
Apple and WebRTC need each other - cpncrunch
http://techcrunch.com/2016/04/05/will-an-apple-a-day-keep-webrtc-away/
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alwillis
Relax everyone—WebRTC is in on WebKit's to-do list:
[https://webkit.org/status/#specification-
webrtc](https://webkit.org/status/#specification-webrtc).

~~~
paulddraper
Pweh... You had me worried there. I thought it would languish for years after
the spec had been accepted and other major vendors had implemented it.

~~~
alwillis
WebRTC is not only on the to-do list; it’s listed as "In Development":
[https://webkit.org/status/#specification-
webrtc](https://webkit.org/status/#specification-webrtc)

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joshontheweb
Apple please, please add WebRTC support to Safari. I have a business that
relies on WebRTC and not a day goes by where customers don't ask me if it will
work on iOS devices. I have to explain the situation all the time. It is
expecially hard for clients to understand since apple allows other browsers in
the iOS store but they are just wrappers around Safari and have the same
limitations.

~~~
zanny
You can use OpenWebRTC on iOS to provide support there.

~~~
jallmann
OpenWebRTC (by Ericsson) has a number of LGPL dependencies, and the way apps
are packaged on iOS (eg, totally locked down) makes it difficult to completely
follow through on the requirements of the LGPL, from a technical perspective.
I'm not sure if iOS dynamic linking makes this easier?

That's without getting into the question of whether the LGPL is legally
compatible with the App Store TOS. While the LGPL's use/redistribution
requirements aren't as stringent as the GPL's, I'm not qualified to make that
analysis, and IIRC it hasn't been tested anywhere.

~~~
pthatcherg
The WebRTC implementation found at webrtc.org, which is used by Chrome, can
also be used by mobile apps, including iOS. It's BSD licensed and used by many
mobile apps.

(I work on the WebRTC team)

~~~
zanny
Is there a way to reasonably compile it out as its own so? I looked into it
last year and it seemed you could not build Chromium's webrtc independently at
all. Mozilla uses it by literally cloning and building Chromium trunk and
taking the so out of it.

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chatmasta
Maybe Apple is happy protecting their customers from arbitrary third parties
who want to map their internal networks via webrtc. There are plenty of
problems with webrtc, especially from a security perspective, and the benefits
do not necessarily outweigh the costs. If a developer wants to build "webrtc-
like" functionality on the apple platform, he can build an app using the many
networking libraries available in iOS.

~~~
lern_too_spel
Just like an iOS app, a browser WebRTC app won't leak internal network
information without a user's permission, and if you really want to, you can
force WebRTC traffic to go through your VPN as well and not leak anything.

There's really no need to be an Apple apologist about this — their job
listings show that a fixed WebKit is on the way.

~~~
mirimir
Permission needed? Hit
[https://www.browserleaks.com/webrtc](https://www.browserleaks.com/webrtc) and
see ;)

~~~
lern_too_spel
You're right. Then again, an iOS app doesn't need to request permission to get
that data either. Both need permission to access the camera.

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MaysonL
What's the bandwidth usage of WebRTC compared to Facetime? Facetime seems to
be substantially better than Facebook Messenger or Skype. [0]

[0] [http://tech.kateva.org/2016/03/bandwidth-use-over-5-min-
vide...](http://tech.kateva.org/2016/03/bandwidth-use-over-5-min-video-
call.html)

~~~
nextos
Last time I tried on a Firefox videochat with a Chrome machine, it was
substantially higher than on Google Hangouts or plain old Google Talk. I tried
to tweak Firefox internal options, without much luck.

