This is easily my top complaint about iOS. It would be much less of a complaint if Apple would make use of the shiny silicon they added to their ARM chips and properly support VP8/9, Opus, WebM, etc. so that there are patent unencumbered codecs and formats that work across every browser.
Hardware APIs, such as: bluetooth, MIDI, NFC, ambient light, USB
A ton of media codecs. Apple is attached at the hip to the MPAA, and so they only implement standards that generate MPAA royalties such as MPEG and its descendants.
Web data storage is in pretty bad shape too. For a while WebSQL was totally broken in Safari, and they are years behind the state-of-the-art APIs.
> Hardware APIs, such as: bluetooth, MIDI, NFC, ambient light, USB
Firefox doesn't support them either, and like Safari considers them harmful. And for good reasons that Google (who are the sole authors of these Chrome only non-standards) completely ignores.
I have not found any "good reasons" in the usual issues you'd find to be honest. Many of those harmful reasons are dealt with and tbh where does it differ that much from normal apps? NFC especially. Also: if there would be any issues then try find solutions for that?
Webapps are already protected with the same privacy and security protocols the browser imposes on webpages. What can a native app possibly do that's such an egregious invasion of privacy that a webpage can't do? Filesystems are encapsulated, hardware apis require permission, and cameras now have a nice active indicator. What can anything possibly do anymore that hasn't been fixed in all of web2?
> Webapps are already protected with the same privacy and security protocols the browser imposes on webpages.
Yes. And Bluetooth/USB etc. pierce that sandbox and communicate to devices outside the browser.
And no, you can't "fix it" with a simple "oh hey this page wants to access a device".
Hint: we can't successfully ignore prevent people from phishing sites and scammers, but sure, let's give an untrusted execution environment full access to everything.
> What can a native app possibly do that's such an egregious invasion of privacy that a webpage can't do
Webpage doesn't have full access to file systems (and Chrome wants to give full access to file systems), or to USB/Bluetooth/etc. (and Chrome wants to give full access to that), and...
Once again. "Hey, we know that native apps are a nightmare for privacy and security, why would you oppose making the web more like native " isn't a good argument".
Also, hint: native apps exist beyond mobile.
Also, hint on filesystems: even though they are encapsulated, that encapsulation differs greatly between systems, and having, say, full access to cloud files is just as bad.
> Webapps are already protected with the same privacy and security protocols the browser imposes on webpages
You can disable commonly abused/exploited things like service workers and still use most websites just fine, while a webapp might depend on having that functionality enabled reducing your security when using websites and webapps.
> What can a native app possibly do that's such an egregious invasion of privacy that a webpage can't do?
Safari and Webkit definitely support WebM, but it’s disabled on iOS, making it a bit useless. Of course, it’s enabled on macOS, where Apple has to compete with other browser vendors. This leads me to believe the parent article is on the right track.
I’ve heard Opus is supported, but not in Mkv (WebM) or Vorbis containers, making it a bit pointless.
The fact that to make an iOS app you need an iOS device, a MacOS device and still have to pay Apple $100 to install software on your own phone really set me off.
Just wait until they tell you that you can't talk to your own customers and that you can't deploy until they give your code the pat down. Maybe they even arbitrarily hold you up and make you miss your marketing push, critical bugfix, or window to pitch.
If you're in Australia, the ACCC is asking that you share your experience with either the Apple or Google market places via email[1]: digitalmonitoring@accc.gov.au
This is part of the ACCC's 5-year ongoing inquiry in Digital Platform Services.
What was actually an antitrust issue: leveraging a 98% market share as a cudgel to move into a new market by
1. Including a free competitor in a hot new market
2. Threatening hardware OEMs with financial penalties (not getting OEM copies of Windows) if they continued the practice of bundling the primary player's product (Netscape)
Back then, Web browsers were something you went to a brick and mortar store and paid good money for a disk to get. They weren't just handed out for free online. Microsoft flattened the competition in a market they were not previously in by leveraging their dominance in another market.
> Back then, Web browsers were something you went to a brick and mortar store and paid good money for a disk to get.
