Comment by dmitriid | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dmitriid | Hacker News Reader

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> Our group was initially formed by a group of people who develop for iOS Safari on daily basis.

Yes, you keep copy-pasting that. As if that absolves you of factually incorrect statements.

> We have an exceptionally detailed understanding of the bugs and functionality issues of the browser.

And yet you fail to understand that hardware APIs are opposed by BOTH Safari AND Firefox. And yet you include them in your lists as if they were actual standards that Safari absolutely must implement. They are not. Same for a bunch of other Chrome non-standards.

In a recent discussion it turned out that you didn't even know what actual objections BOTH Safari AND Firefox have against them.

Same for pretending that Edge is different from Chrome because it removed Google-only services from it. It's not. It's a re-skin with very minor modifications.

You've listed over thirty things that Edge removed from Chrome to make a "different browser". Can you name 10 or 5 of them that are actually relevant to actual web?

Your entire OWA isn't arguing in good faith and is basically parroting Google's propaganda word for word.

> Any debate needs to start with the premise that web apps are not competitively viable on iOS and that Safari is in a poor state.

No. Any debate in good faith has to start with discussing the state of the open web and Chrome's utter dominance of it. As the top comment rightly said, "People keep arguing Apple is being anti-competitive. But no one seems to recon with the possible consequences of what they’re asking for." [1]

Should Safari be better? Yes. Should it be "better" by blindly implementing whatever Google throws over the wall and gullible developers eat up as if it was heavenly manna? No.

> Then the next step is to discuss potential solutions.

Breaking the web forward: https://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2021/08/breaking_th...

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31895335

The issue is you are focusing on the specific APIs as a strawman argument which would require us to argue each and every API on its individual merits something neither of us has time for.

Instead let’s focus on the core issues: 1. Severe underfunding of Safari 2. Bugs 3. Install Prompts/Banners 4. Push API

1. Apple has no incentive to fund their browser while they are not at any risk of losing market share to the competition on their primary OS.

2. Because of the underfunding and the fact users/developers can’t shift to other browsers, bugs that are either impossible to work around (or require a very high level of skills) have not been fixed. Some which were reported 7 years ago.

3. Users do not know web apps exist. They have no way to install them.

4. Notifications arrived for native apps in 2009, in 2022 they still are not available for web apps even though they are essential for many different types of apps. Apple has promised them in 2023 likely as a result of our advocacy work.

Without a viable web ecosystem on iOS mobile web apps are dead and the entire ecosystem gets shifted to native apps and webkit applies no competitive pressure on chrome/edge or Firefox. The status quo is the worse case scenario.

The fix for this scenario is competition. With a 60% market share on MacOS (the on my comparable market where Safari is the default), as long as apple meets developer needs then I can’t see them losing a majority market share on iOS.

A highly funded Webkit be able to contribute to the web ecosystem instead of holding it back.

> The issue is you are focusing on the specific APIs as a strawman argument

I focused on some APIs I know about. There's nothing strawman about facts that you misrepresented in your diatribe. How can I be sure that you represented everything else correctly?

Oh. I can't. Because I also saw your section on "Edge differentiation".

Should I go through everyting else and discover same misrepresentation and falseness? I think I won't, these two are quite enough, thank you.

> Instead let’s focus on the core issues

You keep skipping from goal post to goal post, and each next argument you make isn't made in good faith.

> 1. 2.

I'm not even going to dignify this speculation with an answer

> 3. 4.

And again and again all comes down to literally one or two standards. That's it. That's all you really have.

Well, sometimes you have more, but then it's just a random dump of random standards that you are absolutely sure are actual standards (and not "Draft comunity reports" by Google) and that everyone must implement them now.

> Without a viable web ecosystem on iOS mobile

Please define a "viable web ecosystem". So far it looks like to you "a viable ecosystem" is "anything that Google implements, others be damned".

> web apps are dead

Yes, they are dead. For many reasons that have nothing to do with notifications.

