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Counterpoint: Safari is by far the best mainstream browser, because it's got the only engine that gives half a shit about battery life, and because they push ba

Counterpoint: Safari is by far the best mainstream browser, because it's got the only engine that gives half a shit about battery life, and because they push back on shitty features Google wants to make "standard" so they can trash my UX and the computing ecosystem even more.

pornel 1y ago
There's a grain of truth to it — Apple has learned from Microsoft's history that making the whole browser shitty is too obvious and annoys users. Apple was smart enough to keep user-visible parts of the browser in a good shape, while also dragging their feet on all the Web platform features that could endanger the App Store cash cow.
- radiofreeeuropa 1y ago
  I don't want web apps on my phone (or, in an ideal world, anywhere else) so that's also a good thing. If they're not viable, it forces developers to make real apps or else just make a web page instead of whatever awful-UX nonsense they were planning.
  - kelthuzad 1y ago
    >I don't want web apps on my phone (or, in an ideal world, anywhere else) so that's also a good thing. If they're not viable, it forces developers to make real apps or else just make a web page instead of whatever awful-UX nonsense they were planning. Well what you personally want is irrelevant to the law and what regulators judge to be unlawful, so that's the real good thing. >If they're not viable, it forces developers to make real apps or else just make a web page instead of whatever awful-UX nonsense they were planning. They are perfectly viable and it has nothing to do with UX, but you have already exposed your bias and made clear that you are arguing in bad faith by spreading misinformation in your other comments.
  - const_cast 1y ago
    90% of real apps are 95% web views. Let go ahead and be for real. Even on desktop most apps are Electron these days.
kelthuzad 1y ago
Counterpoint: Your whole narrative is just Apple PR talk in disguise. If Safari were even remotely close to being "the best mainstream browser" as you claimed, it would manifest itself in Safari capturing a dominant market share i.e. people would naturally gravitate towards Safari without Apple forcing it upon users. Apple would also invest much more into Web technology, but they don't have any interest in doing that since it would threaten their App Store business model. "Pushing back on features" translates directly to "preventing web apps from becoming a viable threat" and none of this is about UX, which is just one of the convenient pretexts to make Apple's devious and self-serving behavior more palatable. No matter how often Apple shills try to rephrase and euphemize it, anyone who has recognized Apple's conflict of interest in this regard will see through it.
- tristan957 1y ago
  FWIW, Mozilla seems to share the same sentiments about many of the standards that Google has been pushing for. They may have different incentives, but Apple does not sit alone on every one of their views.
  - kelthuzad 1y ago
    Mozilla doesn't have a multi-billion dollar App Store creating a direct conflict of interest. Their motives aren't comparable. A few overlapping concerns don't refute the primary evidence of Apple's self-serving behavior. The key decisions that hobble web apps and protect the App Store moat are specific to Apple's conflict of interest.
- radiofreeeuropa 1y ago
  Of course there's conflict of interest. I'd prefer we address all the things their actions motivated by that conflict of interest are shielding me from before we smack them down, though. After that, yeah, I'll take up a pitchfork, too. For now, they're my AnCap-approved optional private enforcement regime against a bunch of the antisocial and market-capturing behavior of the rest of tech, since public regulators are asleep at the wheel. I'd much prefer real, very aggressive (by modern standards, if not historical) enforcement of meaningful consumer protection, standards mandates, and trust-busting across the board, but this is the only option I've got (aside from "just use less tech, and far less-usefully") All hurting them now does is hand more control of the tech ecosystem to Google. Meanwhile: yes they in fact have the best mainstream browser, and it's not even close.
lern_too_spel 1y ago
Counterpoint: Safari uses more battery than Chrome while providing less functionality: https://birchtree.me/blog/everyone-says-chrome-devastates-mac-battery-life-but-does-it-i-tested-for-36-hours-to-find-out/ https://birchtree.me/blog/everyone-says-chrome-devastates-ma...
rrrrrrrrrrrryan 1y ago
I remember there was a time years back when there were "light" variants of apps, usually intended for underpowered or older Android phones, but that also came in handy if you were in a situation where you had shitty cell service, or if you needed to preserve your battery. You could run the Opera Mini browser on a trash phone and it was blazing fast without wrecking your battery. Maybe 5% of sites would have a rendering issue, but you could always switch back to your main browser if you needed to use it. Nowadays, I think the trend is more toward putting a battery-saver or data-saver mode inside an existing app, rather than creating an entirely new app, and I don't see any reason why Apple couldn't do something like this in Safari if they wanted to.