Who did that? You could just grab an installer for netscape over FTP, IE came on every windows system by default, and if you really wanted a CD or floppy with a browser on it, your ISP would send you one. AOL CDs were sent to every mailbox in the country repeatedly and totally unsolicited and those contained browser installers. Nobody I've ever known went running to the store to buy a web browser and I know people who paid for pkzip
>Web browsers were something you went to a brick and mortar store and paid good money for a disk to get
As a person who was on the internet since 1993, they were? Maybe if you wanted Netscape Gold with the editor, but I never paid for a browser and never remember any prompts urging me to do so or having to reinstall a shareware copy of anything.
Microsoft at the time had a virtual OS monopoly (around 90% market share if I recall), and the court found that they were unlawfully leveraging an existing monopoly for advantage in a different market (web browsers). With less than 50% share, Apple does not have an OS monopoly, so the same logic does not apply.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of enacting laws to protect freedom on the web platform. But the Microsoft fact pattern just doesn't apply.
In a way it would be better if the android platform didn't exist because then regulators would be able to open up ios. We were all better off after Microsoft was forced to allow other browsers. The government's ability to regulate monopolies makes them preferable to stable cozy duopolies.
Microsoft are somehow getting away all sorts of dark patterns pushing Edge, on top of it being included, default, and hardcoded for some links from system apps.
Excellent take! What happened? What Microsoft did with Internet Explorer is nothing compared to what Apple does now. This whole App Store thing needs to go away.
The MS antitrust ruling was that MS can license Windows to Dell, but Dell ultimately gets to configure the OS for their own customers, including replacing the web browser. This doesn't apply easily to Apple who does not license their OS: Apple is both MS and Dell in this analogy.
It applies to Google through Android. Amazon sells a Fire TV, which uses AOSP; but now Google's licensing forbids Amazon from also offering an Android TV product.
Perhaps Apple should face antitrust action, perhaps not, but the MS ruling doesn't really apply as Apple does not license their software. The ruling was meant to empower OEMs and Apple IS the OEM.
They mean Microsoft daring to give Internet Explorer away for free and integrate it into their desktop shell, as it undercut Netscape's business model at the time: to convince ISPs that their customers needed Netscape--which cost $40 (at a time when you didn't buy software "for life": later versions would have upgrade fees)--and so their Internet subscription price should include the cost of Netscape (which you might recognize as Microsoft's business model for getting PC manufacturers to license Windows; hell: Netscape was even refusing to implement CSS or open their DTDs while throwing in tons of Netscape-specific extensions and features in the hope of achieving lock-in on their platform! both of these companies sucked and neither was sympathetic). https://vimeo.com/310654342
Operating Systems didn't always come with a browser. We used to have to go to a store and buy copies on floppy disk or get a copy from a friend or download from a BBS. Hell, sometimes we had to install TCP/IP support since it wasn't part of the OS. So when MS included a browser in Windows the groups that also made browsers cried foul. Downloading and installing software was a painful thing and a real barrier to adoption.
The last thing I want is a webpage being able to access bluetooth, notifications or any sensor data. No, more permission dialogs is also not what I want.
> The last thing I want is a webpage being able to access bluetooth, notifications or any sensor data. No, more permission dialogs is also not what I want.
And how is having the same developer do it via a native application any different?
Permission controls for browser can be managed the same way they are being managed for native apps.
In fact, once a web app is allowed to register itself as an app, you will be able to centrally view permissions from your existing permission manager settings in your respective operating system.
I don't think they're advocating that any random page you happen to land on has the capability or permissions of an app. I think they're saying that the web app experience should be more aligned and integrated with the native app experience, including installation and granting of permissions.
> Privacy is worse on native, and we shouldn’t copy that.
When I create a document locally, or copy a photo from my camera to my computer, I'm responsible for how far it leaks, and it's fairly easy to manage and understand.
When I create similar data in a web app, I have no control over what happens to it.
