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Ha ha ha Apple still thinks 'the web' is Apple or Microsoft (https://support.apple.com/en-us/120585 https://support.apple.com/en-us/120585) and Firefox is not s

Ha ha ha Apple still thinks 'the web' is Apple or Microsoft (https://support.apple.com/en-us/120585 https://support.apple.com/en-us/120585) and Firefox is not supported at all. It's time to shake the last rotten apple from the tree.

porphyra 2y ago
Even Chrome on Linux isn't supported.
- benjiweber 2y ago
  Works fine on Linux if you set useragent to Chrome on Mac.
  - rob74 2y ago
    ...which only underscores how pointless this is: if it works in Chrome on MacOS and Windows (https://support.apple.com/en-us/120585 https://support.apple.com/en-us/120585), it will also work on Linux, so why exclude Linux?!
- oaiey 2y ago
  Chrome on Android is not supported.
promiseofbeans 2y ago
I'm impressed with how well they've enforced that as well. I tried spoofing my UA to be safari (which I fully expected to not work), but it also didn't accept when I set my UA to Chrome. What's especially odd is that Apple acknowledges Firefox's existence in their WWDC videos about web features, when they mention browser compatibility or who they're working with.
- dewey 2y ago
  To be fair, it’s a beta version and browser compatibility could be something for the launch. I’m a disappointed Firefox user but I also know what Beta means.
  - troupo 2y ago
    > it’s a beta version and browser compatibility could be something for the launch. It's extremely hard to retrofit compatibility onto products. Case in point: all the "we only work in Chrome" sites that use Chrome-only APIs.
    - randomdata 2y ago
      Like others have pointed out, it seems to work fine in other browsers once you trick it into letting you in. General compatibility doesn't seem to be an issue. So, what is it that Firefox and Chrome on Linux (and only on Linux) don't support? H.265 is what they don't support. I'm not an avid enough user to know where Apple Maps makes use of media, but the source code contains media player controls, so it must somewhere. Retrofitting compatibility by launch may be as simple as re-encoding the H.265 content. Not at all worth the effort for beta 1, but with an obvious path forward.
      - vladvasiliu 2y ago
        > So, what is it that Firefox and Chrome on Linux (and only on Linux) don't support? H.265 is what they don't support. Do codecs need to be supported by the browser itself? I thought this was unloaded to some media decoding framework. Linux does have h.265 support at least in mpv.
        randomdata 2y ago
        > Do codecs need to be supported by the browser itself? Not necessarily. The browser could defer to licensing established by the operating system vendor, but Firefox places the expectation upon itself to have parity across platforms and to not support encumbered technologies. > Linux does have h.265 support at least in mpv. And if you've negotiated the licensing fees you can even use it, but chances are... Microsoft and Apple have dealt with the licensing for you on their platforms, so the ballgame is different there.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- cornedor 2y ago
  Works fine here with a Chrome User-Agent in Firefox https://imgur.com/LtS3jXD https://imgur.com/LtS3jXD
- freehorse 2y ago
  It works fine on firefox with a safari UA; but not if I turn the resist fingerprinting setting on. Maybe that is your issue too?
- JosephRedfern 2y ago
  I thought the same, until I realised I still had `/unsupported` in the URL. Spoofing a Chrome UA and dropping that path from the URL let me load (and use) Apple Maps fine under Firefox.
SirHound 2y ago
1-2% browser share is a common cutoff for support and Firefox is hurdling towards it. Maybe they’re looking ahead just a few months.
donbrae 2y ago
I normally find that stuff I build for the web just works in Chrome and Firefox and it’s Safari that requires hacks and workarounds, even when I’m using standard APIs that are widely supported. I’d have to go out of my way to have something work in Chrome but not Firefox.
- sn0wleppard 2y ago
  For a while apple.com itself had a hack to force a DOM re-render because of a Safari bug
vineyardmike 2y ago
Apple says that MapKit.JS works on Firefox, so this beta web page is probably just working out bugs before they release for FF. Perhaps a rendering issue? https://developer.apple.com/documentation/mapkitjs/ https://developer.apple.com/documentation/mapkitjs/
gherkinnn 2y ago
Odd, since the underlying MapKit JS supports Firefox. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/mapkitjs/ https://developer.apple.com/documentation/mapkitjs/
xrobotears 2y ago
And even in their supported browsers (Chrome at least) I got the "unsupported browser" on Fedora Linux.. Wonder what makes a online map need such a specific (even if its widely used) setup.
steve1977 2y ago
Firefox only has a marginal market share, so I can understand it's not a high priority target platform.
- n3m4c 2y ago
