> <i>(Conversely, if Safari refuses to implement some alleged 'feature', it becomes much less useful even if Chrome does implement it.)</i><p>The fact that Apple refuses to implement basic features in mobile Safari that Firefox and Chrome have had for years now, and the fact that they refuse to allow other browser engines on iOS is the reason why we can't have nice things like progressive web apps.<p>I recently worked on a health app related to the COVID pandemic. The most common use case would be served really well by a PWA, and as such, there's no reason users would need to install an app on their phones to access the web app's full set of features.<p>Despite the web app working perfectly on Android and across Windows, Linux and macOS without native integration, we now must dedicate time and resources to develop an additional iOS app just so iOS users, which over half of Americans are, aren't left out.<p>This is an expensive endeavor time-wise and money-wise, during a pandemic where time is of the essence and resources are stretched thin. It shouldn't be this way, but it is.
I love Safari as a browser, but I hate the fact that it neuters the web and makes it feel much less powerful. Web Bluetooth and webUSB are ignored by Safari and unsupported. Notification support is lacking last I checked. No PWA functionality to speak of and webNFC won’t be added. Extensions are lacking largely due to being basically native apps that bring with them all the cost and overhead of being such.<p>As a browser Safari is beautiful (loving the look of it on Big Sur), efficient, lightweight and has a lot of little creature comforts that other browsers can’t or won’t implement because they are Mac specific (keychain, Touch/FaceID, native share sheet, 2fa code reads direct from Messages, etc). But it’s also hard to see a future in a browser that is still stuck in a Web 2.0 philosophy.<p>The author’s point is good though: Safari is becoming the final bastion of hope against a purely Chromium landscape just by virtue of being an Apple product with an immediately large market share. I hope Apple will use this position of power wisely and help drive browser behavior rather than just being comfortable to exist in their own little world. Wishful thinking, I’m afraid. For Apple Safari seems to be little more than a talking point when advertising MacOS/iOS. It’s just another feature.<p>For what it’s worth I’ve been really enjoying Vivaldi of late (I have no affiliation with the project, just including for context on my day to day browser).
This is why, despite it being monopolistic, I hope Apple can continue their requirement on using Safari's rendering engine on iOS. It's the sole remaining defense against a far worse monopoly. Neither the Mozilla nor Edge teams have the backbone to resist Google's web platform initiatives.
> Conversely, if Safari refuses to implement some alleged 'feature', it becomes much less useful even if Chrome does implement it.<p>How is Safari not implementing standards seen as a good thing?<p>While I do acknowledge that there might be privacy concerns when it comes to Chrome, I do appreciate that Google is trying to push the Web forward, while Apple is trying to hold the Web back.<p>Safari truly is the worst browser, I fucking hate it.
Apple is doing the bare minimum and pretends to "protect user privacy" when all they do is to prevent the web to compete with their app store.
Apple pretends to care about the user experience when they are the only ones not implementing standards that would benefit the user.<p>Ohh and you are on Windows and wan't to debug something on Safari? Forget it.
I've been using Safari for a couple of months on an M1. Purely from a privacy perspective. I don't think I suddenly "have" privacy because I'm using Safari, but I do at least feel that Apple are in my corner.<p>Because I give them money.
This announcement from last October is a huge deal.<p>"Meet Face ID and Touch ID for the Web"
<a href="https://webkit.org/blog/11312/meet-face-id-and-touch-id-for-the-web/" rel="nofollow">https://webkit.org/blog/11312/meet-face-id-and-touch-id-for-...</a>
Folks in these comments seem to be missing the point re: Safari lacking features, specifically features which would allow for 1) greater access to the hardware, and 2) PWAs.<p>Apple isn’t just lagging behind. They very intentionally do not want web APIs to become a viable app development platform on their hardware ecosystem.<p>Other hardware vendors are rapidly catching up to Apple in terms of hardware quality, so the main remaining differentiator for Apple becomes quality of software experiences. This is, of course, precisely the arena in which Apple currently dominates, owing to their investment in making their app dev stack the best in the world. More than anything else, they do NOT want to lose that advantage.<p>So, a non-proprietary app dev platform which matches or exceeds the quality of their own? Yikes. If they allow Safari to become a gateway to such a platform, it would truly be an incomparable existential threat to their app development and distribution model.<p>I personally think it’s inevitable, but... you can better believe Apple will fight it as hard as they can, for as long as they can. My money’s on their next CEO slipping up and allowing a full glorious Web implementation to be built. There goes any advantage to developing software experiences for the proprietary Apple platform, and that’ll be the true beginning of the end for the modern successful Apple.
What about Edge? I found Firefox unusable on my phone - prone to crashing and a bit slow. Meanwhile, Edge for Android includes some of the privacy and Adblocking features of FF but still uses the Chromium renderer so it doesn't sacrifice performance. I'm very happy with it.<p>On desktop I'm all FF, of course.
> (Conversely, if Safari refuses to implement some alleged 'feature', it becomes much less useful even if Chrome does implement it.)<p>Ah yes... such as push notifications. Firebase would be so much more useful if Safari supported push notifications...
Apple are pretty much the only humanist big tech company. They’re a bulwark against all sorts of absolute nonsense that would reduce the technological landscape to more of a dismal-looking, utilitarian panopticon than it already is.
Too bad this is only available on a operating system that spies on its users.<p>(Sorry Apple fans, it does and while their marketing tries to hide it as much as possible, their privacy policies don't lie : <a href="https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/en-ww/" rel="nofollow">https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/en-ww/</a>)<p>It's funny how quickly one can get downvoted for criticizing Apple's misleading marketing. Apple is a data hoarding company like every others, and no “not being worse than their competitors” isn't good enough.