You're comparing apples to oranges. Trusted local software and trusted web software aren't the issue. The issue is untrusted software. If you run untrusted native software on a (either non-mobile or non-updated) system, it can usually read and potentially exfiltrate all your files. On the other hand, an untrusted web pages can only access and exfiltrate the files you choose to let them access.
I think the key here is "trusted". That's the bit that needs work. Vendors need to work on their trust; our industry needs to work on its architectures and business models.
> Permission controls for browser can be managed the same way they are being managed for native apps.
They can't evolve the way the latter did. "New API every year or we break your app" is not an option for the web.
As a user, what drives me crazy is the absence of "human interface guidelines" and sane local storage. On the other hand, I insist on the freedom to sideload.
As a developer, I pine for an application platform that is not a 30-year-old messy abstraction over a 50-year-old operating system. If it can help my layouts on a 5" vs 50" screen, all the better.
Permission dialogs are a small price to pay for enabling entire categories of applications! For example, consider WebMIDI: there are huge number of web apps that use the new standard, ranging from online DAWs to hardware device management tools (like the new Noise Engineering Imitor Versio firmware tool). It's clear as day that Apple declining to implement these standards is holding back the web, and leading to platform fragmentation.
Yes, let's prevent fingerprinting with privacy-protecting implementations, but apps should be able to use these awesome features with permission.
It's huge price to pay considering the number of permissions required, complexity of it all, and potential consequences when a frustrated user just clicks "yes" to all
Counter point. It would be really great if the web app I work on was able to connect to Bluetooth enabled wands and directly read the RFID tag in the ear of cows as the farmer did things to them (like check if they are pregnant) and record that information in the web app.
I would agree that permission dialogs are not what we want, on page load, as so many websites do.
A web app should wait until it needs Geolocation or whatever, before prompting you. It should always follow a user interaction. When you click to use some feature, then it prompts you for the permission.
Or an app could have some kind of introductory page where it lists the permissions that it will need, and you click each one that you want to give. Again you do this at your leisure, not upon page load.
yup, I'd pay Apple an additional 20% per iPhone if they promise never to implement this horrible shit for website devs to endlessly badger users about to the end of time.
As long as the feature doesn't exist, people have to make websites that work without it. As soon as it does, people will instead switch to obnoxious interstitial screens telling and/or insisting that you enable push notifications or whatever to continue using the thing.
The problem is the "we must never break the web" attitude.
Once any feature, no matter how exotic, becomes part of "the web" it can never be removed from browsers ever, for the rest of time.
Either that policy must change, or we must be ultraconservative about accepting new "web standards". One or the other. Either choice has disadvantages, but we cannot choose neither.
Bluetooth access was never added to the web. It’s not on the standards track, it’s only implemented in Blink, and both Mozilla and Apple have refused to implement it. The web isn’t simply whatever Google decides to add to Chrome.
Apple could just add this functionality and put it in the settings panel in Mobile Safari. They won't add these features though because they want you to pay for apps from the App store. That's all.
You'd have even more control in a browser - you can easily turn these on or off globally or per domain on other platforms. Others want the features, so who are you to say they can't have them?
I fully disagree. The web platform will no longer be an open platform once Google is able to use it's standard suite of tactics to force everyone on iOS to switch over to Chrome.
As irritating as the iOS WebKit monopoly may be for a handful of web developers, it's the last line in the sand against Google's complete control of the web that forces them to at least try to involve standards bodies.
Apple can be your enemy in every other day and respect, but we all need to line up and support them in this one key area. The open web depends entirely on it.
Saying that the situation with Apple refusing standards now is good in order to possibly protect us from Google pushing harmful non-standards later feels like a bad excuse for them.
The "standards" Apple is currently refusing to implement are already standards in name only: They're Google written specs solely implemented on Google's browser which generally is only also adopted by rebranded clones of Google's browser. Mozilla has also refused most of them, but since Mozilla doesn't also have an operating system, Google happily sidesteps them.
Google seems to have given the ‘false promise’ of the open-web ever since Chrome released and taken over IE.
Now they get to push whatever web feature they want by the web standards committee and is immediately available in Chrome, other Chromium Based browsers and Electron apps, with other browsers needing to implement them to keep up.
