Safari Push Notifications | Hacker News Reader

Safari Push Notifications

developer.apple.com

55 pointssuperchink46 comments

Safari is my #1 browser to download chrome. It seems to always fall behind the HTML5 features that matters most. For example, WebRTC lets developers integrate real time audio/video/data awesomeness into websites and its readily available in firefox and chrome, but not safari.

We've developed a WebRTC PeerConnection video chat, and it is not so great just yet. It barely works in Firefox, and is all around buggy and constantly changing.

WebRTC is not yet a standard, video codec is still being discussed, so not surprised Apple is being conservative. Google is much more experimental with Chrome.

>For example, WebRTC lets developers integrate real time audio/video/data awesomeness into websites and its readily available in firefox and chrome, but not safari.

And how does WebRTC matters for everyday use at the moment?

I haven't seen anything that is not a tech-demo or similar relying on it.

It would be nice to have it in Safari too (and I use Chrome myself), but it's hardly a deal breaker (or even relevant).

It's relevant to developers, in that some of what we do is tech-demos.

Arguably, it is because the lack of browser support that makes WebRTC "not matter for everyday use". We would see a lot more use if IE and Safari would implement it. And not only for video conferencing (such as https://appear.in), but also for multiplayer gaming, filesharing, audio recording+++

Its disappointing that your complaint was about WebRTC. I was really hoping it will be something else.

Now we just need a standard for this, as not many people use Safari in Mac (compared to others as a whole).

The problem with this is the basic structure of the notification system. The standard would be the push system itself (rather than a browser standard).

That's really really not possible if you understand the basics of how this works. This is NOT a browser API, this is an API for Apple's own cloud push notification infrastructure.

This technology can ONLY work with a giant third-party server doing the legwork.

This is truly a good step forward. I am not sure why it's called Safari Push Notification. As per their docs, it is primarily an OS function. So technically it should be possible to do this using Chrome on Mac as well. However, it is possible they bundle it with Safari. Then they can have push notifications in Windows as well.

How do you anticipate getting the push token from Chrome if not via the Safari-specific JavaScript APIs?

That's a good point. Then why do they need OS support? Why not run a simple background service when Safari is installed and make it cross-platform.

Apple does not consider cross-platform features to be in their interest: they make money on hardware, and consider quality software to be a feature of that hardware. Safari itself is not cross-platform: it was temporarily distributed for Windows, but it has not been updated in a year and a half; you can't add a cross-platform background service to a web browser that is only distributed bundled with an operating system ;P. (As far as I understand, Safari for Windows mostly existed just to get web developers to support Safari better, but as they've now gained so much marketshare they discontinued that project.)

> [Safari] was temporarily distributed for Windows

Meaning from June of 2007 to this day. 6 years is temporary for a browser as much as living on earth feels temporary for a human.

Have you checked when Safari for Windows was last updated? It's stuck on major version 5.1, which is ancient. For comparison, Firefox 3.6.19 was released around that time.

I'd say it was pretty temporary. Chrome has been around longer now than Safari for Windows has been up to date.

No. I specifically stated it has not been updated for a year and a half. I guess if you only care about "can I download a version from the web page" you are technically correct as you quote me using the word "distributed", but it is the kind of technically correct that isn't very constructive ;P.

> the kind of technically correct that isn't very constructive

Fair enough.

That’s not to say Apple won’t ever update Safari for Windows, but I too won’t hold my breath. Apple’s software offerings for Windows haven’t been great for a long time (QuickTime and FileMaker used to be great on Windows, but that was back in the 90s). Recently, instead of offering a native version of iWork for Windows, Apple has opted to build it as a web app. That might be appreciated by Linux desktop users, but it isn’t a hopeful sign of Apple creating quality native apps for Windows.

I would love for Apple to build good versions of QuickTime X, iTunes, and Safari for Windows >7. As it stands now, the software Apple has for Windows feel outdated and are way too sluggish.

It's called Safari push notifications because Safari is where the user will first become aware of it. Apple don't name things for developers, they name them for users. Yes it makes no sense to a developer who knows what's going on, but a user will only be confronted by it in safari and that's likely what they'll need to google for if it confuses them. "Why is safari asking me about notifications?"

If you think you want to do this in the future, then get your corporate D-U-N-S number and corporate Apple developer account. Things can go wrong in this process, there are horror stories of it taking many weeks.

