.
- tekchip 3y ago
  I understand you're referring to the Apple store but in case other non-apple users find this. On the Google Play store at least these are relatively easy to find. Pick your category, games, then scroll the tabs at the top to "Premium".
- timknauf 3y ago
  No-Bullshit Games [1] is a good resource for finding quality fixed-cost / premium games. [1] https://nobsgames.stavros.io/ https://nobsgames.stavros.io/
  - supermatt 3y ago
    A great resource - It is VERY out of date though.
    - vvvvvvvvvvvv 3y ago
      Any good pick since then? I also hate IAP

manchego 3y ago

My wife has had to listen to me complain for the last week about what a pain it is to get the absolute orientation of an iPhone from the browser. On Android you can use AbsoluteOrientationSensor or deviceorientationabsolute event. These will provide a quaternion or Euler angles describing how to rotate the device from the default orientation (flat on the ground, screen up, with the top pointing north) to its current orientation. The situation on the iPhone has almost reduced me to tears. As far as I can tell, it only provides Euler angles relative to some implementation defined reference frame, along with the actual compass heading. In practice, the Euler angles given are absolute with respect to gravity, but always treat north as the direction the phone was pointed when the first sensor reading took place. To deal with this, you can use the actual compass heading to rotate the relative orientation to the absolute orientation. But this will have problems near the poles, as the Euler angles and heading will give conflicting values. Beyond this the compass heading field is really weird. If you want to experience its behavior for yourself, take the iPhone compass app and starting from flat, rotate the phone 360 degrees through the pitch axis. Notice at what points the heading flips between its start heading and start heading+180. I bet it will surprise you!

mips_r4300i 3y ago
Are you saying you have to fight gimbal lock just to find which way to rotate the screen on iPhone? That was a problem on the 1960s lunar missions, no idea it'd happen in such a mundane application
- manchego 3y ago
  Pretty much. The iPhone browser api only exposes compass data in one dimension, around the z-axis. So there is indeed gimbal lock-like behavior near the axis. Which is crazy since the magnetometer is 3 dimensional.
- jacobolus 3y ago
  This is why orientation should always be reported as a unit quaternion (or if you strongly care about using only 3 vs. 4 numbers, using "modified Rodrigues parameters", the stereographic projection of a unit quaternion).

lnxg33k1 3y ago

maybe at a certain point subjects will stop spending money to enrich the king and will pick something where they at least can install whatever they want

puchatek 3y ago
The overwhelming majority of users couldn't care less about this stuff as long as their phones play the content that they and their peers are into right now. If the alternative works well, is easy to switch to and is affordable then maybe they can be persuaded by their more tech savvy friends but if any of those three are compromised then you won't get much adoption.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

Vinnl 3y ago

> Does the author REALLY believe that Apple won't instantly drop support for any feature that could seriously disrupt the App Store? I'm fairly sure that he doesn't have particularly much faith in Apple, no: https://infrequently.org/2022/06/apple-is-not-defending-browser-engine-choice/ https://infrequently.org/2022/06/apple-is-not-defending-brow... But they're not counting on Apple's good heart; they're counting on regulators. From the article: > Apple will, of course, attempt to delay the entry of competing browsers through as-yet-unknown strategies, but the clock is ticking.

flakiness 3y ago

You're overlooking the important point of the post: He's suggesting that Apple should allow non-Safari browsers (with different engines) to make the browser space more competitive, and media should push the narrative in that direction. That's exactly because Safari not being competitive enough. I'm not surprised if Microsoft (the author's employer) is quietly preparing Edge for iOS with a non-Safari engine (ex. Chromium.)

close04 3y ago
Safari's iOS exclusivity and resulting ~18% market share is probably the only reason Chromium based browsers don't have 95+% of the market. Some stick to whatever default they get but I think most would just immediately jump to Chrome(ium), with a very, very small minority like me going for Firefox. The mobile segment doesn't concentrate techy users like the desktop does so Firefox would see even lower (that the current ~3%) figures there. A world absolutely dominated by Google's control over the browser scares me more than Apple's control over the AppStore.
- ThatPlayer 3y ago
  The solution is better anti-trust, not giving Apple a real monopoly because of Google's potential monopoly. Good anti-trust will handle both.
  - nsagent 3y ago
    If you are correct, let's ensure the browser duopoly is broken up first, rather than forcing Apple to open the market for Google to corner it. Then it will truly be a monopoly and all consumers lose.
    - manderley 3y ago
      Why would the Chrome engine being dominant be all that problematic? And as a user, I'd like to make that choice for myself. Also, Safari wouldn't vanish just because you'd be able to use a different browser engine. I strongly disagree with your "scary" (not scary) scenario: Only a small percentage of users is ever going to change defaults.

taf2 3y ago

SharedWorkers too

wernercd 3y ago

To add to this... it's not just that they've failed to implement standards: They have actively denied the ability to install alternatives. It's one thing if Chrome was Chromium and was simply blocked from low level stuff because "reasons"... but that's not where we are. Chrome, for example, is at its core on the Apple Store a reskinned Safari because alternatives simply aren't allowed. This isn't a regression and failure to implement standards... this is active activity to lock people into a lesser experience while actively blocking better. This is worse than IE on Windows as at least with IE on Windows you could install alternatives.