All along the ‘open web’ was the exchange from one behemoth to another. It is a two horse race between Google and Apple with Google winning and calling the shots - hence the web developers always supporting Chrome first and calling Safari ‘the new IE’ and telling everyone else using other non-Chromium browser just to switch to one via banners or messages.
> Apple has almost single-handedly held back the dream of native-quality experiences on the web.
This doesn't seem true. Where are the native quality experiences when using a PWA on Android? If it were Apple single-handedly holding things back, we should see plenty of these, right?
People build native Android applications all the time and they are only useful on half of mobile phones. There are millions of them. How come people aren’t choosing to build PWAs in this situation?
If you’re writing code intended only for Android, Apple’s influence in both cases is the same – irrelevant. Yet when you look at only the cases where Apple is irrelevant, people still overwhelmingly continue to choose native Android applications over PWAs. Blaming Apple for this doesn’t seem reasonable.
Because the other half can access the app with a react native wrapper or something like that.
In the long run, having to install the native app is an inconvenience to those users and their next phone will be less limiting. Apple is famous for their creative destruction, but sticking to their native apps breaks their appetite for innovation.
Drifting in Space [1] has just been announced. After 30 years, the General Magic[2] concept is almost reality apart from the fluid integration of client and server. How can that happen on an iPhone if Apple locks the browser? In other words, sooner or later, they either have to open the browser or become irrelevant.
People build iOS exclusive apps since iOS has a large majority of paying users. Android have poor users that are harder to monetize, so if you just build for one group you build for the rich iOS users.
Apple has little business incentive to encourage web apps on iOS vs. native apps. (And there is even less incentive to implement every API that Google sees fit to stuff into Chrome.)
In addition to making money for Apple and enhancing its platform control, native apps tend to be more power efficient, more responsive, and more consistent with Apple's UI guidelines – features which, in Apple's view at least, lead to a better user experience.
That being said, I personally hate it when web sites (e.g. reddit) demand that I install an app when I just want to use the web site.
So build something great that doesn't run on iOS. Lots of software is exclusive to Mac or iOS; why not software that is exclusive to Android or Chrome? If it's compelling enough, Apple will change its tune.
Safari is crippled when it comes to building web apps that aren't beholden to the Apple tax and control. How the fsck is that better than having a single web engine that makes web apps equals among native apps and avoids monopolistic american megacorp from telling you what you're allowed to create?
Do you really wish corporate control so much? Do you want to go through Apple review for your websites as well?
It's incredible how brand fanboyism clouds your minds - this isn't about engine competition, it's about making free web an equal player to golden cages of app stores.
If Firefox had 40+% of the browser market share, I would agree. But I think a chrome monopoly is the worst thing that could happen to the web. iOS safari is basically the only thing standing between us and a chrome monopoly. Let’s break that monopoly on all other platforms and then talk about opening iOS up.
Can you explain why? Chrome has much better support for web standards, wider API capability and allows you to build better web applications than Safari. How is that bad for the web? Especially when your alternative comes from a company that has vested interest to make web a bad option to funnel profits into their monopolistic app store?
Remember, Firefox is not allowed to exist on Apple devices either.
Google automatically signs you into Chrome (e.g. Chrome profiles) if you sign into any of Google’s web properties, including Youtube, GSuite, etc. [1] You don’t need tracking pixels for your ad products when you know who every user is operating the browser.
This conflict of interest - browser privacy vs. Google’s ad business - is the single reason I now use Firefox [on desktop].
If Apple wants to make a case for a natural browser duopoly, they should do so by investing some of their $200 billion dollars in cash to make a competitive browser experience, not by forcing their users into a position where they can't choose.
> How the fsck is that better than having a single web engine that makes web apps equals among native apps and avoids monopolistic american megacorp from telling you what you're allowed to create?
You mean, like Chrome? Developed by the monopolistic American megacorp called Google?
Also, if PWA’s and Electron apps are your version of “equal to native” I’m going to have to strongly disagree.