> The fix for this scenario is competition. With a 60% market share on MacOS

Yes. Let's talk about competition. There is none, it's fully dominated by Google: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31905404

Oh wait. You don't really care about that.

> A highly funded Webkit be able to contribute to the web ecosystem instead of holding it back.

Webkit is contributing to the web ecosystem, and isn't holding it back. For the obvious reason that your definition of a viable web is taken straight out of Google propaganda, and has nothing to do with making the web viable.

Pointless discussing if you can’t agree on any of the basic factual points.

> if you can’t agree on any of the basic factual points.

Factual points I started with:

- Both Firefox and Safari are against most hardware APIs for many reasons including technical ones.

- The section "Edge differentiates from Chrome because it removed a few Google-specific things like Google Pay" is laughable

Your "response" is, "oh, you don't believe in web apps" and "Our group was initially formed by a group of people who develop for iOS Safari on daily basis".

These are not factual points. These are attempts to dodge a conversation. And when the conversation seemingly starts happening, it's "the facts you provided are not facts, they are strawmen".

Yes. It truly is pointless discussing this. There are many, many, many issues we can discuss about Safari. With people who have done their research and don't willingly assume the role of Google's propaganda amplifier. Thankfully, as the comments to the original link show, more and more people are starting have a more sober outlook on what's happening.

as an observer, most of your responses to valid, good faith points (e.g. "I'm not even going to dignify that with a response") seem to indicate that you are arguing to argue, rather than to come to clarity with the other person. Also, they are pretty rude (for reasons beyond the above one), and seem to me to be against the spirit of HN commenting.

tl;dr if you think your dignity is above responding to someone, don't.

Sibling comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31907602

That one doesn't really have a substantive response either.

Just as an example: do you believe web apps are currently treated by apple in a lower tier than native apps?

if so, do you think they should be n-class citizens, where n is the same class as native ios apps?

if you do not, then I can see why you do not personally want the things that come with it, like your other conversation partner said

> Just as an example: do you believe web apps are currently treated by apple in a lower tier than native apps?

Does this have anything to do with anything I said in my thread? No. So, this question is not in good faith, so why should I engage with it?

> if so, do you think

Do you think that ascribing thoughts and words to your opponent that your opponent never thought or said is a good argument?

It doesn't matter what I think or what I don't think when my argument literally began with finding incorrect arguments made in actual bad faith with no research in the "paper" made by OWA. Both you and OP couldn't care less, and you both try to deflect with "do you believe blah blah blah".

I could go with a not-so-fine-comb through the document and point out every misrepresentation, incorrect assumption and outright lies. I picked two. What followed is now open for the world to see.

1. Safari is full of bugs

https://open-web-advocacy.org/files/OWA%20-%20Bringing%20Com... (Section 5.6 and 5.8)

2. Safari is missing core functionality and significantly lags behind Firefox and Chrome / Edge. Sections 5.3 5.4

If you want to focus on specific functionality, then the ability to install a web app (Section 5.4.3.1 and Section 5.4.5 go into that in detail).

For evidence that Safari is significantly behind Firefox and Chrome/Edge see 5.4.1.

>Does this have anything to do with anything I said in my thread? No. So, this question is not in good faith, so why should I engage with it?

You clearly don't understand what "good faith" is, and certainly are not an unbiased judge of it, being 1 of the 2 people involved in the accusation. It means asking because you are legitimately interested in the answer. It does not mean "I, as self-appointed judge of this discussion, unilaterally deem your question irrelevant". Indeed, if the question and answer are actually irrelevant, you can trust the smart posters here to be the judge of that, so you need not fear answering truthfully and candidly.

In any case, _I_ am legitimately interested in the answer, but even without my admission, you are supposed to assume good faith on this forum (HN), versus your current, combative, antagonistic, almost litigious (OBJECTION, RELEVANCE! SUSTAINED, I RULE IN MY OWN FAVOR!) attitude towards your fellow posters.

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