Is “apple silicon” the port job here? Isn’t this more correctly described as a port of their existing ARM64 target to macOS?
See 2.5.6 here - https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/
This is why you don't get any of the features / extensions / etc of Chrome or Firefox on iOS.
Apple does this so that the mobile web can never replace apps that they have a monopoly on and get a % from. If you could just visit netflix.com and have it install a Netflix SPA that worked as well as the native app, why would you ever install the native app?
Edit after reading replies - lol, that programming of Apple users to believe "we need an app for every possible site".
Or you know, because they disallow dynamic code execution of arbitrary downloaded code in apps, and JIT JS compilers do just that.
>If you could just visit netflix.com and have it install a Netflix SPA that worked as well as the native app, why would you ever install the native app?
It's like asking "why would you ever use a native app". Because it's faster, native, and much more convenient?
Take the best desktop browser engine, e.g. Chrome, and put it inside a mobile browser app. Still, I (and most I guess) wouldn't use it to watch Netflix over individual apps.
How many care to use web based apps over native apps in Android?
No offence but what do you think applications for Web OS are written with?
No, they explicitly disallow other implementations, whether they JIT or not. Since Apple's WebKit is missing so many features, this has the effect that GP noted.
"2.5.6 Apps that browse the web must use the appropriate WebKit framework and WebKit Javascript."
So, do you know people who prefer web apps over native apps for their Android, where "other browsers" are not disallowed, and Chrome is available?
I'm sure you'll find some. I doubt you'll find any significant percentage though.
I, personally, never do, and haven't seen any doing it in the wild, except for things there's not an app for...
I do. Twitter's PWA is superior to its native app, and I can customize it with extensions. I prefer mobile Firefox over mobile Chrome though.
If the experience is so much better why are Apple scared to let other browsers into the app store?
Phones are general purpose computers for the majority of the world's population, exercising such authoritarian grip over what a user can do with the device is very depressing to see being defended.
Well, the weasel word "scared" kind of begs the question.
Who said it's "scared"?
Apple spearheaded the modern browser with Safari. Chrome wasn't even a thing then (it forked off of Apple's work on Safari/Webkit later, just like v8 came after Apple's own JSC JIT work).
As for Mobile Safari, it took several years for Android browsers to come close: Android Browser in particular was a piece of crap, slower, and lacking more features, than Mobile Safari. Was Google also "scared" of web apps?
Also note that, when Apple suggested to developers they make their own web apps in lack of a native SDK, most dissed those and wanted, nay, demanded a native SDK.
And Mobile Safari is not exactly some bad browser holding those apps back. You can watch Netflix on mobile safari, on the web, if you so want. Why would you though?
And here's the 1000 pound argument: do you see many people watching Netflix on Android Chrome, as opposed to using the Android Netflix app?
Didn't think so.
Why would they do it on the iPhone then, if Chrome was available in the App Store?
>Phones are general purpose computers for the majority of the world's population
Not even close.
Safari doesn't support the standard unprefixed fullscreen API, while Firefox and Chrome have for years, so Web developers have to write a bunch of compatibility crap or accept fullscreen not working on iOS.
Firefox and Chrome have supported WebGL2 for years, iOS Safari still doesn't.
Having used an iPad for general web browsing for a while, the worst change they made was allowing web apps write their own fullscreen interfaces. I can't think of any video website where they've done a better job at basic video player controls than what the OS does natively.
>As for Mobile Safari, it took several years for Android browsers to come close...
>suggested to developers they make their own web apps in lack of a native SDK, most dissed those...
>Safari is not exactly some bad browser holding those apps back...
>do you see many people watching Netflix on Android Chrome...
Absolutely none of these points are arguments against having the option to have an alternative browser rendering engine. Not sure why you think they are.
Not sure why you think they were intended to be.
Those weren't "arguments against having the option to have an alternative browser rendering engine".
Those were arguments about "Apple not having an alternative rendering engine" is not about sabotaging some imaginary web app revolution, just about Safari having its own timeline and priorities.
Regarding that, not how there's no such web-over-native-app trend in Android either, where Chrome IS available. Most still prefer native apps.
If you think, you could also think them as "arguments not against, but as to why it's no big deal to not have an alternative browser rendering engine".
My central point was I see no reason for Apple to disallow altnernative browsers (not just shells around webkit) other than to gatekeep. Your points about safari being better or users not using a PWA for netflix don't seem to relate to this I don't think. I think Apple is only concerned about staying in control with regards to what users can install on their devices. I don't think they want other browsers to be genuine alternatives to iOS safari so they've essentially neutered the competition.
I also think you flippantly dismissed that a very large portion of the world is mobile first (not just the third world anymore) and this to me makes having the choice even more important.
What would you call a webview? Is it that much different if it is webkit or gecko or blink doing it? If I used a webview to run js-linux, xfce and firefox should that be disallowed too?
I believe it's Netflix that prefers that users use the app.
Being able to download/cache content reliably would be welcome, on all browsers. However, I haven't seen a good example of using PWAs' storage APIs to cache video content, Safari or otherwise.
Lack of push notifications in iOS Safari is a giant shortcoming. It's especially baffling since it exists for Safari on macOS. That being said, I can't say that Netflix's push notifications (in the app) are particularly useful (to me). They always spam me with newly released yet irrelevant in-house produced titles.
> Of all the work needed to support the new hardware, porting Firefox to the 64-bit ARM architecture was not actually something we needed to do: we’ve supported 64-bit ARM on Android and Linux for years.
On the other hand, it says:
> Secondly, we needed to adapt and fix the various parts of the Firefox codebase that deal with low-level calling conventions and particularly the interfaces between the JavaScript and C++ (and nowadays Rust) parts of the code.
I suppose MacOS on ARM has a different calling convention to both MacOS on x86-64 and Linux or Windows on ARM64.
Also:
> If the user visits such a site, Firefox will automatically download and install such a proprietary EME/CDM module. This presented a problem to us as we would be dependent on those third-party vendors to publish ARM64 versions of those decoders.
So what do Windows or Linux users on ARM64 do? Do they just not get DRM?
The Windows ARM64 build of Firefox comes with a copy of the 32-bits x86 Windows Firefox binaries to launch the win32 CDM.
There is no support for things like this for Linux, and I don't think there's a native ARM64 Linux CDM (although I could be wrong. I mean, such a CDM likely exists, considering ARM64 Chromebooks)
(Why did 3 other people interpret this comment as saying something about iOS?!)
Because originally, the comment also said "Firefox already works on apple silicon, on iOS".
Source?