Is this an engineering error or an intentional move from Spotify as a company?
I use Safari as my day-to-day browser (I switched from Chrome 2 years back) and I'm a satisfied user. I'd be less happy if companies started dropping Safari support.
I use Safari as my day-to-day browser (I switched from Chrome 2 years back) and I'm a satisfied user. I'd be less happy if companies started dropping Safari support.
You as a user are now just collateral damage from a pissing contest between two corporations and DRM :)
Though for Spotify and other streaming sites, I would want a DRM option because I provide a way for people to buy the music DRM-free in any format they want with a reasonable license.
Guess the only thing keeping people on Safari is that it is deeply integrated into OS X and has battery life advantages over Chrome/FF.
In a couple of days Safari will start blocking autoplay videos, which is yet another reason for me to use it as my main browser.
Showing the full URL can save you from phishing attempts, though - when you see cryptic crap, <script> or similar stuff in a page URL, you know something is fishy.
That's something that Chrome has been experimenting with in beta versions on and off for ages, and will use by default at some point.
Aside from that, Apple's design decisions tend towards giving the user more control over their experience while Google seems mostly interested in wooing developers, regardless of cost (who cares about resource consumption or what the user wants?). Apple's approach aligns with me better.
What? Users in control at Apple? No. Apple tries to keep users out of control and inside their walled garden. Only reason I have a Mac is because even with Chrome its battery life is way better than any Windows laptop I ever had, and because it offers a proper Unix shell with actual Unix behavior (e.g. select stuff with the mouse and it ends up in clipboard).
I think you're misunderstanding how much of a difference there was between the rest of the browsers and IE.
Besides, your claim the 'wins' Safari has had - first browser to implement ES6 in its entirety a year or so back. Chrome still doesn't support features users/clients actually ask for, like CSS Scroll snap points for making carousels http://caniuse.com/#search=scroll-snap-type
But... safari is now the one that has weird behaviour that does not occur in Firefox, chrome and edge. Just because historically there was a massive split in behaviour doesn't mean that Safari gets off free. It's the one browser I hate testing because there are usually edge case and unexpected behaviour.
I look at Firefox and some of it's inconsistent behaviours around flexbox compared to other browsers (mind you, some of these are due to the spec). Just today I had an irritating render bug in Chrome.
I know, this all comes down to hearsay and individual experiences. But I still strongly believe that 'Safari is the new IE' is nothing but baseless FUD.
(only kidding, but it's not the most obvious thing to check and optimize for if you're a web dev. If that's what Safari's problems are, it's pretty solid.)
Regardless, that's not the point. I'm not saying that Safari is perfect, I'm just saying that while it might have some implementation differences and bugs, so do other browsers.
Im also a Safari user, and in the majority of cases the reason it is not supported is because the page/app uses some custom Chrome-only, non-standard feature. Like this one.
"Widevine, a Google company" sounds neither standard nor very open to me: http://www.widevine.com/
Granted, this is more of a flexbox spec issue (last time I checked this behaviour is intentionally undefined), but it's still an annoying case of one browser doing something all the others don't.
Apple also tries to implement some privacy features:
https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-rejects-ad-industry-complain...
I burnt my finger once with Service Workers[1]. "Oh, but I use Safari as my primary browser" doesn't hold anymore, because, you're not the majority. Sorry. [2]
I second it. Safari is the new IE.
[1] http://caniuse.com/#feat=serviceworkers
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#/m...
How IE became IE-the-problem, is because users rushed to support IE-only features, not caring for browsers that were "not the majority".
Those that don't know history are doomed to repeat it.
And I guess it's Spotify that made the call to pull the rug out from under their Safari users.
It seems hard to blame Apple here. Should the web standard really just be "whatever Google says?"
That is simpler for web developers, but I think would be terrible for the web as a platform and bad for users.
At some point you have to decide who the web is for, the users or the advertisers and content distributors? Apple is going one way and Google is going another, and I, for one, am happy there isn't universal acceptance of Google's direction, despite the inconvenience to web developers.
So assuming Spotify is contractually required to provide DRM for its music (by the music suppliers), Spotify has the choice of licensing Apple's DRM so it can work with Safari or not working with Safari. Which choice is right depends on the licensing terms, which I have not been able to locate in a quick search.
> Apple is going one way and Google is going another
Not on this topic they're not. Apple has been very firmly in the web media DRM camp all along.
Why on earth we can't learn from the mistakes made last time I don't know. It wasn't that long ago. It saddens me when I hear "but it's different this time" because, no, it really isn't.
Keep with web standards (real web standards, not pseudo-standards from a large corporation) and make sure your stuff works in at least a basic way in all browsers that your users may need (seriously, not everyone can update to even a browser 2 years old, never mind the nightly bleeding edge build, due to company policies, so stop coding for that please).
Same reason why the operating system market and the processor architecture market have virtually no competition and an objectively terrible product in a leading position.
Firefox, Chrome and Edge/IE can all be installed in one way or another on any of the 3 major platforms (if you include 3rd party tools). For free even.
I would really like to know where Apple offers a way to install/use Safari (desktop) on Linux. It would be great for tests.
As far as I know, Apple doesn't provide a desktop macOS/Safari environment which you can install/use on Windows or Linux. As I understand, OS X Server could be considered in that light, but it differs and isn't free.
You got it backwards. Internet Explorer 6 was the one who supported some stuff first and in its own way -- like Chrome today, and who careless developers, like those who swear by Chrome today, dependent upon, and did their sites "IE-only".
That's how we got in the mess with legacy IE support.
1. https://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qpr...
Turns out not only do we have very few Safari users, people are so used to Safari breaking on shit (not just ours!) they just switch to Chrome for specific tasks out of habit instead of filing issues.
Safari is the somewhat inconvenient but built in browser Mac users use to save their battery life and not much else.
But it is becoming a pretty niche browser, and yes, it DOES break a lot of stuff. No, it's not broken on Facebook or your favorite news site, but every time I bring it out for a test drive I find a couple of broken things in various smaller web apps that work everywhere else.
So while I don't think it should be that way, it tends to be a pretty brittle experience.
Opening Chrome once a week because some site works only in Chrome is really easier than bothering to file tickets.
What if Apple also "flexed some muscle" and dropped the iOS Spotify app from the App Store?
Also, since the app doesn't violate any ToS, I'm not sure if there's any ground for removal (I doubt they can just pull it for no reason without risking a lawsuit)
I'm not suggesting the lack of support is intentional on either side, but completion sometimes affects user experience.