safari-is-the-new-ie.com #181
Comments
This would fundamentally fail. Apple is not in a market dominant position. They are A big player, but Android is just as large, if not larger. FTC would have no grounds to take on a lawsuit. Also, the MS situation was a bit different. They were using their market dominance to move into other markets and outright bully people into doing things that worked best for them. Apple has no such control over the web with Safari (nor does any browser.) I do agree, Apple is holding things back now, but rattling anti-trust suits that have no merit other than "We don't like what they are doing" is a bit extreme. |
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Yeah, to be honest I kind of felt a little extremist to suggest it when I was writing the original post, but I included it anyway because I do personally feel that Apple is "using their market dominance to move into other markets and outright bully people into doing things that worked best for them." (Almost half of the apps on the front page of http://www.producthunt.com/ every day - especially the mobile ones - are only launching iOS versions, and I'd be surprised if this wasn't driven, at least in part, out of this platform disparity - which Apple is growing as they move into new markets with entries like the Apple Watch.) Nonetheless, I'll take that part out for now so as to not pollute / distract from the overall message. For future reference, the line that was removed:
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I like the idea of drumming up the community to put pressure on Apple to allow other browser engines on iOS (both WebView and standalone). We could easily put a website together and start collecting signatures from industry leaders and companies. That would be the community-version of an anti-trust case :) |
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Ideas for a campaign domain?
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far-too-many-dashes-dot-net.com
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@ejc I used hyphens because EDIT: Just in case, I've reserved http://safariisthenewie.com too. @auchenberg I think safari-is-the-new-ie.com/petition, with a forkable mechanism for signing (like extensiblewebmanifesto.org, but with GitHub instead of Google Forms) would be fine. Maybe we could get a few signatures in this thread to start us off? |
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@stuartpb Sure that could work. Let's get the ball rolling. However with Google Form is a bit easier for people sign up than having to edit/fork on GitHub. |
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@auchenberg Yeah, but I'm approaching this from the point of view that we primarily want developers in terms of the names that are on the list, and for devs it's easy enough to visit this issue and post a comment. (When it comes to collecting end user signatures, I'd rather cross that bridge when we come to it.) |
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@stuartpb Sure, but GitHub is still more clicks away than a simple Google Form. Anyways, let's get the ball rolling. Do you create a repo? Use extensiblewebmanifesto.com as boilerplate? |
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I've created a rough initial page from scratch: https://github.com/stuartpb/www.safari-is-the-new-ie.com I welcome any pull requests to make this look a bit classier. |
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Really like this idea & hope it'd put pressure in the right places. I think it'd weaken the project if people paid by other browser vendors worked on it though. |
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I like the idea - although I don’t agree that it’s ‘the new IE’, I’d like to see pressure put on them to release more frequently, and keep up with other browsers to give us a more consistent platform. |
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👍 for all of this. |
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Apple (MacOS X + iOS) is only 10% of the OS market, maybe 15%. If you don't want to be locked by their politics, you have 2 choices:
Apple is not a problem, because you don't have to buy it. |
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!!!!!!! |
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@mickaelandrieu if you are being sarcastic you are doing a excellent job. Since when is this a problem for us developers and tech-savvy people? This to improve life of everybody that has iOS/OSX devices. Those people you can't make them change those things. Even if you could, that would be like chopping a head when you have a headache. |
But, developers do need to support their platform since it is widely used. So long as they are slow rolling out new technology (stuck on an annual release for big additions it seems) then they are holding the web back. Simply not being super-dominant market-wise is not the only case in play. They are super-dominant for some sites and applications that means they need to be supported. Along with pretty much any e-commerce site since it would suck to turn 10-15% of the total market away simply because they chose Apple software which makes the choice for them on what to use and they don't know any better. Safari is not evergreen, this is a problem. |
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It's not about sarcatism: if we start to make support like we have done before for IE, things won't change. Apple want customers, it's not a development problem but a platform problem. A lot of companies don't provide - for instance - windows phone applications of IE <8 support, I don't see "why" for Apple products developpers have to work hard to make things work as expected. As @Garbee said,
As Safari is not open source, and as Apple refuse to let others real web browsers to be installed in Apple products:
👍 this make sense, but again no one forces you to buy an Apple device. |
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I understand you point, but if we can make it noise and try to make them change. I know it's probably talking to a big white wall, but still. And its not about developers working harder; If the technology is not there, you just don't use it. Progressive Enhancement like on the blog post. In the end is your product that suffers with it, because the user is not going to blame Apple for a website/webapp, they are going to blame the product itself. So its pretty clear what Apple wants with this. Give a not so go experience on the web so the users/stakeholders go for a native app. |
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I don't know if this campaign is the right approach. My article was kinda harsh, and this site is a good way to continue shaming Apple, but at some point I want to stop bashing them and let the healing begin. I'd like to see Apple employees come to meetups and conferences. I want them to participate more in these new APIs. I want them to push the web forward the way they were doing 5 years ago. So I worry that by continuing to heap on the scorn, we're just going to make them dig their heels and get further estranged from the web community. I'm an outsider, so it's okay for me to write stuff that loses me a few friends at Apple. But now that the damage has been done, maybe we should take this as an opportunity to extend a hand of friendship to Apple. The site itself is great, and I am perfectly okay with the content. But as for the petition, maybe it could have some more constructive demands:
Not trying to totally diss on your idea, and it's definitely my fault for writing the article in the first place, but just thinking maybe a more positive tone would help. 😃 |
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@nolanlawson Well said. No need for public shaming through a site. What happens when another browser craps on us? Make another website? Not the best way towards a solution here. A better approach would be to encourage as mentioned in the above comment and show examples of where they are failing compared to the rest. The pudding will prove this just give Apple time. |
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Where is the site to shame devs from "only works in Chrome" stuff? What's worse, a browser vendor not supporting bleeding edge stuff, or a bunch of developers only supporting one browser? Let's be honest, when it comes to being the "next IE" sites that only work in Chrome are far worse than Safari not supporting bleeding edge stuff. Safari, like every browser, certainly has it's problems, but it's made for the web now, not the future web. I have far less a problem with that than with any site that only works in any specific browser, and there are far too many Chrome-only sites. |
Completely agree - if we want anything to get better, the site's tone has to convey a spirit of hopeful reconciliation, with as much de-emphasis as possible on the scorn and shame. It's important that we're clear about what exactly we're petitioning for early on - we don't want a revolution, we just want them to let us help. Where I would put it is that it's a petition for Apple to open up their development by taking a few small, clear, reasonable measures that will let us take steps toward fixing WebKit's problems without requiring major work on Apple's part. Building off the ones you mentioned:
While I do want to see Apple participating in the standards space again, and to have community outreach people coming to events and summits in significant numbers, cultural shifts like those are big efforts, which would require large-scale changes on Apple's part. I'd rather have the petition focus on the tipping point where small changes on Apple's part will make a large difference to the community. @grayghostvisuals Showing specific examples of where they are failing is why I'm linking to Nolan's article early, though I'm thinking I might flip it around and put the "Sign the petition" C2A early and have "More information" beneath that, patterning after the way pages like Fight for the Future's campaigns are laid out. |
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.. and I was going to suggest http://safarie6.com/ as a domain name. |
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@brucelawson Just registered it as a redirect - I was originally going to pick "safarie" as a domain name, but some nasty malware bundler is sitting on it (and I didn't want to specify "IE6" in the URL because, for devs, IE8 has been the new IE6 for years - Safari is more like the new IE8). |
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hi, enjoying the dialog here. it is my understanding that mac unix allows other browsers, correct or wrong? |
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@scshepard The full desktop OSX for MacBooks and the like allows other browsers, but iOS (as used on iPhones and iPads) does not: due to a restriction Apple places on apps it allows on the app store, any browser on iOS has to effectively wrap Safari ("the iOS WebKit framework and WebKit Javascript"). This presents a major obstacle for the mobile web, as this restriction, combined with Apple's slowed progress in introducing new features / fixes to WebKit/Safari, leaves mobile web devs forced to work within years-old constraints if they want to support iOS. This is why removing the restriction in Apple's App Store Review Guidelines on rendering web content is the first item on the petition - removing this restriction on iOS would allow users to move the mobile web forward themselves by using other browsers, the same way as they did on the PC when Internet Explorer started getting surpassed by the rest of the web. |