pornel 1y ago

There's a grain of truth to it — Apple has learned from Microsoft's history that making the whole browser shitty is too obvious and annoys users. Apple was smart enough to keep user-visible parts of the browser in a good shape, while also dragging their feet on all the Web platform features that could endanger the App Store cash cow.

radiofreeeuropa 1y ago
I don't want web apps on my phone (or, in an ideal world, anywhere else) so that's also a good thing. If they're not viable, it forces developers to make real apps or else just make a web page instead of whatever awful-UX nonsense they were planning.
- kelthuzad 1y ago
  >I don't want web apps on my phone (or, in an ideal world, anywhere else) so that's also a good thing. If they're not viable, it forces developers to make real apps or else just make a web page instead of whatever awful-UX nonsense they were planning. Well what you personally want is irrelevant to the law and what regulators judge to be unlawful, so that's the real good thing. >If they're not viable, it forces developers to make real apps or else just make a web page instead of whatever awful-UX nonsense they were planning. They are perfectly viable and it has nothing to do with UX, but you have already exposed your bias and made clear that you are arguing in bad faith by spreading misinformation in your other comments.
- const_cast 1y ago
  90% of real apps are 95% web views. Let go ahead and be for real. Even on desktop most apps are Electron these days.

kelthuzad 1y ago

Counterpoint: Your whole narrative is just Apple PR talk in disguise. If Safari were even remotely close to being "the best mainstream browser" as you claimed, it would manifest itself in Safari capturing a dominant market share i.e. people would naturally gravitate towards Safari without Apple forcing it upon users. Apple would also invest much more into Web technology, but they don't have any interest in doing that since it would threaten their App Store business model. "Pushing back on features" translates directly to "preventing web apps from becoming a viable threat" and none of this is about UX, which is just one of the convenient pretexts to make Apple's devious and self-serving behavior more palatable. No matter how often Apple shills try to rephrase and euphemize it, anyone who has recognized Apple's conflict of interest in this regard will see through it.

tristan957 1y ago
FWIW, Mozilla seems to share the same sentiments about many of the standards that Google has been pushing for. They may have different incentives, but Apple does not sit alone on every one of their views.
- kelthuzad 1y ago
  Mozilla doesn't have a multi-billion dollar App Store creating a direct conflict of interest. Their motives aren't comparable. A few overlapping concerns don't refute the primary evidence of Apple's self-serving behavior. The key decisions that hobble web apps and protect the App Store moat are specific to Apple's conflict of interest.
radiofreeeuropa 1y ago
Of course there's conflict of interest. I'd prefer we address all the things their actions motivated by that conflict of interest are shielding me from before we smack them down, though. After that, yeah, I'll take up a pitchfork, too. For now, they're my AnCap-approved optional private enforcement regime against a bunch of the antisocial and market-capturing behavior of the rest of tech, since public regulators are asleep at the wheel. I'd much prefer real, very aggressive (by modern standards, if not historical) enforcement of meaningful consumer protection, standards mandates, and trust-busting across the board, but this is the only option I've got (aside from "just use less tech, and far less-usefully") All hurting them now does is hand more control of the tech ecosystem to Google. Meanwhile: yes they in fact have the best mainstream browser, and it's not even close.

lern_too_spel 1y ago

Counterpoint: Safari uses more battery than Chrome while providing less functionality: https://birchtree.me/blog/everyone-says-chrome-devastates-mac-battery-life-but-does-it-i-tested-for-36-hours-to-find-out/ https://birchtree.me/blog/everyone-says-chrome-devastates-ma...

rrrrrrrrrrrryan 1y ago

I remember there was a time years back when there were "light" variants of apps, usually intended for underpowered or older Android phones, but that also came in handy if you were in a situation where you had shitty cell service, or if you needed to preserve your battery. You could run the Opera Mini browser on a trash phone and it was blazing fast without wrecking your battery. Maybe 5% of sites would have a rendering issue, but you could always switch back to your main browser if you needed to use it. Nowadays, I think the trend is more toward putting a battery-saver or data-saver mode inside an existing app, rather than creating an entirely new app, and I don't see any reason why Apple couldn't do something like this in Safari if they wanted to.