  Everything works if you use User-Agent switcher extension. So they went through the trouble of making an "unsupported" page and redirecting you to that page instead of doing nothing
  - steve1977 2y ago
    This is Apple. They don't expect their users to know what a User-Agent is (and even less how to install a User-Agent switcher extension).
    - veunes 2y ago
      Yep, and this philosophy has been a significant factor in Apple's widespread success
    - pcardoso 2y ago
      To be fair, Safari has a user-agent switcher built-in. Just enable the developer tools. Not all Apple users are clueless.
      - steve1977 2y ago
        It’s called Developer Tools and not User Tools for a reason
        JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        What do you think Firefox calls it?
        steve1977 2y ago
ho_schi 2y ago
Blocks deliberately: * Epiphany with WebKit2-Renderengine. The literally block their own engine. * Firefox with Gecko. What year is it? 2001? No web developer should be allowed to “block” webbrowser. Test for features and say “this thing doesn’t work because of and I don’t care about another solution”. Same shitty experience with Microsoft Teams which blocked - at least some months ago - the call buttons for Firefox, despite everything works fine. And Confluence which claims they don’t block but started, Epipany is now hiding as Safari and…surprise…everything works.
KineticLensman 2y ago
Interestingly it works on Opera although the colours are weird (lots of dark greens and blues). On both versions (Edge and Opera), my local bakery is mis-located (by hundreds of yards) compared with its (correctly) reported location on an iPhone.
- infotapeworm 2y ago
  Strange, I can't get it to work on any Chromium offshoot. I've tried 3 variants including vanilla Chromium.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
wrasee 2y ago
From the announcement > Support for additional languages, browsers, and platforms will be expanded over time. This is a beta. You have to start somewhere.
- reustle 2y ago
  Then why why not an "I understand, continue anyway" button? Hide the feedback button for those users, if you must.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > why not an "I understand, continue anyway" button? You don’t want broken screenshots shared. Also, people will click through and still open support tickets.
  - wrasee 2y ago
    Because Apple: Something either just works or it’s not a thing. They don’t do ‘maybe works’.
tapoxi 2y ago
It's not financially worth supporting, Firefox has 6.53% of desktop and 0.53% of mobile marketshare (Statcounter), with a switching cost of zero if users encounter a breaking issue. Not surprising it got to this point, Mozilla has been stagnant on features most users care about and catered exclusively to the privacy crowd for years - which isn't a large group and competes with Chromium offshoots (giving it a smaller niche, privacy but demanding an alternative rendering engine).
- andybak 2y ago
  It's a non-zero switching cost for me. Every site that doesn't work in Firefox is a pain to use and I mostly don't bother.
  - xvector 2y ago
    Most normal users will simply switch away from Firefox, often permanently, if things break in Firefox.
    - loudmax 2y ago
      Most normal users aren't technology experts. This makes supporting the free web that much more important for those in a position to know better.
  - tapoxi 2y ago
    Sure, but the QA cost to support Firefox is significantly higher than the small fraction of people that will refuse to use a site that doesn't support it when they encounter an issue.
- jorvi 2y ago
  > catered exclusively to the privacy crowd for years Not even that. Firefox on iOS doesn’t have an integrated adblocker. It’s been requested for years at this point, and browsers like Brave do have one. Pure unwillingness. It’s why I got all my non-techie family and friends to switch to Brave.
nutrie 2y ago
The iCloud web apps work just fine in Firefox, I use them all the time on Linux. They'll get there.
sixtyj 2y ago
Beta version supports Mac, iPad or Windows. So you cannot view maps from Safari browser on iPhone. I am curious what they use that Firefox is not supported…
infotapeworm 2y ago
Not only does it not support Firefox, but all Chromium variants are broken.. it only supports the Chrome spyware browser
usui 2y ago
Seems like a baseless restriction. I can't find anything wrong with Firefox support itself as I changed my user agent under Firefox and Apple Maps works fine. It sucks when companies restrict normal access to a website when it's uncalled for. It's not the first time I've gotten "Use Google Chrome" for no reason.
pjmlp 2y ago
We only support Firefox, because people on the team care to spend some extra cycles. Its dwilling 3% market share means it no longer makes into project delivery acceptance browser matrices. It is the good will of some that keeps it around.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

porphyra 2y ago

Even Chrome on Linux isn't supported.