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I'd like to make a quick point that there's no need to rush, as two important events are yet to happen:
There’s going to be an increasing amount of a activity around this issue, which is great, but I wouldn’t want the “main event” to happen before November or December at the earliest. |
I regrettably agree - the conflict of interest (to put it mildly) would muddy the waters, were support for this campaign to come from Safari's direct competitors. That said, I think it would be powerful, without sending a mixed message, if major-destination Web players without skin in the browser game, and other grassroots-campaign organizations, were to voice their support. I'm thinking of people from houses like:
Thoughts? Do any developers from these sites have experiences with their struggles in supporting iOS? (I know Facebook had to roll back their web-based app implementation, though I believe that was primarily perf-motivated at the time.) |
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👍 |
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I think it is important to push for browser choice as competition leads to better products. If Chrome/Firefox/Opera have better UX (for users and devs) then Apple will be forced to fix Safari or lose part of their user base. However, without actually opening up talks with Apple, we might face similar problems in the future. Otherwise, it sounds great. Let's start getting more support. |
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Apple like any other company will do whatever benefits their business model. They will not do anything without a reason business decision behind. If they make the users/developers happier is because it interests them. |
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@jpsc This petition could at least let them know how unhappy we feel because of them. |
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@cibernox I know. I'm not saying we should not do anything. We should make our voices be heard. On a different topic, when was the last time a online petition of anything ever made a difference 🎅 ? |
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@jpsc Around one week ago, when an open letter of Taylor Swift made Apple change the conditions of Apple Music |
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@cibernox I am a conspiracy guy. I think that it was all cooked 🚶 But I was talking more about a petition on its core idea; a bunch of people wanting something and getting it. That was a pop star that had already said no to spotify before. |
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I'm hearing increasing amounts of conspiracy rumbling in here, along with increasing rumbling over people behaving from a "pitchforks and torches" mentality. I think we should take care to assume good faith here (both regarding Apple, and in interacting with each other) and follow Hanlon's razor:
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@stuartpb We should setup a conference call( google hangout ), and record it. Give everyone a chance to voice their opinions, and leave the call with something to act on. |
Maybe, soon - I want to give the parties I emailed earlier some time to reach back before we start scheduling any meetings. (Since I sent that email at P5:45 Pacific Time on the Friday opening a three-day weekend in America, I'm planning on following up Tuesday or Wednesday in case they missed it.) |
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Okay, pitching in here again to get the ball rolling: There's absolutely no need for the "pitchforks and torches" mentality here. The goal of a given petition is to collect interest and simply to show Apple that a larger group of people would like to see Apple move in this direction. We should focus on getting the petition text going, instead of scheduling meetings, reaching our to Apple contacts, etc. There's currently no consensus on the message we want communicated to Apple, so let's focus the energy on get the message sorted out, before thinking in PR, Tweets, etc. I'm currently on a terrible connection, but my suggestion text from #181 (comment) still stands to the browser-choice petition. It's there's no better alternatives by tomorrow I suggest we move forward with the text, and get @t0mas to update the existing petition on change.org? |
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Sure, although we may want to extend your text a bit to explain to people less familiar with the situation what the current situation actually is. Especially because on the surface it may seem that there are three browsers for iOS (Safari, Chrome, Firefox) while underneath Apple forces all to use the Safari engine. I'm assuming many people don't know about that and for those people it may seem like we're asking Apple to do something they have already done. |
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@t0mas Really good point. Do you or should I take a stab at extending the message? I can write something up this evening, if my jet-lag allows me to stay awake. |
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If you have the time a suggestion would be very welcome, bit swamped at work at the moment. |
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A couple of thoughts: First, I'm not a Mac or ios guy. I do have several tech mac friends, and their response to your concerns: we don't care.So, does it make sense to compile a list of sites that don't work on Safari ios, or sites that require too much "workarounds". That might more traction with getting folks concerned. Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2015 02:02:37 -0700 If you have the time a suggestion would be very welcome, bit swamped at work at the moment. — |
