WebKit Features for Safari 26.5 | WebKit
Fixed an issue on iOS and iPadOS where
datalistsuggestions were presented directly over the associated input, obscuring it.
Link tags: ios
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Bruce Lawson’s personal site : Apple at 50: my top five Apple moments
Never forget:
- The time Apple lied to the UK regulator
- The time when Apple told the EU that Safari is 3 different browsers
- When Apple tried to shut the UK investigation down
- When Apple’s VP of Finance got caught lying under oath
- When Apple tried to wreck all EU Web Apps
The web on mobile (a response) | Clagnut by Richard Rutter
Rich suggests another reason why the UX of websites on mobile is so shit these days:
The path to installing a native app is well trodden. We search the App Store (or ironically follow a link from a website), hit ‘Get’ and the app is downloaded to our phone’s home screen, ready to use any time with a simple tap.
A PWA can also live on your home screen, nicely indistinguishable from a native app. But the journey to getting a PWA – or indeed any web app – onto your home screen remains convoluted to say the least. This is the lack of equivalence I’m driving at. I wonder if the mobile web experience would suck as badly if web apps could be installed just as easily as native apps?
trot
Working on this project is great but ten minutes into it and I already miss the resilience of the web. I miss how you have to really fuck things up to make a browser yell at you or implode.
An Abridged History of Safari Showstoppers - Webventures
In an earlier era, startups could build on the web and, if one browser didn’t provide the features they needed, they could just recommend that their users try a better one. But that’s not possible on iOS.
I’m extremly concerned about the newest bug in iOS 18:
Whaa? That’s just shockingly dreadful!
WP2 - The requirement for browsers operating on iOS devices to use Apple’s WebKit browser engine [PDF]
The Competition & Markets Authority brings receipts:
The requirement that all browsers on the iOS operating system use a specific version of the WebKit browser engine controlled by Apple, means that there is no competition between browser engines on the platform. Browser vendors cannot switch to an alternative browser engine or make changes to the version of WebKit used on iOS. Similarly, consumers are unable to switch to a browser based on an alternative browser engine. We consider that the lack of competitive pressure is likely to reduce Apple’s incentives to improve WebKit.
WebKit Features in Safari 17.4 | WebKit
It’s a shame that the newest Safari release is overshadowed by Apple’s shenanigans and subsequent U-turn because there’s some great stuff in there.
I really like what they’re doing with web apps added to the dock:
Safari adds support for the
shortcutsmanifest member on macOS Sonoma. This gives you a mechanism in the manifest file for defining custom menu commands that will appear in the File menu and the Dock context menu.
Apple backs off killing web apps, but the fight continues - Open Web Advocacy
Hallelujah! Apple have backed down on their petulant plan to sabatoge homescreen apps.
I’m very grateful to the Open Web Advocacy group for standing up to this bullying.
Home Screen Advantage - Infrequently Noted
This is exactly what it looks like: a single-fingered salute to the web and web developers.
Read Alex’s thorough explanation of the current situation and then sign this open letter.
Cupertino’s not just trying to vandalise PWAs and critical re-engagement features for Safari; it’s working to prevent any browser from ever offering them on iOS. If Apple succeeds in the next two weeks, it will cement a future in which the mobile web will never be permitted to grow beyond marketing pages for native apps.
Also, remember this and don’t fall for it:
Apple apparently hopes it can convince users to blame regulators for its own choices.
Manton Reece - Apple is twisting the truth
When it benefits Apple, they take the DMA requirements much further than intended. When it doesn’t benefit them, they lean back on the “integrity” of iOS and barely comply at all.
Apple on course to break all Web Apps in EU within 20 days - Open Web Advocacy
I don’t like to assume the worst and assign vindictitive motives to people, but what Apple is doing here is hard to read as anything other than petulant and nasty …and really, really bad for users.
If you’ve ever made a progressive web app, please fill in this survey.
Web Push on iOS - 1 year anniversary - Webventures
Web Push on iOS is nearing its one year anniversary. It’s still mostly useless.
Sad, but true. And here’s why:
On iOS, for a website to be able to ask the user to grant the push notification permission, it needs to be installed to the home screen.
No other browser on any of the other platforms requires you to install a website for it to be able to send push notifications.
Apple is within their rights to withhold Web Push to installed apps. One could argue it’s not even an unreasonable policy - if Apple made installing a web app at least moderately straightforward. As it is, they have buried it and hidden important functionality behind it.
I really, really hope that the Safari team are reading this.
Apple previews Live Speech, Personal Voice, and more new accessibility features - Apple
This is the kind of press release I like.
People do use Add to Home Screen – Firefox UX
Oh no! My claim has been refuted by a rigourous scientific study of …checks notes… ten people.
Be right back: just need to chat with eleven people.
Audio Session API Explainer
Jen pointed me to this proposal, which should help smooth over some of the inconsistencies I documented in iOS when it comes to the Web Audio API.
I’ve preemptively add this bit of feature detection to The Session:
if ('audioSession' in navigator) {
navigator.audioSession.type = "playback";
}
A pretty sweet push notification solution for mobile Safari
An entire generation of apps-that-should-have-been web pages has sprung up, often shoehorned into supposedly cross-platform frameworks that create a subpar user experience sludge. Nowhere is this more true than for media — how many apps from newspapers or magazines have you installed, solely for a very specific purpose like receiving breaking news alerts? How many of those apps are just wrappers around web views? How many of those apps should have been web pages?
Web Push on iOS requires installing the web app - Webventures
Instead of doing what the competing browsers are doing (and learning from years of experience of handling Web Push), Apple decided to reinvent a wheel here. What they’ve turned up with looks a lot more like a square.
Line heights in CSS work better with ratios | Andy Bell
There’s a broader point here about declarative design:
Setting very specific values may feel like you’re in more control, but you’re actually rescinding control by introducing fragility in the form of overly-specific CSS.
The Power of Indulging Your Weird, Offbeat Obsessions
- It’s enormously valuable to simply follow your curiosity—and follow it for a really long time, even if it doesn’t seem to be leading anywhere in particular.
- Surprisingly big breakthrough ideas come when you bridge two seemingly unconnected areas.
Pluralistic: Web apps could de-monopolize mobile devices (13 Dec 2022) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
But you can’t have a web app without a web-app-compatible browser, and you can’t get a web-app-compatible browser in Apple’s App Store. The only browsers permitted in the App Store are those based on WebKit, the browser engine behind Safari. This means that every browser on iOS, from Firefox to Edge to Chrome, is just a reskinned version of Safari.