Web devs fear Apple's iOS shakeup for Europe will be a nightmare for support

Web developers worry that Apple's commitments to meet Europe's Digital Markets Act will complicate web application support, even as some remain hopeful something positive will come from the revision of Apple's iOS platform rules. The Register has seen a set of comments submitted to Open Web Advocacy (OWA) – a web-focused …

[ldo]

Safari Is An Albatross Around The Necks Of Web Developers

Safari is an all-too-frequent stumbling block to the adoption of new web technologies. Developers are discouraged from doing things when they discover that they work just about everywhere except on IOS.

Look at where the red crosses are clustered in the compatibility matrices for WebGL 2D/3D, EventTarget and Background Tasks, among just a few I found.

[wolfetone]

Re: Safari Is An Albatross Around The Necks Of Web Developers

As much as I dislike Safari, it's competition. And it's something we just don't have in the web space anymore really.

What I wish would happen would be for Apple to put some effort in to Safari and make it something that's worth being competition or worth considering, rather than being seen as something that "holds" people back. What we're being held back from though I don't know, considering Google pumps any old needless bullshit in to the Chrome and simply expects it to be standard.

[fuzzie]

Re: Safari Is An Albatross Around The Necks Of Web Developers

You're right. It's an alternative implementation of web standards and we need a few of those to keep the standards useful and practical.

In theory it's competition. Practically not, because it is the sole implementation allowed on iOS. So iOS users cannot "vote" for/against it, because they're not allowed alternatives. At least on OS X it has competition and I'd venture there it's been solidly "outvoted".

[wolfetone]

Re: Safari Is An Albatross Around The Necks Of Web Developers

True but the competition exists both on the device and on the web. While the user is locked in to that choice, the developer of the website has to account for it. It forces us to develop for more than just Chrome and Firefox.

I think, with everything going the way it is, Apple opening up iOS to run something other than Safari will just result in users not using Safari and opting for Chrome. When that happens there is less reason for developers to keep things standard and let us slip in to the bad old days of websites only running on IE.

[fuzzie]

Re: Safari Is An Albatross Around The Necks Of Web Developers

From on perspective Safari is the new IE6. It's the laggard unloved browser everyone "has" to support to be universal.

On the other side we have Chrome which everyone has to support because it's the new IE6, because Google mandates it on Android. Two "monopolies" and I'd also hate to just swap one for another. One could imagine this to be a gap for Gecko/Firefox/etc to get a toe in the door, but the realistic result is that people are likely to the same browser on iOS as they are using on their desktop/laptop. If for no other reason than automatic account syncing and/or familiarity

Since iPadOS is left out of this discussion, that might also mean people won't bother switching from Safari, because it would break their one-stop-account save/sync. Which is often how Apple maintains their walled gardens. They make the experience of stepping outside it, even slightly, hugely unpleasant. I suspect we're going to see a similar passive aggressive/sulking/half-hearted implementation of RCS when it arrives.

[oreosRnice]

Re: Safari Is An Albatross Around The Necks Of Web Developers

Yup.

How many iPhone users around the world would even notice a difference or care enough about what underlying engine is running their browser of choice? Very few.

Web Developers will know because they are the internet.

An iPhone WebKit Chrome user will get an update. (will they even bother updating!?) and now they’ll be an iPhone Blink Chrome user.

Cool I guess. Browser choice or whatever.

All I know is that my passwords are on Apple Keychain and whatever OS I’m running has a keychain extension if not on macOS. As long as a webpage loads up when I need it to pay my bills and my login autofills and syncs. Nothing else matters to me.

[heyrick]

Re: Safari Is An Albatross Around The Necks Of Web Developers

"Very few."

Me. Safari is a heaving pile of bugs and it doesn't take much of the modern web to cause it to die.

At least, soon, one can choose to use a different browser that really is a different browser and not the exact same thing wearing a different face... because if a site was crashy in iOS, it was always going to be crashy. Yes, I am well aware it's probably a shitty website, but that's not really an excuse for enforcing the same web engine on everybody...

[werdsmith]

Re: Safari Is An Albatross Around The Necks Of Web Developers

Interesting to read this. I use Safari and never noticed a problem on any website.

[DS999]

Re: Safari Is An Albatross Around The Necks Of Web Developers

Having iOS users able to vote if they thought Chrome was actually better is one thing. Having them able to "vote" if web developers say "screw Apple I want to support only one browser and now that Apple allows Chrome I can" and design/test their sites for Chrome alone will guarantee not only that Apple users are FORCED to "vote" for Chrome whether or not they think it is the best browser, but also users of Firefox and all other non Chromium browsers.

With the EU alone doing this, other than EU specific sites this sort of thing won't happen. But if Apple was forced to do this in the US as well, that would probably be sufficient to bring this fate. Those thinking they are increasing browser competition by making Apple allow third party browsers will NOT get the outcome they were hoping for. Only the lazy web developers who whine about having to support something other than Chrome will get what they want, but it will be a disaster for the rest of us. Having Google in sole control of browsing will be even worse than when Microsoft almost managed the same thing, until Firefox saved us.

Who will save us from Google dominating browsers? How many years would it take for the EU to wake up to the disaster they caused, and force Google to divest Chrome? And even if they did, would that be enough to prevent a browser monoculture going forward?

[Brewster's Angle Grinder]

Re: Safari Is An Albatross Around The Necks Of Web Developers

It's nowhere near as bad as they used to be*. And becoming harder and harder to find gaps. Speculation is the EU's decision has driven the sudden burst of conformance.