Yes, I prefer strong Chrome market share with possibility of competition from Apple, Mozilla and others. I strongly believe Apple is capable of building a better browser even if they don't get to cripple their competition with monopolistic practices.
Instead, you're defending Apple monopoly where they ban all competition, stagnate web development and make PWAs and other web-apps a non-viable possibility on their devices. All because... you don't like Chrome? Although you'd still have a full option of using Firefox, Safari or others? Why? Because someone else might DARE to use a product THEY prefer?
Agreed. I want more native apps, not less. I cringe when I see web apps that are slow, don’t take advantage of native API’s, and have a completely different look and feel from the OS. No thanks.
Web apps already dominate the desktop (aka Electron) and I don't see where they are better/equal than a native app (except maybe vscode that is closer than many others).
If you can point me why Slack, Teams, WhatsApp desktop, Telegram, etc need too much ram to render a simple list + chat and call that efficient, then I would believe you about web apps being good.
The difference is that people enjoy using Slack out of the box. JetBrains' products are intolerably laggy out of the box on unless one is using top-end hardware.
“Look at all these alternative browsers you can use”
> points to Chromium variants.
Chromium variants are not an alternative, and I’m happy to perpetuate Safari on iOS if it means Apple keeps shafting ad-tech companies in service of my privacy.
Apple is an ad-tech company, they are expanding that sector massively lately. Ads might be less revenue, but ads are almost pure profits so each ad dollar is worth much more to them than each phone dollar, and there is no reason they can't do both.
> Analysts project Apple will make $5B off ads this year and $20B per year by 2024
This shouldn't be a hot take, but moreso a sobering reality.
That said I'm glad more people are starting to acknowledge this and bring it up in these discussions. Firefox is not really a counter to Chrome's dominance and WebKit only really still is due to Apple being too big to push around.
If I'm stuck choosing between those two evils, I'd sooner take Apple... then try to figure out what a better solution is than just "make Apple change because I don't like Safari".
Chrome achieved desktop dominance in part by Google paying for it to be bundled with Flash, graphics drivers, and other popular software. It also got banners on google.com, gmail, etc. It's not some pure organic "user choice" growth story and Google would presumably re-use those same tactics given the opportunity.
> Happy to answer questions and I hope some of you will join us in advocating a better future for the web
If you actually advocate for open web, where's Chrome on your website?
Chrome routinely releases its own internal APIs disguised as specs, calls them standards, ignores any and all concerns from both Safari and Firefox, and then proceeds to gaslight those two browser for not kowtowing themselves before Google's whims.
We're happy to target anti-competitive behaviour from any operating system or browser if it relates to the open-web. Currently our main focus is user's browser choice on all operating systems is possible and respected to restore the competitive pressures that push everything forward.
That said we want to make list of other things to target and fix, but they have to be well understood and documented. If you're willing to type this up in detail... which APIs, what the issues are, comments from the various browser teams involved and why they came to that conclusion (and it's really important to talk to the individuals that were actually involved in whatever spec you were talking about) and then post in the discord, I'm sure folks would be interested.
It's also really important to be specific as to why the behaviour is harmful to end consumers. We also need to order the issues in terms of priority and how damaging they are to the wider ecosystem.
Some issues with Google include equal WebAPK minting system on Android, and respecting a user's browser choice via Android or Google apps.
Finally, this is all volunteer work on people's weekends and producing detailed technical arguments about each of these topics is incredibly time-consuming.
Should be lots of updates to the website over the next few weeks, lots of people have volunteered, the web community is amazing.
> We're happy to target anti-competitive behaviour from any operating system or browser if it relates to the open-web. Currently our main focus is user's browser choice
It means you're not really focusing on the open web. You have a very specific, very narrow beef that you're pursuing.
And it's parroting Chrome's propaganda basically word-for-word both on the website and here in the comments.
> they have to be well understood and documented. If you're willing to type this up in detail...
In Discord, right?
You could start by actually looking around and figuring out these things yourself, too. Not just repeating Google's talking points.