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In case anybody missed it, @nolanlawson posted a great follow-up to his original post yesterday: http://nolanlawson.com/2015/07/05/safari-is-the-new-ie-2-revenge-of-the-linkbait/ |
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Hi to all I like to see so much people having same problems as me with Safari. I think there were very constructive suggestions in the discussion till now. I also wouldlike to add my 2 cents onthis matter. First of all, did any of you watched the last wwdc webkit keynotes? Apple announced some good features on the webkit, but none of them was from the official w3c standards and didn't really care about them,cause they were not so critical on my opinion as having somestandards implemented like UserMedia, IndexedDb, full File Api or any of the others already implemented in Firefox or Chrome standards. What really frustrates me is that often Apple don'treally care about standards, this is why they have become new Ie. Remember that early 90s antitrust process vs MS, well it was not the reason for IE to become better on supporting w3c, it was the competition with other browsers/engines who were having a lot more user base. So basically what I'm saying is that the first step should be allowing other engines in iOS, and webviews. You can't enforce Apple to implement features on Safari, but you can make them open the iOS for competitors. The fact that I just learned the Chrome App is not the real Chrome is really frustrating, as Google didn't say anything about it. |
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Also if iOS will become open to other browser engines then it will give a boost to hybrid app development with CrossWalk for example (e.i. kinda PhoneGap bundled with Chromium). |
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Have you seen this feedback channel for Safari: https://www.apple.com/feedback/safari.html Maybe we could force Apple to make a statement if we’d get a lot of people to submit a predefined message (similar to those public campaign sites that were created to instruct people to “spam” the FCC). If Apple is a respectable company (notice “ We read all feedback carefully”), they would at least have to acknowledge the feedback, which would be a small step in the right direction. (Not to mention that such a campaign would get attention in the tech media.) |
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Okay, I never heard back from any of the people I sent my email to (I re-sent it to the EFF after a spur-of-the-moment exchange on Twitter), but I'm back in the mindset for this. I also took a moment to look back at some of the reaction from this from back in July (when I was too busy throwing this page together to look at what the widespread reaction to it was), and it has been aggravating - particularly from Safari devs themselves, who think developers having to bend over backwards to fix problems on their behalf is a joke. (I really don't think they realize how bad it is - all their deflections amount to stuff like "Sorry we're not natively supporting stuff only one browser supports! Guess you'll have to wait a few more years for Custom Elements without a polyfill!", while handling criticisms of their IndexedDB like "huh, I guess, whatever".) So, here's what I see from safari-is-the-new-ie.com going forward: I want to have a ~paragraph or so explanation of how exactly the problem is occurring, culturally, in a way accessible to the average user, along with some synopses of each major issue users will only encounter on Safari due to it being a pain to support (so developers can send users who email them about their webcam app not working on iOS to this page saying "sorry, it's Apple's fault"). What I'm looking for now is some people who can submit content and pull requests to add that - right now, I'm running late for an event, so I'm going to have to cut this comment here. |
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Why is your petition closed on change.org now? |
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I don't know - it's not my petition. Reach out to whoever started it (see #181 (comment)) - I don't think they ever participated on this issue. |
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Webkit is finally starting development on service workers. Has iOS opened up 3rd party browser support? Maybe in iOS 11? |
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No. |
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This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions. |
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This issue has been automatically closed because it has not had recent activity. Thank you for your contributions. |
and others
I just bought this domain, which perfectly encapsulates something I've been saying for that last year or two: Microsoft is no longer the burden on the web platform it once was, and Apple has risen up to take its frustrating place.
When I first registered it, I had the domain redirecting to Nolan Lawson's terrific blog post by this name, which I now link to as part of a GitHub Pages site:
https://github.com/stuartpb/www.safari-is-the-new-ie.com/
I'm trying to build a ~single-screen distillation of that article's points for the average user (in the vein of the sites that encouraged people to ditch IE like http://browsingbetter.com/ and http://abetterbrowser.org/), along with a "What Can I Do?" section making a few possible calls to action:
Thoughts? Pinging authors of pages mentioned above / linked in the article: @nolanlawson @jakearchibald @simevidas @yathit @thatryan @ejc
Also pinging @burocratik (http://outdatedbrowser.com/en) and @xPaw (author of CloudFlare's A Better Browser banner-inliner https://github.com/xPaw/CF-ABetterBrowser)
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