The bigger annoyance is that old phones are stranded on old versions of Safari. But, I guess, you'll soon be able to recommend people with outdated iOS switch to Chrome. (Yay, who doesn't want Browser recommendations?)

* Of the cases you list: they now actually support WebGL 2. `EventTarget` `passive` is all that seems to be missing and is a performance hack - if they think their platform doesn't need it, fair enough. I'm genuinely uncertain about whether `requestIdle` is a worthwhile API; better to use a separate thread?

[oreosRnice]

Re: Safari Is An Albatross Around The Necks Of Web Developers

Will Google even bother pushing an update to older versions of iOS? It barely manages to push it to its older Android versions…

[DS999]

Re: Safari Is An Albatross Around The Necks Of Web Developers

Yeah iPhones so old they can't run the most up to date rev of iOS would never be supported by the latest Chrome. And Android phones go obsolete as far as getting updates to the latest Android rev far when they are a lot less old - is Google still pushing the latest Chrome to Android phones that 3 or 4 versions out of date?

[James 139]

Re: Safari Is An Albatross Around The Necks Of Web Developers

Only you won't be able to recommend anything, as the newly permitted browsers will only be on iOS 17.4, and if you're already stuck on an old Safari, you're on an old iOS too, so out of luck, EU or not.

[abend0c4]

We'll finally be able to do like for like comparisons

Assuming there were an alternative browser, you could - with sufficient motivation - do it now as Apple doesn't make it entirely impossible to install unapproved apps for testing purposes.

However, they do make it difficult and as far as I can see you either need to have the source code of the browser and build it yourself, or be part of a beta test that will supply you with a recent build from someone in the iOS developer program. That could be quite an obstacle for anyone wanting to test their website on a browser that they can't otherwise install in their region.

Though I assume that even Apple aren't contemplating erasing alternative browsers from people's phones if they stray outside the bounds of the EU, so perhaps it might simply be a matter of having a second iThing registered to a different location. Sounds like a great way to sell more phones.

[DS999]

Re: We'll finally be able to do like for like comparisons

You already can do that on macOS.

[Jason Hindle]

I'm sure Apple will be fully compliant

Just not in a way that will make developers particularly happy. Still, I'm ever so slightly envious that people on the other side of the channel can now run Chrome and Firefox sans WebKit on their iDevices!

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: I'm sure Apple will be fully compliant

Although seemingly not their iDivices. Just their iPhones. Apple aren't allowing browser choice on iPad.

[Doctor Syntax]

Once upon a time the web was conceived as being a universal platform. The demands of web developers for more features. Inevitably those features were delivered differently by different browsers so the platform is no longer universal. They got what they asked for and now they're complaining. In the meantime any user whose choice of browser (or security add-ons) doesn't match some site's choice just gets a rude message to "upgrade" or a broken site. I have no sympathy with them whatsoever.

[tiggity]

Fully agree.

Its the non stop desire of js jockeys (sorry, web developers) to have a web site act with all the power of an app - go away, I want your web site to have as little access to my system as possible & that includes trying to "fingerprint" .my browser)

Personally I would like to see complex stuff in an app, not on a web page.

I would like web pages to be nice and simple & I don't want lots of insecure functionality such as a browser accessing a USB device (FFS, that is deranged - Chrome, I'm looking at you).

.. Happily for me, lots of web sites already fail by default as I have most js off by default, and if a web site does not give me anything useful with js disabled then I don't visit it in future (as js is a huge security risk, and I enable it with caution)

Seen too much i the way of crappy sites, be it XSS vulnerable through to a while ago when lots of sites went to https (playing at "ooh look, we are secure" to non tech / clueless web users) .. yet would make lots of calls to http based URIs, rather defeating the point.

Full disclosure: I have had to write js utilizing web sites to pay the bills, not my preference but various functionality demanded / specified by the paying customers (e.g. must use certain js frameworks that their own dev team are familiar with so they can maintain / alter it after handover). So written as someone who can write js heavy web sites, but would prefer not to!

[I ain't Spartacus]

tiggity,

To be fair to many sites, they didn't go to https in order to look secure. But because Google made them. Firstly by de-prioritising them on search, and then by simply blocking access to them in Chrome. There wasn't even an easy way to click and get to see the site - whereas at least Firefox (still annoyingly) gave you a warning, but let you click through anyway. I don't use Chrome enough to know if there's a way round it.

[gnasher729]

Go to a website with an outdated certificate on iOS, and it is really hard for a user to go to that site. Which is good. Of course the user needs to use some common sense to figure that ordering stuff and paying money to a site with outdated certificates is a bad idea, while watching cat videos is more harmless.

[I ain't Spartacus]

It should be hard to go to a site with an outdated certificate. Or a self-signed one. That's a sign of a failure or that something might be wrong (or at least in testing).

But normal sites that just display some text and the odd picture didn't used to need https. And I'm not convinced that making that change has helped very much - except if you sell certificates of course...

[EvaQ]

Europe in title?

... so it's also for ... Belarus and UK?

Or does the author mean EU?

Or are we expecting the Brussels Effect: "The Brussels effect is the process of unilateral regulatory globalisation caused by the European Union de facto externalising its laws outside its borders", so indeed for Belarus and UK?

[DS999]

Developers don't need to be in the EU to test their browser

They can install whatever they want on their own iPhone if developer mode is activated. So the ones whining about "how will I test!" are obviously not currently iOS developers.