> It's also really important to be specific as to why the behaviour is harmful to end consumers. We also need to order the issues in terms of priority and how damaging they are to the wider ecosystem.
You've already stated your priorities loud and clear
> and respecting a user's browser choice via Android or Google apps.
Yup, it's s good one. Since Google doesn't respect that and ignores all/most input on the non-standards it's pushing out at neck-breaking speed, you can see where it's going if you "allow browser choice on iOS"
I have had plenty of problems making cross platform apps — and that’s my specialty and my niche, I do it every day. Not just cross platform, but across embedded devices, browsers, servers; truly cross platform.
I have, instead, found the platforms most difficult to work with are 1. android for its heavy reliance on Java (which is not an appropriate language on plenty of embedded systems and on systems where efficiency means money), 2. windows for its poor system api and heavily restrictive marketplace, and 3. Apple for its heavily restrictive marketplace.
Note, though, that none of this has to do with the web and web-like technologies. There is nothing stopping React or similar App frameworks from being deployed on mobile devices.
And, for the record, there is legal precedent for app lockdowns like these. We don’t need more laws — we need to enforce the precedent we already have. Find a lawyer who can be convinced that Windows DirectX and ie are illegal tying arrangements… find a lawyer that could be convinced of the difference between Metal and OpenCL+OpenGL.
That’s why we have these problems; it’s a lack of understanding from the departments responsible for prosecuting these illegal tying arrangements.
The only company mentioned by name in your priorities is Apple.
Your comments about Apple are valid of course, but to convey more credibility and eliminate accusations of astroturfing, you probably should list some issues with all of the big players. I’m sure you can find many issues with Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, and others.
Citation needed. The web sandbox in most browsers is head-and-shoulders more secure than executing arbitrary native code.
Perhaps you meant "private." It's true that the web has developed something of a fingerprinting problem, but this can be solved with finer-grained capabilities-based permissions, as well as privacy-conscious implementations (e.g. bucketing).
As much as I love the web I feel like there may be some problems. What would entail to allowing anything run on the web? Bluetooth, hardware, movement tracking api (creepy!!) are causing legitimate concerns.
The web was meant to be an information sharing platform. To share information means that there was standards to be built. From these standards, came the possibility to make things that works everywhere, which explains the popularity of web apps.
It may be tempting to push for more support in web standards, however the nature of the web platform give it vulnerabilities that wouldn’t exist in a native app.
A native app is a piece of code. You can analyse it through antivirus, and the executable stay the same unless you choose to update it. (Electron apps allow app maker to update automatically, but they are not native apps, the chrome browser embedded is native but the only website it can access is not). A web app use multiple devices and is more uncertain. Service workers fetch information from a website and on a remote server, and that code would arrive on your computer without you actually consenting or realizing it. What if my website get attacked and suddenly my web app is loading a Bluetooth api that could access a connected object, like my smart car, my health device or other potentially dangerous stuff?
Moreover, allowing alternative browser would allow developers to be less constrained by Apple, for the better, indeed, but also for the worst. If chrome decide to bring their chromium browser to iOS, Facebook could just delete it’s iOS app and put it as a chrome PWA, this would allow them to bypass the Apple Store restrictions.
This smells funny. It doesn't list any names, at all, and it only focuses on one issue -- Apple's browser restriction, which as others point out is a nuanced issue.
At the very least if they want to ease into it they could start with opening up browsers for the iPad Pro. I'm one of those people who tries to replace his laptop with an ipad every few months and would greatly benefit from being able to run a full desktop browser with developer tools. I dont even need chrome just Chromium would help. iPad OS get incrementally better every year but it's years away from doing what it's capable of.
Even if iPad Safari had dev tools, you really want to be able to test against chromium. If they ever get serious about the iPad developer market, they're going to have to relax many constraints, including this one (as well as the no-JIT compilation rule, probably).
Very long overdue issue which would have been a non issue if competition law would have actually worked instead of being so toothless.
Not sure if telling legislators about it will make it any better. They'll say competition laws already exist. It's enforcing them that's a problem. May be someone should team up with EFF and file a major anti-trust case against Apple.
