{"id":33238,"date":"2021-07-27T15:42:53","date_gmt":"2021-07-27T19:42:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=33238"},"modified":"2021-09-16T16:14:41","modified_gmt":"2021-09-16T20:14:41","slug":"safari-frustrations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2021\/07\/27\/safari-frustrations\/","title":{"rendered":"Safari Frustrations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Perry Sun<\/a> (via Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n

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With IE now out of the way, the distinction of ‘most-hated browser’ goes to Apple’s Safari – which all along had been a close second to IE.<\/p>\n

In a similar vein, Safari has consistently lagged behind competing browsers in supporting modern web APIs and features, presenting considerable challenges for developers wanting to create products that work consistently across all the major browsers (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari).<\/p>\n

However, the annoyance with Safari gets deeper and more nuanced, which I’ll explain further below.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

I guess it was about time for another one of these posts to gain traction. I don’t think the Internet Explorer analogy is entirely fair, but the frustrations for developers and users are real.<\/p>\n\n

Not being a Web developer, I don’t have much of an opinion about which specific APIs or Web standards Safari should be supporting better. But my experience as a user is that its compatibility continues to decline. In the last month, I encountered problems using the American Express, Discover, and Subway sites. The same actions worked fine in both Chrome and Firefox. I’m also still<\/a> seeing GPU-related crashes each day, though I’m told this may be fixed in Monterey. Apple<\/a> is<\/a> busy<\/a> trying to reinvent tabs and toolbars, but I just want a browser that works.<\/p>\n\n

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Apple dragged their feet in adding support for PWAs in Safari, and when they finally did, limited the capabilities of a PWA so that native-like app functionality wouldn’t be possible, like notifications or a home screen icon shortcut – to name just a few of the many restrictions imposed by Apple.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

I think iOS has supported home screen icons for Web pages since day one, so I guess this is referring to customizing the menu that you get when you long-press on an app icon.<\/p>\n\n

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The reason for Apple’s self-imposed limitations on PWA-related web APIs? They’ll tell you they’re for user privacy reasons<\/a>, which may be valid in certain cases.<\/p>\n

But most of us know the dominant reason is because fully-capable PWAs would compete against the iOS App Store – robbing Apple of 30% cut in revenue it rakes in when an app is purchased, or an in-app purchase is executed.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

It’s not clear to me that the stuff that doesn’t work is primarily related to privacy. But, either way, I would like users to be able to opt into running fully-capable PWAs, especially since that’s the only release valve for all the apps that Apple won’t allow in the App Store.<\/p>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n