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Based on the points made, I'm wondering what web developers are building in the UI that requires the latest and greatest web engine technology in Chrome or Oper

by joeblau 11y ago

Based on the points made, I'm wondering what web developers are building in the UI that requires the latest and greatest web engine technology in Chrome or Opera? The reason I'm asking is that I understand the request for more choice, but I've also seen Android developers struggle to keep up with multiple versions of just Google Chrome on different versions of Android. I've also gotten rid of Chrome on my personal Macbook Pro because of how resource abusive it is. There are also security concerns with allowing third party programs to have direct access to a device that contains a lot of users personal information. Putting aside supporting fragmented web rendering engines, battery resources, and security; I'm really wondering exactly what Safari can't do that it needs to do?

hughw 11y ago
Unlike all other browsers, Safari refuse to implement Pointer Events. So you cannot use Pointer Events (easily) in your webapp; you have to polyfill for Safari. That was exactly the situation with IE in the 2000's. Edit: I mean with IE in the 2000s you always had to write exceptional code just for it, because it had this massive presence you could not ignore, and it refused to implement standards.
- Retric 11y ago
  Even ignoring safari Pointer events are really still way to new to depend on with Android as most devices still doin't support it.
  - hughw 11y ago
    I didn't say, and didn't mean to imply, that all other browsers already have implemented it. They all, except Safari, have announced plans to implement it. (IE and Edge support it now; FF in two releases... Chrome has announced they will support it, but I don't see it yet on caniuse.com....) Safari, explicitly, has declared they will not. Edit: http://caniuse.com/#feat=pointer http://caniuse.com/#feat=pointer. Only Chrome and Opera don't show it in upcoming releases. Opera presumably will support it the minute Blink does. Edit 2: Chrome intent to support PE https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!topic/blink-dev/ODWmcKNQl0I https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!topic/blink...
    - ianamartin 11y ago
      So Apple hasn't announced plans to fix a bug. Therefore Safari is less up-to-date than other browsers. Nice.
      - hughw 11y ago
        Apple is on record as opposing the spec. https://lists.webkit.org/pipermail/webkit-dev/2012-December/023050.html https://lists.webkit.org/pipermail/webkit-dev/2012-December/... A bit more context here http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2015/02/tired_of_safari.html http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2015/02/tired_of_saf...
    - ianamartin 11y ago
      So Apple hasn't announced plans to fix a bug. Therefore Safari is less up-to-date than other browsers. Nice.
dominotw 11y ago
> I'm wondering what web developers are building in the UI that requires the latest and greatest web engine technology in Chrome or Opera? I am guessing stuff like service workers, push notifications ect.
o_____________o 11y ago
In regards to "hacks and bugs" mentioned in the article: pointer event madness. file selector crash. <option> crash. rem bugs. insane RAM usage. crash from RAM usage. crash from greedy CSS selectors. canplay event never fired on media. That's just from the last few weeks. We've been making a hybrid app and it's been an absolute nightmare due to Apple bugs. Can't imagine anyone who has built a moderately sized web app would think Safari's biggest problem is just being a little slow on the uptake.
TheCoreh 11y ago
A couple examples: Playing video without opening a full screen popup window. Preserving `position: fixed` elements in the right place while you type in a form. Properly emitting scroll events. Not throttling timers. Adding webcam/microphone API support. Allowing canvas contexts to access video content. Not downsampling images. Not immediately killing a page once it exceeds the JS heap limit. Not automatically deleting local storage and application cache. Implementing pointer events API. Adding an actual file picker (not only a photos picker). Exposing an API to control the virtual keyboard. Adding the full screen API. Allowing CSS transforms and filters to be applied to playing videos. Allow users to download files to iCloud Drive.
- joeblau 11y ago
  Thanks for the feedback. A lot of those features do make sense, but I'm wondering about something like a "file picker." iOS devices have abandoned the concept of a file system from the users perspective. I don't think anyone I know (Outside of fellow iOS developers) could tell me the `pwd` path to any of the files on their phone. It seems almost like Apple is restricting some of these features in an effort to get developers to go native, because all of the functionality you've mentioned is available via native app SDK's. The main challenge is that you lose the web openness. Thanks again for the feedback and great points.

by joeblau 11y ago

hughw 11y ago

Unlike all other browsers, Safari refuse to implement Pointer Events. So you cannot use Pointer Events (easily) in your webapp; you have to polyfill for Safari. That was exactly the situation with IE in the 2000's. Edit: I mean with IE in the 2000s you always had to write exceptional code just for it, because it had this massive presence you could not ignore, and it refused to implement standards.

Retric 11y ago
Even ignoring safari Pointer events are really still way to new to depend on with Android as most devices still doin't support it.
- hughw 11y ago
  I didn't say, and didn't mean to imply, that all other browsers already have implemented it. They all, except Safari, have announced plans to implement it. (IE and Edge support it now; FF in two releases... Chrome has announced they will support it, but I don't see it yet on caniuse.com....) Safari, explicitly, has declared they will not. Edit: http://caniuse.com/#feat=pointer http://caniuse.com/#feat=pointer. Only Chrome and Opera don't show it in upcoming releases. Opera presumably will support it the minute Blink does. Edit 2: Chrome intent to support PE https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!topic/blink-dev/ODWmcKNQl0I https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!topic/blink...
  - ianamartin 11y ago
    So Apple hasn't announced plans to fix a bug. Therefore Safari is less up-to-date than other browsers. Nice.
    - hughw 11y ago
      Apple is on record as opposing the spec. https://lists.webkit.org/pipermail/webkit-dev/2012-December/023050.html https://lists.webkit.org/pipermail/webkit-dev/2012-December/... A bit more context here http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2015/02/tired_of_safari.html http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2015/02/tired_of_saf...
  - ianamartin 11y ago
    So Apple hasn't announced plans to fix a bug. Therefore Safari is less up-to-date than other browsers. Nice.

dominotw 11y ago

> I'm wondering what web developers are building in the UI that requires the latest and greatest web engine technology in Chrome or Opera? I am guessing stuff like service workers, push notifications ect.

o_____________o 11y ago

In regards to "hacks and bugs" mentioned in the article: pointer event madness. file selector crash. <option> crash. rem bugs. insane RAM usage. crash from RAM usage. crash from greedy CSS selectors. canplay event never fired on media. That's just from the last few weeks. We've been making a hybrid app and it's been an absolute nightmare due to Apple bugs. Can't imagine anyone who has built a moderately sized web app would think Safari's biggest problem is just being a little slow on the uptake.

TheCoreh 11y ago

A couple examples: Playing video without opening a full screen popup window. Preserving `position: fixed` elements in the right place while you type in a form. Properly emitting scroll events. Not throttling timers. Adding webcam/microphone API support. Allowing canvas contexts to access video content. Not downsampling images. Not immediately killing a page once it exceeds the JS heap limit. Not automatically deleting local storage and application cache. Implementing pointer events API. Adding an actual file picker (not only a photos picker). Exposing an API to control the virtual keyboard. Adding the full screen API. Allowing CSS transforms and filters to be applied to playing videos. Allow users to download files to iCloud Drive.

joeblau 11y ago
Thanks for the feedback. A lot of those features do make sense, but I'm wondering about something like a "file picker." iOS devices have abandoned the concept of a file system from the users perspective. I don't think anyone I know (Outside of fellow iOS developers) could tell me the `pwd` path to any of the files on their phone. It seems almost like Apple is restricting some of these features in an effort to get developers to go native, because all of the functionality you've mentioned is available via native app SDK's. The main challenge is that you lose the web openness. Thanks again for the feedback and great points.