Will and won't this encourage spam from websites in the form of advertisements etc.? I hope this has some form of authentication barrier. Presently, I prefer desktop notifications from Chrome via Chime on websites I have signed in. - http://chimeapp.com/

Yeah, the user has to accept notifications per site.

It's opt-in, similar to Chrome's desktop notifications.

I up-voted because I've noticed a dramatic increase in the number of auth requests as I browse websites. In most cases the website authors are just trying to be helpful, but the bar is pretty high for me to sign up for push notifications. For most websites, I prefer to get email, if anything at all. Push notifications are the kind of thing I'm only going to use for transactional matters.

The problem (for me) is that no one seems to be able to run a push service without abusing it. I can't sign up for weather alerts without being bombarded with useless information, much less a Mac news-site.

If you want to see an example, check out Redfin:

http://blog.redfin.com/blog/2013/10/redfin-introduces-new-in...

Considering all the time we spent trying to defeat pop-ups, this is just a step back for many more advertisements. The push notifications on the mobile is already bad, especially on Android, it can get much more worse on a web browser.

From the "Notification Programming Guide for Websites"[1]:

    > Opting In to Notifications
    > 
    > Users must opt in to receive notifications. The opt-in process only occurs
    > once per domain. The presentation of asking for permission is identical
    > for all website notifications. In fact, the permission policy that
    > a user chooses for push notifications applies to local notifications.

It goes on to say that "users can adjust their notification preferences in Safari preferences and System Preferences".

[1]: https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Networ...

So correct me if I'm wrong, but this ONLY works if you have Mavericks, correct? If so, why is it called Safari Push Notifications? Safari doesn't have to be running for them to work.

Unless you don't have to be using Mavericks, and it works with the latest version of Safari (assuming you have it launched) regardless of OS (Windows, OSX v*, etc), and Mavericks is only required when you don't have Safari running.

Yes, this only works if you have Mavericks. It is called Safari Push Notifications because it's a push notification feature provided by Safari, to distinguish it from OS X's more general support for push notifications.

Safari also supports the "Web Notifications" specification[1], which allows a website to post a notification while it is open in Safari. This has been supported for a few releases now and is also available in some other browsers. I believe Gmail can make use of this to call attention to new emails while open in a background tab.

[1]: <https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/notifications/raw-file/tip/Overview.h...

> If so, why is it called Safari Push Notifications? Safari doesn't have to be running for them to work.

Because as far as the user can see, Safari is the interface to these notifications: that's where you get the prompt to subscribe to the notification, and you can configure or remove notifications from its settings.

Its interesting that Safari doesn't need to be on for these to work. I wonder if it will launch my browser of choice (Chrome) when I click on one of these.

Safari doesn't have to be on, but you do need to be using Mavericks. Good question around "default browser" behavior however. I really, really hope they don't try to force Safari on me with these.

Presumably you at least need to visit the site with Safari initially to enable the notifications.

It doesn't. FF is my default browser. If I click on a notification from the NY Times, it opens in Safari.

Apple must need to know who you are as soon as you log in for this to work. Presumably this only works if you have some kind of Apple account. Do Macs call home each time a user logs into a Mac? If so, are Mac users generally aware and OK with this?

Yes. It's optional, but most users use an iCloud account that sync their address book, calendar, etc.

Just like Microsoft and Google.

As far as I'm aware, iCloud accounts aren't required for push notifications. The push notification system identifies devices by an opaque token that isn't tied to any user-identifiable information.

Edit: The Apple Push Notification Service documentation at https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/Networ... talks about the architecture and seems to match my recollection.

Why not just make it a Mac feature as opposed to a Safari feature? This feels a little like Microsoft trying to integrate IE into Windows.

I think even most of Microsoft's critics agree that the criticism over integrating IE and Windows was pointless. Basically every major desktop and mobile OS does the same thing these days.

Also, Safari is only released on OS X. So I'm not sure what your first sentence really means either.

fuck you apple! To see this video you need safari browser, a registered account and then it is also buggy the video seek is broken

What a weird feeling I get when seeing this.

It looks so cool but pisses me off at the same time.

I hope I get a way to turn this off easily of at least filter it's content.

You have to specifically grant permission to websites to let them send you notifications, Safari will ask you the first time you visit the site similar to how sites can request your current location. You can change these settings later through the Safari preferences.

Why does it piss you off? It's only there because you've chosen to.

Look at the domain name, clearly it's an evil ploy from the devil incorporate.

    I hope I get a way to turn this off easily

1. Don't turn it on

2. ???

3. Profit

Reply on news.ycombinator.com