Comment by batista | Hacker News Reader

Comment by batista | Hacker News Reader

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>It's been two and a half years since that, and still HTML5 has major issues. Given Apple's engineering prowess, I doubt that HTML5 is a priority for them, or else they would've had a great implementation by now.

Well, noticed how Android's own web browser is even worse in HTML5 than Mobile Safari? And this is Google, the guys that really like mobile html5 apps.

Fact is, it's not that easy to make a good mobile browser --heck, it's not that easy to make a good desktop browser.

Still, desktop HTML5 leaves a lot to be desired. Forms support is lacking, the audio side is neglected, SVG still lacks features and is not properly accelerated (even the latest IE that just got it is better in this regard), the client side storage didn't pan out well, typography is still crappy, etc. And this is for the desktop, that doesn't have the battery, memory and performance concerns of the mobile.

And it holds true for Safari, Chrome AND Firefox.

So, in case you're thinking Apple is doing something especially malicious here, well, they are not.

Picking on one point: "Well, noticed how Android's own web browser is even worse in HTML5 than Mobile Safari"

The stock Android browser fell behind in late 2010. If you follow PPK of quirksmode.org you know this (e.g., the following article was authored just before stock android fell behind: http://www.quirksmode.org/mobile/browsers.html). After that article he really began hating all over Android due to the fall-behind.

Basically, Google mostly abandoned the stock browser because they wanted to focus everything on Chrome for Android. They accomplished this last year, and it fixed virtually all the HTML5 complaints that have been leveled against Android. Chrome is only supported on Android 4+. Android 4+ devices are on track to become the best-selling Android phones of all time, such as the S3 which singlehandedly outsold the iPhone in August. In a year Android 2 & 3 will have negligible market share, as Froyo does today (15%).

Android with Chrome is at least as good as the iOS browser -- probably better. So this isn't a problem here.

> such as the S3 which singlehandedly outsold the iPhone in August

Source for that? Last I heard Samsung hadn't actually released any stats.

I remember the news was all over the tech-web, including HN. A quick Google will yield you multiple hits, but in case you are lazy (I know I am), here is one of them:

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/380534/20120904/apple-samsun...

>such as the S3 which singlehandedly outsold the iPhone in August.

You mean it outsold the iPhone in the month before the announcement of the NEW iPhone, that everybody interested in one expected and hold off for?

Doesn't sound that big of a feat...

Well, noticed how Android's own web browser is even worse in HTML5 than Mobile Safari?

"Android's browser"? Care to elaborate on which browser that is?

The one built from source? Which version of the source would that be? Or would it be Chrome? Or Firefox? Or Opera? Or Dolphin? Or Maxthon? or MIUI browser? Or the one included with TouchWiz? In which case, which version of Touchwiz?

And how is it "even worse"? You mean it doesn't behave like Mobile iOS Safari so that sites specifically tailored for iOS-devices doesn't work out of the box on Android? What a shock that is, eh? It's almost like I write sites specifically for MSIE, and they don't render correctly in Firefox. Haven't we heard about this story once before?

I'm not debating the correctness of your statement, but when you start out with something as mindblowingly pointless as "Android's browser is even worse" it's hard to take the rest of your point seriously.

> I'm not debating the correctness of your statement,

Actually you are.

> but when you start out with something as mindblowingly > pointless as "Android's browser is even worse" it's hard > to take the rest of your point seriously.

It is not pointless. Don't pretend to be silly as not to understand what "Android browser" is.

> Don't pretend to be silly as not to understand what "Android browser" is.

In that case, I challenge you to pinpoint what browser I'm writing this comment from. It should be obvious. It is the Windows-browser.

(And before you start debating how that sounds ludicrous, take a step back and realize how Android is more like Windows and Linux than iOS when it comes to software-choice, not to mention versions and revisions and forks)

Problem is, Android's stock browser is called... "Browser". So Android Browser is perfectly valid.

It's slightly more complex than that. Google has made an effort to make Chrome the default browser going forward. However this will only affect Jelly Bean (and to a lesser extent ICS as it is an optional install there).

However I believe that apps still have to use the built in rendering engine when using the WebView control.

I'm not sure whether this is a strategic or technical decision from Google but I suspect the latter. Changing the WebView engine would have a major effect on compatibility for existing apps.

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