benjiweber 2y ago
Works fine on Linux if you set useragent to Chrome on Mac.
- rob74 2y ago
  ...which only underscores how pointless this is: if it works in Chrome on MacOS and Windows (https://support.apple.com/en-us/120585 https://support.apple.com/en-us/120585), it will also work on Linux, so why exclude Linux?!
oaiey 2y ago
Chrome on Android is not supported.

promiseofbeans 2y ago

I'm impressed with how well they've enforced that as well. I tried spoofing my UA to be safari (which I fully expected to not work), but it also didn't accept when I set my UA to Chrome. What's especially odd is that Apple acknowledges Firefox's existence in their WWDC videos about web features, when they mention browser compatibility or who they're working with.

dewey 2y ago
To be fair, it’s a beta version and browser compatibility could be something for the launch. I’m a disappointed Firefox user but I also know what Beta means.
- troupo 2y ago
  > it’s a beta version and browser compatibility could be something for the launch. It's extremely hard to retrofit compatibility onto products. Case in point: all the "we only work in Chrome" sites that use Chrome-only APIs.
  - randomdata 2y ago
    Like others have pointed out, it seems to work fine in other browsers once you trick it into letting you in. General compatibility doesn't seem to be an issue. So, what is it that Firefox and Chrome on Linux (and only on Linux) don't support? H.265 is what they don't support. I'm not an avid enough user to know where Apple Maps makes use of media, but the source code contains media player controls, so it must somewhere. Retrofitting compatibility by launch may be as simple as re-encoding the H.265 content. Not at all worth the effort for beta 1, but with an obvious path forward.
    - vladvasiliu 2y ago
      > So, what is it that Firefox and Chrome on Linux (and only on Linux) don't support? H.265 is what they don't support. Do codecs need to be supported by the browser itself? I thought this was unloaded to some media decoding framework. Linux does have h.265 support at least in mpv.
      - randomdata 2y ago
        > Do codecs need to be supported by the browser itself? Not necessarily. The browser could defer to licensing established by the operating system vendor, but Firefox places the expectation upon itself to have parity across platforms and to not support encumbered technologies. > Linux does have h.265 support at least in mpv. And if you've negotiated the licensing fees you can even use it, but chances are... Microsoft and Apple have dealt with the licensing for you on their platforms, so the ballgame is different there.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
cornedor 2y ago
Works fine here with a Chrome User-Agent in Firefox https://imgur.com/LtS3jXD https://imgur.com/LtS3jXD
freehorse 2y ago
It works fine on firefox with a safari UA; but not if I turn the resist fingerprinting setting on. Maybe that is your issue too?
JosephRedfern 2y ago
I thought the same, until I realised I still had `/unsupported` in the URL. Spoofing a Chrome UA and dropping that path from the URL let me load (and use) Apple Maps fine under Firefox.

SirHound 2y ago

1-2% browser share is a common cutoff for support and Firefox is hurdling towards it. Maybe they’re looking ahead just a few months.

donbrae 2y ago

I normally find that stuff I build for the web just works in Chrome and Firefox and it’s Safari that requires hacks and workarounds, even when I’m using standard APIs that are widely supported. I’d have to go out of my way to have something work in Chrome but not Firefox.

sn0wleppard 2y ago
For a while apple.com itself had a hack to force a DOM re-render because of a Safari bug

vineyardmike 2y ago

Apple says that MapKit.JS works on Firefox, so this beta web page is probably just working out bugs before they release for FF. Perhaps a rendering issue? https://developer.apple.com/documentation/mapkitjs/ https://developer.apple.com/documentation/mapkitjs/

gherkinnn 2y ago

Odd, since the underlying MapKit JS supports Firefox. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/mapkitjs/ https://developer.apple.com/documentation/mapkitjs/

xrobotears 2y ago

And even in their supported browsers (Chrome at least) I got the "unsupported browser" on Fedora Linux.. Wonder what makes a online map need such a specific (even if its widely used) setup.