It would kind of be nice to understand who is behind this. Where's the repo where the website is built from? Who are the devs in the organization? Otherwise, it just feels like an advocacy site for a large company that is not Apple.
We’re just a group of various web developers, unpaid, unfunded and not backed by any organization. The repo is on GitHub (currently private) but we will be making it public. We’re all in the discord group at the moment if your interested in helping.
Not sure if I understand the issue (or it’s just been poorly explained): last time I checked I can still install alternative browsers like Chrome and Firefox. And I can still save web apps as “bookmarked app icons”.
All browsers on iOS use Apple's WebKit browsing engine. Even alternative browsers like Chrome and Firefox on iOS are using WebKit instead of their own corresponding engines that are used on other platforms like desktop and Android
This is a point so horribly misunderstood that I seriously had dinner a few weeks ago with someone from the Mozilla Foundation who asked me the same question as they somehow didn't understand that Firefox Focus wasn't actually Firefox. It was in that moment I realized that we're doomed: Apple has managed to control the narrative here so ridiculously well by making it seem like alternative browsers exist, even when they don't, that more time has to now be spent continually re-educating people about what a browser even is than explaining why alternative browsers are important :(.
This site screams Google astroturfing at every angle. I would be shook if Googlers have no hand in it.
EDIT: The Register lists two specific developers who I don't think work at Google "plus others" so if it's Google they have gotten better at astroturfing since the Open Handset Alliance days of yore. It looks like they're lobbying the UK, and I don't think Google admits which lobbyists they pay outside of the US.
We’re just web developers, not affiliated with or funded by any major company. In fact Google pays Apple 15b usd a year for search engine placement on iOS which is presumably why they haven’t been fighting it.
It’s been a huge amount of unpaid work, but the entire industry had been held back for so long we felt we had to do something.
Hi! I’m @mtomweb on Twitter. I and everyone one else doesn’t work or get paid by any of the browser vendors (or anyone else for that matter). I run a small business doing POS systems that’d you’d have never heard off.
People just assume that we’re funded because we’ve stuck a lot of effort in trying to fight anticompetitive behavior. If you read our content though you’ll see it’s not legal/PR nonsense.
I would advise you that if you are trying to fight anticompetitive behavior, you are backing the wrong horse. Apple is not good, but it is useful in fighting what's truly bad: Google's attempt to turn the web into a walled garden. Read a bit about "Project NERA" online.
Google's constant stream of web "standards" only they've implemented, AMP (which thankfully is starting to die), and Privacy Sandbox all fold into a plan to control the web.
You might not be paid by them, but please don't take on the "useful idiot" role of helping them control the web because you didn't understand the impact of what you were promoting.
I'm well aware of your long held opinions but really we are advocating on behalf of people who believe the web is the future. Additionally we believe in competition and browser choice. There will always be others who think that other platforms are a better option, but as long as there is open competition, the best platform will win.
Our aim is to remove barriers and we will fight any anti-competitive behaviour by any operating system or browser vendor but in a priority order.
I believe in competition and browser choice. But if your position was to win, we would immediately have neither. You are advocating solely for Chrome, whether you understand why and how or not.
Priorities are great to have, but yours are wrong and harmful. If you win, we all lose, and I fear you will come to understand it too late.
I'm not advocating solely for chrome. Safari/webkit was severely underfunded and neglected by Apple and was slipping further behind every year in addition to being unsuitable / unstable as an application platform. By restoring competition to iOS it will push Apple to fund them properly or they risk losing 150m for each 1% of users per year that move to another browser.
Safari only competes on one platform and that is MacOS.
It should also be important to note that blink is a fork of webkit which is a fork of khtml. There is nothing stoping competition within the chromium browsers as outlined in section 8 of the document.
Choosing not to implement insecure and poorly thought out features isn't "underfunding" or "neglecting" Safari. It's a choice to put users, not Google, first.
Google has used a litany of underhanded tactics to obliterate every single browser in an open space. Claiming opening up iOS to competing browsers would be helping Safari succeed is just ignoring history.
