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safari-is-the-new-ie.com #181

Closed stuartpb closed 5 years ago

stuartpb commented 8 years ago

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)

Garbee commented 8 years ago

start petitioning the FTC to ready an anti-trust suit against Apple

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.

stuartpb commented 8 years ago

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:

  • If Apple doesn't do either, start petitioning the FTC to ready an anti-trust suit against Apple for doing the same things Microsoft was doing in the nineties (except worse, because of their platform lockout)
auchenberg commented 8 years ago

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 :)

yathit commented 8 years ago

@auchenberg :+1:

auchenberg commented 8 years ago

Ideas for a campaign domain?

ejc commented 8 years ago

far-too-many-dashes-dot-net.com

On Jun 30, 2015, at 10:51 PM, Kenneth Auchenberg notifications@github.com wrote:

Ideas for a campaign domain?

allow-other-browers-on-ios.com save-the-web-on-ios.com save-the-mobile-web.com better-ios-web.com better-mobile-web.com better-web-on-ios.com move-the-web-forward.com set-the-web-free.com — Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

stuartpb commented 8 years ago

@ejc I used hyphens because safariisthenewie reads like a portmanteau you'd see if James Joyce wrote Dune fanfiction: "Safar 'i'is, then, Ewie?"

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?

auchenberg commented 8 years ago

@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.

stuartpb commented 8 years ago

@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.)

auchenberg commented 8 years ago

@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?

stuartpb commented 8 years ago

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.

jakearchibald commented 8 years ago

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.

stopsatgreen commented 8 years ago

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.

jbrooksuk commented 8 years ago

:+1: for all of this.

mickaelandrieu commented 8 years ago

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.

glivera commented 8 years ago

!!!!!!!

jpsc commented 8 years ago

@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.

Garbee commented 8 years ago

Apple is not a problem, because you don't have to buy it.

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.

mickaelandrieu commented 8 years ago

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,

Safari is not evergreen, this is a problem.

As Safari is not open source, and as Apple refuse to let others real web browsers to be installed in Apple products:

If Apple doesn't do either, start petitioning the FTC to ready an anti-trust suit against Apple for doing the same things Microsoft was doing in the nineties (except worse, because of their platform lockout)

:+1: this make sense, but again no one forces you to buy an Apple device.

jpsc commented 8 years ago

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.

nolanlawson commented 8 years ago

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. :smiley:

grayghostvisuals commented 8 years ago

@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.

no2pixel commented 8 years ago

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.

stuartpb commented 8 years ago

@nolanlawson

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.

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.

brucelawson commented 8 years ago

.. and I was going to suggest http://safarie6.com/ as a domain name.

stuartpb commented 8 years ago

@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).

scshepard commented 8 years ago

hi, enjoying the dialog here. it is my understanding that mac unix allows other browsers, correct or wrong?

stuartpb commented 8 years ago

@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.

simevidas commented 8 years ago

I'd like to make a quick point that there's no need to rush, as two important events are yet to happen:

  1. the Safari 9 release,
  2. Microsoft demonstrating that Edge is evergreen (specifically, web platform features being shipped via automatic updates, in relatively short intervals)

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.

stuartpb commented 8 years ago

@jakearchibald:

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.

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.)

stuartpb commented 8 years ago

I'm trying to link to a straightforward visual breakdown of where Safari falls short relative to the competition - I pulled up this table on caniuse, but it doesn't really visually demonstrate the problem, since old standards (like Web SQL, which has been deprecated for years), trivial details (like multiple file selection, which is only unsupported by Android's file selection UI), and insignificant features (when's the last time you even heard somebody mention JPEG 2000?) where Safari still has a green bar have the same weight as significant, unpolyfillable modern standards like getUserMedia, Beacon, User Timing, and WeakMap/WeakSet (which, as an ES6 feature, isn't even on this table).