steve1977 2y ago

Firefox only has a marginal market share, so I can understand it's not a high priority target platform.

n3m4c 2y ago
Everything works if you use User-Agent switcher extension. So they went through the trouble of making an "unsupported" page and redirecting you to that page instead of doing nothing
- steve1977 2y ago
  This is Apple. They don't expect their users to know what a User-Agent is (and even less how to install a User-Agent switcher extension).
  - veunes 2y ago
    Yep, and this philosophy has been a significant factor in Apple's widespread success
  - pcardoso 2y ago
    To be fair, Safari has a user-agent switcher built-in. Just enable the developer tools. Not all Apple users are clueless.
    - steve1977 2y ago
      It’s called Developer Tools and not User Tools for a reason
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        What do you think Firefox calls it?
        steve1977 2y ago

ho_schi 2y ago

Blocks deliberately: * Epiphany with WebKit2-Renderengine. The literally block their own engine. * Firefox with Gecko. What year is it? 2001? No web developer should be allowed to “block” webbrowser. Test for features and say “this thing doesn’t work because of and I don’t care about another solution”. Same shitty experience with Microsoft Teams which blocked - at least some months ago - the call buttons for Firefox, despite everything works fine. And Confluence which claims they don’t block but started, Epipany is now hiding as Safari and…surprise…everything works.

KineticLensman 2y ago

Interestingly it works on Opera although the colours are weird (lots of dark greens and blues). On both versions (Edge and Opera), my local bakery is mis-located (by hundreds of yards) compared with its (correctly) reported location on an iPhone.

infotapeworm 2y ago
Strange, I can't get it to work on any Chromium offshoot. I've tried 3 variants including vanilla Chromium.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

wrasee 2y ago

From the announcement > Support for additional languages, browsers, and platforms will be expanded over time. This is a beta. You have to start somewhere.

reustle 2y ago
Then why why not an "I understand, continue anyway" button? Hide the feedback button for those users, if you must.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > why not an "I understand, continue anyway" button? You don’t want broken screenshots shared. Also, people will click through and still open support tickets.
- wrasee 2y ago
  Because Apple: Something either just works or it’s not a thing. They don’t do ‘maybe works’.

tapoxi 2y ago

It's not financially worth supporting, Firefox has 6.53% of desktop and 0.53% of mobile marketshare (Statcounter), with a switching cost of zero if users encounter a breaking issue. Not surprising it got to this point, Mozilla has been stagnant on features most users care about and catered exclusively to the privacy crowd for years - which isn't a large group and competes with Chromium offshoots (giving it a smaller niche, privacy but demanding an alternative rendering engine).

andybak 2y ago
It's a non-zero switching cost for me. Every site that doesn't work in Firefox is a pain to use and I mostly don't bother.
- xvector 2y ago
  Most normal users will simply switch away from Firefox, often permanently, if things break in Firefox.
  - loudmax 2y ago
    Most normal users aren't technology experts. This makes supporting the free web that much more important for those in a position to know better.
- tapoxi 2y ago
  Sure, but the QA cost to support Firefox is significantly higher than the small fraction of people that will refuse to use a site that doesn't support it when they encounter an issue.
jorvi 2y ago
> catered exclusively to the privacy crowd for years Not even that. Firefox on iOS doesn’t have an integrated adblocker. It’s been requested for years at this point, and browsers like Brave do have one. Pure unwillingness. It’s why I got all my non-techie family and friends to switch to Brave.

nutrie 2y ago

The iCloud web apps work just fine in Firefox, I use them all the time on Linux. They'll get there.

sixtyj 2y ago

Beta version supports Mac, iPad or Windows. So you cannot view maps from Safari browser on iPhone. I am curious what they use that Firefox is not supported…

infotapeworm 2y ago

Not only does it not support Firefox, but all Chromium variants are broken.. it only supports the Chrome spyware browser

usui 2y ago

Seems like a baseless restriction. I can't find anything wrong with Firefox support itself as I changed my user agent under Firefox and Apple Maps works fine. It sucks when companies restrict normal access to a website when it's uncalled for. It's not the first time I've gotten "Use Google Chrome" for no reason.

pjmlp 2y ago

We only support Firefox, because people on the team care to spend some extra cycles. Its dwilling 3% market share means it no longer makes into project delivery acceptance browser matrices. It is the good will of some that keeps it around.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]