

Apple alleged web crippling: "not to be fixed by exec order" - mcantelon
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/03/confirmed-some-web-apps-not-seeing-ios-43-javascript-speedup.ars

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brudgers
Apple takes steps to insure that proprietary App store is potentially more
profitable than universal HTML 5. Film at eleven.

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rahoulb
That makes no sense ... apps that run in Mobile Safari get Nitro, native apps
that use a browser component use the old JS engine. How is that boosting the
App Store?

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keltex
I'm not saying I agree that it's intentional, but I do agree that the result
boosts the app store. It does so because you have to write the app for iOS
rather than HTML5. If you wrote it for HTML 5 it would be lot less work to
write a Android / Chrome / generic HTML 5 version.

~~~
rahoulb
I still dont understand.

They've made JS in Safari _faster_ than JS in native apps.

If anything that would encourage people to dump the native app completely and
write a pure web app.

~~~
brudgers
Monetizing a pure web app is a lot more difficult than monetizing an app-store
app. It may be coincidence that HTML5 is a developer friendly way of creating
a multiplatform mobile app and that Apple has kneecapped HTML5 offline apps
via the architecture of iOS.

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gte910h
I'm guessing it's really hard to enable this for UIWebView without giving a
billion more attack vectors for the jailbreakers.

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baddox
The only way to stop the jailbreakers is to not release the physical device. I
suppose the jailbreakme.com website from iOS<=4.0.1 made jailbreaking
extremely easy even for the non tech savvy, but even the "harder" jailbreaks
are just programs that can easily be installed on Windows and they do
everything for you.

~~~
gte910h
While you're most certainly right, Jailbreaks aren't hard as long as you don't
accidentally update too soon, they're not plentiful enough that @comex et al
can waste exploits yet with 0 day releases timed with Apple's releases.

If they opened nitro access to non-mobile safari people, I'm guessing they
would have tons.

I honestly expect nitro access to open plenty of new avenues.

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kilian
I really, really need to get this fixed, we're in the middle of selling a web-
based ipad app to a very large client, utilizing the local caching. This is a
terrible bug for me :(

~~~
jarin
One of the golden rules of iOS development is "work with what you've got". I'd
get started on a workaround.

~~~
jrockway
_One of the golden rules of developing for a proprietary platform is "work
with what you've got". I'd get started on a workaround._

Fixed that for you. Windows developers have the same problems.

~~~
mooism2
I upvoted you because I didn't think your comment deserved a subzero karma.

But the snark was unnecessary.

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nkassis
Mmmm. I'm no Apple fan but in this case I have to say this is paranoia. But we
have to see if they fix it, at least for web applications saved to the home
screen. Are those not just links opening up mobile safari?

I don't buy the security argument. If it's available to web application can
they not take advantage of security bugs in nitro?

Oh and while there fixing stuff for web apps could they please get WebGL in a
release real soon :) That would make my day.

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danilocampos
This really has the stink of sensationalism, Ars. Xpost from another thread:

I don't have any idea where the truth lies, here, but it's worth pulling the
whole paragraph:

 _But according to Matt Asay, who is vice president of business development
for mobile Web framework maker Strobe, Apple supposedly has no plans to fix
them. Instead, they are marked "not to be fixed by exec order," suggesting
that a higher up at Apple is preventing engineers from fixing the problems._

"Supposedly" and "suggested" let Ars weasel out of determining the truth of
these assertions. Unless Apple has suddenly turned absurdly transparent, I
have a hard time believing that this guy actually has any inside knowledge. On
the other hand, he certainly has an incentive to bring pressure on Apple to
make his business work better.

Meanwhile, the author of Cydia, saurik, points out:

Apple can't turn on the ability to do executable, dynamically written to
memory pages just for their library: they'd have to turn it on for the entire
process, at which point you could also do crazy things like download native
code and execute it, bypassing the entire concept of their "codesign"
mechanism.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2338338>

It's starting to sound less and less like Apple is doing anything shady here.
Remember that RIM is having people disable JS entirely because of a WebKit
exploit. This is a snarly problem.

~~~
joebadmo
I'm not sure, but either way it seems to me an illustration of John Siracusa's
"Apple Strategy Tax." <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2282066>

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jarin
Mark Pilgrim:

"Wait, so the big conspiracy is that Apple made their browser faster? We
should all have these problems."

<https://twitter.com/#!/diveintomark/status/48512225597591552>

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some1else
WebSheet.app is obviously not doing anything MobileSafari.app isn't. I'd like
to see this bug marked "not to be fixed by exec order" with my own eyes, after
which I will disregard Objective C as easily as rounded-corners and
transparent PNGs in IE6.

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Entlin
I'm not believing that. It goes against all Apple said ("We've got 2
platforms, the App store and the web. The web is open and we support that").

This is all just hearsay. Where's the smoking gun? Where's the Exec email?

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jrockway
> not to be fixed by exec order

Not ever a problem I've had with Free Software. The walled garden is great
until you realize that they are filling it with water and you don't know how
to swim.

~~~
jarin
Yeah, just replace that with "the code maintainers don't like your patch".

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heat_miser
never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence...

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LilValleyBigEgo
I've noticed a strange frequency with which Apple users use the word
"cripple."