nolanlawson commented 8 years ago

@stuartpb Since the problem is that certain features are more important/desirable than others, could the solution be a forum system where people could vote up one feature or another? For instance, I might vote for things like WEBM, WEBP, WebRTC, fixing IndexedDB, Service Worker, Web Animations, Web Manifest, and canvas.toBlob(). But everybody has their own wishlist. :)

stuartpb commented 8 years ago

@nolanlawson That sounds like a job for an open issue tracker (ie. that's what Chrome has, issues that you can "star" to upvote), the second item on the petition as currently drafted.

simevidas commented 8 years ago

@nolanlawson I was going to suggest an unofficial UserVoice forum (analogous to what Microsoft is having for Edge), but it’s very pricey.

stuartpb commented 8 years ago

@simevidas @nolanlawson I was going to suggest something like https://github.com/isaacs/github/issues for Safari, but we already do have http://openradar.appspot.com/ - maybe just add starring to that app?

stuartpb commented 8 years ago

And of course the WebKit bug tracker is still open - if we could provide some kind of drop-in replacement for Bugzilla that wasn't quite so... CGI, maybe that would help things be a bit less of a mess on the issue tracker front.

addyosmani commented 8 years ago

More outreach and contact with the community – where is Apple's Jake Archibald? Where is their Christian Heilmann? Where is the person who's going out and giving talks and getting developers excited about Safari?

That would be Jonathan Davis: https://twitter.com/jonathandavis He's an evangelist for Apple with a focus on Safari. He recently joined, but there's value in trying to collaborate with him to get the message here heard by the right folks. We might also consider reaching out to Kevin Decker who is the Safari engineering manager and may also be interested (https://twitter.com/DeckerKev) or Edward O'Connor (https://twitter.com/hober) who works on the web standards work for WebKit/Safari at Apple.

Or, create a forum where people can vote on issues they care about, ala Microsoft's uservoice.com.

UserVoice was pretty successful for MS, but afaik was driven directly by the IE team. If something ends up getting crafted here, we'll probably want it done in a way that there's genuine consideration paid to suggestions and it doesn't just become a dumping ground for 'please implement X' if Apple are ignoring it (they do have the WebKit bug tracker as their primary channel for issues afterall).

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:

There's a decent chance mobile web experiences (incl iOS) have been evaluated at some level within major destinations. I think there's value in exploring this option.

Side: @auchenberg https://kenneth.io/blog/2015/07/03/safari-isnt-the-problem-but-the-lack-of-browser-choice-in-ios-is/ resonated with me. It's an excellent write-up.

ghost commented 8 years ago

Make sure it renders on Safari so Apple execs can read it

starburst1977 commented 8 years ago

Totally agree with @auchenberg. Excellent write up. We need more browser choice on iOS. And I agree with @addyosmani that we perhaps should get in touch with the Safari Evangelists & Developers to make ourselves heard.

therealmarv commented 8 years ago

You should start this petition page. This thread is already going kind of viral on HN ;) There are special services like https://change.org for get you started. No need to reinvent the wheel IMHO.

nataliethistime commented 8 years ago

:+1: for https://change.org

SarahX commented 8 years ago

We should post this page to every tech link-sharing site (I saw this from Hacker News), so that's good. I would say post this to r/technology, but I think it's down right now due to issues between mods and admins. We need to make sure those in the web community understand the issues going on here. Unless we do this, we will never get enough people to actually make a difference.

CedricAlb commented 8 years ago

+1 for change.org

cibernox commented 8 years ago

Another +1 for a global petition in change.org

Shinta commented 8 years ago

+1

SarahX commented 8 years ago

+1 for change.org.....it's a great way to get signatures. It's going to be challenging to make Apple change. They want control (for bad or good) and the web operates outside of their walled garden. Think about how they are adding adblocking tools to iOS9, trying to push more and more content creators into their app store. They may not have malicious intent but there will eventually be effects in the challenge of walled gardens vs open platforms.

ngryman commented 8 years ago

:+1:

SarahX commented 8 years ago

Who is creating the petition? just wondering :D

auchenberg commented 8 years ago

+1 for change.org

Is there a (native) english speaker who could draft up the petition text in a Gist? I'm about to catch a long flight, so I can have a look in 12-15 hours.

SarahX commented 8 years ago

Yeah, I am a native English speaker. I could create a draft. @stuartpb do you want to help contribute?