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Apple declined to implement 16 Web APIs in Safari due to privacy concerns

(www.zdnet.com)
428 points coronadisaster | 1 comments | 29 Jun 20 10:16 UTC | HN request time: 0.4s | source
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philistine ◴[29 Jun 20 13:03 UTC] No.23677180[source]▶
I’ve heard so many people complain on HN about Safari’s lack of support for APIs. Before now, we didn’t have a public justification why Apple refused to implement them. Now we know.

The price of a Safari user in the ad market is going down, and it’s exactly what should be happening. I’m very happy with Apple.

https://9to5mac.com/2019/12/09/apple-safari-privacy-feature-...

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fastball ◴[29 Jun 20 13:21 UTC] No.23677307[source]▶
Except "privacy" as a justification is BS.

You can implement these APIs while at the same time requiring explicit permission from the user before a web application can use them. This preserves privacy while also giving users the option to have much more powerful web applications.

Apple doesn't want to implement these APIs because currently if you want access to these things on iOS, you need to go through their walled garden App Store, where they get a big chunk of any revenue you might make on such a service and can nerf competitors and all the other anti-competitive stuff they're doing.

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1. lifty ◴[29 Jun 20 13:54 UTC] No.23677610[source]▶
I sympathise with the walled garden App Store argument. I hate it that Apple keep such a tight grip on the application distribution channel. At the same time, I really hate the trend where browsers are operating systems and I use native apps whenever possible.