I’d have been very impressed if PR could have written a document with that much technical detail.
All of us are web devs, none of us writers or legal/policy people or are paid or affiliated with by any major company. We’re the opposite of paid, it’s taken a lot of time and effort, but no company was fighting this so unless we tried nothing would happen.
> The entire future of Application Development is at stake.
Since when does application development equal web application development? this is a narrow-minded view.
> stalled innovation for the past 10 years and prevented Web Apps from taking off on mobile.
I may be in the minority but, as a user, web apps on mobile is the last thing I need. Also, as a developer web apps as a preferred way of developing for mobile is the last things I need.
> Web Apps if allowed can offer equivalent functionality with greater privacy and security for demanding use-cases.
This really needs some sources. To me, it reads like something akin to a snake oil ad piece right now.
I am providing critique here, the burden of proof is on whoever wrote the bold claim that application development is web development (speculation) and it is a better way of development (speculation).
> I am glad for you that you don't need them. But we'd like to at least have the choice.
I would not have a gripe with the article if it were the only thing it alluded to.
I think some of that "proof" goes beyond "web". I.e. there is a way to deliver apps without going through gatekeepers, but a major gatekeeper is blocking that.
Innovation being actively blocked today, includes streaming games and other apps, cloud hosted apps, etc. And we will never know how much innovation is being blocked if there is always a gatekeeper.
This innovation freeze isn't just about "web" technology. It is blocking whole business models today.
And there is no reason "web" technologies, when free to improve, can't acheive parity or near parity with native apps in the future, with regard to performance, security, aesthetics, etc.
"Web" is just a historical starting place, not an impediment to future capabilities.
Open, widely adopted standards are a good thing. Widely supported ways of delivering applications written using those standards is also a good thing.
But as a counterpoint to the rest, web technologies have been free to achieve said parity on the desktop for a long time now. Have they? Do they provide _better_ experience for the user? or do they neglect the user whenever they can in return for _faster_ and _easier_ cross-platform development and ability to leverage existing web developers?
The diversity of development environments, languages, etc. that sit on top of web tech such as HTML and WebAssembly provide tools for everything from quick and dirty to highly engineered code.
For instance we have PHP (easy to learn, but weak typing, arguably unclear design philosophy) on one end of the spectrum, and Rocket for Rust (which enforces memory discipline to provide highly reliable concurrency and high performance) at the other end.
> I may be in the minority but, as a user, web apps on mobile is the last thing I need. Also, as a developer web apps as a preferred way of developing for mobile is the last things I need.
I would bet in the future most apps are web apps, either JavaScript PWAs or WASM. The economics of cross platform development are too great. I think most users won't care, or may even appreciate this due to the size savings (a PWA today is almost always a lot smaller than a fat app on my experience).
As a developer, I would rather write web apps that can use standard web interfaces for camera/files/icons/notifications than having to learn all of the platform specific stuff, and as a bonus I'll get a lot of accessibility benefits for free.
That is speculation on user behalf, isn't it? I am a user and I care.
> ..than having to learn all of the platform specific stuff..
It is a rational argument. However, Chrome is a platform too. More and more of the web only works (well) in Chrome. More and more of the web is what Chrome says it is.
You care how an app is developed and delivered to your device?
The web offers a native experience in most cases, sometimes even better. Besides, giving PWAs more abilities doesn't remove native apps.
> More and more of the web is what Chrome says it is.
It's pretty ironic that you support Apple in locking down what you can do and apps you can run and what Safari supports, while blaming Chrome for being the dominant browser.
Even so, a web app is much better than no app. The unit economics of re-building a complex desktop web app in a different technology, in a highly-constrained medium for use by a relative handful of users aren’t great.
Just because you personally don't want web apps doesn't make it ok for a company to unilaterally hamstring an entire arm of technology for their own benefit.
I hate Safari because it holds me back from doing all kinds of stuff like importing css files with import statements, making web component-based forms work the same as standard forms, etc, etc.
Literally only one major player is lagging here.