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One of the things I really want to see is both IE and Safari move to the six weekly update cycle that Firefox and Chrome are using. IE still has a major slice

One of the things I really want to see is both IE and Safari move to the six weekly update cycle that Firefox and Chrome are using. IE still has a major slice of the browser market share and this probably ain't going to change soon. IE>9 have all been decent browsers for the time that they were released, although they do seem a bit out of date 6 months later. At the moment, if both Firefox and Chrome implement a new web platform feature, it's often available to ~60% of web users within three months because of the release cycle and auto updates. IE going to a 6-week major release cycle could probably push this up to 80%-90% of users getting a feature within three months, which would be awesome. (IE mobile is pretty small for market share, so I'll ignore it at the objection of my Windows Phone using friends.) Safari pretty much now works on a yearly major release cycle - which is better than waiting two or three years, but it still sucks. Switching on Mac OS X to Chrome or Firefox (or Opera) is simple enough. iOS, however, is pretty much limited to whatever mobile Safari happened to have when WWDC rolled around (save for minor updates whenever iOS 8 becomes 8.1, for example). I sort of hope Apple uncouples core app versioning and updates from iOS and Mac OS X updates soon, because that's mean they could move Safari to a much shorter release cycle. iOS Safari is probably the most widely used mobile browser, and keeping it at the bleeding edge would do wonders for the mobile web.

cmiller1 12y ago
What about Safari's Webkit nightly releases?
- thomasfoster96 12y ago
  They're not exactly for Joe Bloke the Safari user.
- Flow 12y ago
  AFAIK, it has no iCloud integration.
- madeofpalk 12y ago
  Nightly WebKit release !== Safari release
billyhoffman 12y ago
I firmly believe that Chrome's day one feature of in-place auto updates was one of the most important milestones in web browser development. The accelerated pace of fractional improvement and implementation of new standards (even in draft form) has been enormously powerful for the web as a whole. IE is like the hare. It sprints ahead with each massive update, but then sleeps for a year or more, only pushing security fixes via Windows update. Chrome is the Tortoise, forever moving, always making progress. http://zoompf.com/blog/2012/09/internet-explorer-is-the-hare-and-thats-bad http://zoompf.com/blog/2012/09/internet-explorer-is-the-hare...
Silhouette 12y ago
One of the things I really want to see is both IE and Safari move to the six weekly update cycle that Firefox and Chrome are using. Whereas I would really like IE not to do that, and ideally Firefox and Chrome to move to longer cycles (minimum 6 months, preferably annual) for their main public releases. One good reason for this is that there is no point in having browsers support new features within moments of someone conceiving them unless developers are also keeping up with new developments at the same pace. Take three major browsers on a six-weekly cycle and you literally need to be updating your skill set every two weeks and have projects to work on where those new skills are actually useful. Unless all you do is write trendy web development blogs for a living, you are not likely to be in this category. Another good reason is that both Firefox and Chrome have horrible records for quality since going to six-weekly release cycles, both in terms of bugs/regressions and because they frequently implement new features that tick boxes but have such poor quality of implementation that they aren't actually useful for production work anyway. For example, right now, both Firefox and Chrome have numerous glitches and performance problems in popular HTML/CSS features like animations, web fonts, multimedia elements, and SVG, to the extent that you can't reliably assume even relatively simple applications will work without extensive and ongoing testing. Recent versions of IE stand in sharp contrast to that pattern, and as such I think IE now provides both a valuable brake on the industry and a demonstration that having a solid, fast implementation of some features is far more useful in practice than having unreliable and/or slow implementations of more features. (Edit: It's disappointing to see multiple downvotes yet no responses. This happens all too often when I express the unpopular-but-based-on-hard-data view that Firefox and Chrome are often slow and/or buggy when it comes to new features, even though numerous articles and blog posts giving specific examples in the areas I mentioned are yours to read for the price of a Google search.)
- DougWebb 12y ago
  I'll give you an upvote because I hear what you're saying; keeping up with new browser features is tough if you've got other things to do as well. But, you don't need to incorporate every new feature into your own web projects, and you don't need to follow the same rapid release cycle as the browsers. If my project has an annual update cycle, I want to be certain that any new browser features I'd like to use are widely supported and have been tested in-the-wild for as long as possible before I commit to them. The rapid release cycles of the browsers gives me that, and also ensures that there will be blogs and StackOverflow questions providing useful documentation on the best ways to use the new features by the time I'm ready to learn about them.

cmiller1 12y ago

What about Safari's Webkit nightly releases?

thomasfoster96 12y ago
They're not exactly for Joe Bloke the Safari user.
Flow 12y ago
AFAIK, it has no iCloud integration.
madeofpalk 12y ago
Nightly WebKit release !== Safari release

billyhoffman 12y ago

I firmly believe that Chrome's day one feature of in-place auto updates was one of the most important milestones in web browser development. The accelerated pace of fractional improvement and implementation of new standards (even in draft form) has been enormously powerful for the web as a whole. IE is like the hare. It sprints ahead with each massive update, but then sleeps for a year or more, only pushing security fixes via Windows update. Chrome is the Tortoise, forever moving, always making progress. http://zoompf.com/blog/2012/09/internet-explorer-is-the-hare-and-thats-bad http://zoompf.com/blog/2012/09/internet-explorer-is-the-hare...

Silhouette 12y ago

One of the things I really want to see is both IE and Safari move to the six weekly update cycle that Firefox and Chrome are using. Whereas I would really like IE not to do that, and ideally Firefox and Chrome to move to longer cycles (minimum 6 months, preferably annual) for their main public releases. One good reason for this is that there is no point in having browsers support new features within moments of someone conceiving them unless developers are also keeping up with new developments at the same pace. Take three major browsers on a six-weekly cycle and you literally need to be updating your skill set every two weeks and have projects to work on where those new skills are actually useful. Unless all you do is write trendy web development blogs for a living, you are not likely to be in this category. Another good reason is that both Firefox and Chrome have horrible records for quality since going to six-weekly release cycles, both in terms of bugs/regressions and because they frequently implement new features that tick boxes but have such poor quality of implementation that they aren't actually useful for production work anyway. For example, right now, both Firefox and Chrome have numerous glitches and performance problems in popular HTML/CSS features like animations, web fonts, multimedia elements, and SVG, to the extent that you can't reliably assume even relatively simple applications will work without extensive and ongoing testing. Recent versions of IE stand in sharp contrast to that pattern, and as such I think IE now provides both a valuable brake on the industry and a demonstration that having a solid, fast implementation of some features is far more useful in practice than having unreliable and/or slow implementations of more features. (Edit: It's disappointing to see multiple downvotes yet no responses. This happens all too often when I express the unpopular-but-based-on-hard-data view that Firefox and Chrome are often slow and/or buggy when it comes to new features, even though numerous articles and blog posts giving specific examples in the areas I mentioned are yours to read for the price of a Google search.)

DougWebb 12y ago
I'll give you an upvote because I hear what you're saying; keeping up with new browser features is tough if you've got other things to do as well. But, you don't need to incorporate every new feature into your own web projects, and you don't need to follow the same rapid release cycle as the browsers. If my project has an annual update cycle, I want to be certain that any new browser features I'd like to use are widely supported and have been tested in-the-wild for as long as possible before I commit to them. The rapid release cycles of the browsers gives me that, and also ensures that there will be blogs and StackOverflow questions providing useful documentation on the best ways to use the new features by the time I'm ready to learn about them.