
Introducing Safari Technology Preview - rootinier
https://webkit.org/blog/6017/introducing-safari-technology-preview/
======
jaredcwhite
Apple's been taking a number of steps over the last few months to show that
they take Safari/WebKit development seriously. This is another positive step
in the right direction. While I never agreed with the nonsensical "Safari is
the New IE" meme that was going around, I did fear that Apple's tendency to
develop things in a vacuum would continue to harm WebKit relative to Blink,
Gecko, etc. But all signs are pointing to good things to come. Perhaps Apple's
major open source initiative in the area of Swift language and the Swift
ecosystem is also benefiting their approach to WebKit now as well.

~~~
ryanjshaw
I'll take them seriously when they release something that runs on Windows.

~~~
mrweasel
Why? Don't you take Microsoft serious either? Edge isn't exactly running on
Mac... or Linux.

~~~
ryanjshaw
I don't understand your comment. I was responding to the parent stating:
"Apple's been taking a number of steps over the last few months to show that
they take Safari/WebKit development seriously." I'm annoyed because there are
Safari-specific issues that as a Windows user I cannot debug, thus my comment
that I cannot take Safari seriously. Like it or not, Windows is the dominant
desktop platform.

~~~
Skinney
I think what the parent is getting at, is that you've got the same problem
regarding IE on Mac. There are IE specific issues that I as a OS X developer
cannot debug.

~~~
comex
At least Microsoft offers free VM images for precisely this purpose.
Meanwhile, OS X barely works in a VM due to the lack of graphics acceleration
(plus, running such a VM on a non-Mac is illegal).

------
sergiotapia
Programmatic cut and copy to the clipboard It’s now possible to
programmatically copy and cut text in response to a user gesture with
document.execCommand('copy') and document.execCommand('cut'). Having this
ability may eliminate some websites’ last need for the Flash plug-in.

\---

:'( - So much pain erased in a single stroke!

~~~
chiph
I wouldn't ever enable clipboard integration -- a malicious site could use it
to collect data by using the paste command with execCommand -- they'd grab
whatever was on my clipboard, which could include my banking password from my
password manager app that I was just getting ready to use.

~~~
om2
That's why they only get the ability to programmatically trigger cut and copy,
not paste.

~~~
frou_dh
I guess there's room for an attack of irritation where a user with something
meaningful on their clipboard unwittingly triggers having it overwritten by
some nonsense. (Most clipboards effectively being a single mutable item
without history or stack/queue behaviour).

~~~
scrollaway
There's easier ways to irritate your users.

Most websites irritate their users, actually.

~~~
frou_dh
Speaking of clipboard shenanigans. Could be imagining it, but I seem to
remember a while ago there being something certain websites were doing where
if you selected and copied text from them, the text that ended up on your
clipboard would have a synthesized paragraph about copyright/attribution
appended to it.

~~~
scrollaway
Yeah, occured to me reading that comment. Lyrics websites used to do it a lot
(probably still do). I believe they use invisible text.

------
bsimpson
Nice to have more visibility into which features are coming to WebKit,
especially since they don't release to consumers very often.

Bummed to not see WebRTC on here though.

~~~
thought_alarm
They've been releasing nightly builds for over a decade. Easy to install, uses
same Safari UI, and can be run alongside release versions of Safari.

~~~
masklinn
The problem is that Webkit nightlies are absolutely not evidence of what the
future version of Safari will contain, webkit is the engine but features are
added and removed before it becomes Safari.

That the STP bears the "Safari" name _and_ will be updated through MAS[0]
_and_ is featured on their developer site _and_ has access to all the cloud
features and shit from standard Safari is a much, much stronger signal as to
what future version of Safari will contain.

It looks very much like an apple-official dev channel (chrome) or developer
edition (firefox) for Safari, TFA even claims an update frequency about
halfway between the Chrome Dev Channel (0.5/1 week) and the Firefox Developer
Edition (6 weeks)

[0] despite not even being installed through MAS

------
mgreg
Anyone know if they plan on introducing support for Service Workers
("Progressive Web Apps" in Google parlance) soon?

~~~
dccoolgai
This is what sticks in my craw about Safari: it feels like they are
intentionally dragging their feet on this because it would bring the Open Web
to parity with Native Mobile and their App Store. At least IE never had a
built-in conflict of interest in upgrading.

~~~
djrogers
There are a ton of valid security, performance, and storage related reasons
not to blindly support service workers on mobile. I'm sure they can be
overcome, but I guarantee Apple won't be running to support SW until they
figure out how to do so with the best result for users.

As an end user, I really don't want the result of following a link to a
website (or 'web app' if you must, because app all the things) to be a
progressive web app that a) consumes 100s of MB of my mobile device storage,
b) runs in the background draining my battery and using my limited cell data
plan, and c) send who know what information to god knows where. All because I
clicked on a link and hit OK on an innocuous prompt...

Some of the capabilities presumed by service workers aren't even available to
native apps on iOS because of these very same issues - why would Apple grant
them to random websites?

------
tapsboy
Happy to see Webkit at 98% ES6 completion. Hopefully, all of these updates are
flowing into Safari

[http://kangax.github.io/compat-
table/es6/#webkit](http://kangax.github.io/compat-table/es6/#webkit)

~~~
masklinn
ESnext is lagging behind though (12% to >30% for Firefox and Chrome)

On the other hand, _i18n API support_ : [http://kangax.github.io/compat-
table/esintl/](http://kangax.github.io/compat-table/esintl/) not done yet, but
at >90% it's _way_ better than Safari's 50% and most of the failures seem to
be accepting values it should throw errors for in i18n API.

------
dumbmatter
I guess my years of complaining about Safari's IndexedDB support might finally
be close to paying off...

------
emehrkay
Menu bar says "safari tech preview" and not just safari like WebKit nightly.
That is big for me. Does anyone know why WebKit nightly doesn't say WebKit
nightly?

~~~
bdash
The Safari Tech Preview is a full-fledged copy of Safari that bundles its own
WebKit frameworks rather than using the system frameworks. As it's a separate
application it can have a different name, and use an independent copy of
preferences, history, bookmarks, etc. from the system version of Safari.

WebKit nightly builds run your system version of Safari with an updated
version of the WebKit frameworks. This means that the application you're
running _is_ your normal version of Safari. The WebKit nightlies do some
shenanigans to convince the system to do things like display a different Dock
icon, for instance, but for the most part they just let Safari be Safari.

~~~
emehrkay
That makes a lot of sense. I guess that is the reason why they can share
sessions and other web-related resources seamlessly.

------
kingnight
I find Safari to be the nicest browser to use in general, but Chrome seems to
have a leg up on performance in key areas like new tab creation especially
when opening a link in a new tab.

It's weird lapse for Safari to lag in certain situations. I hope they continue
to iteratively improve the performance of the general UI and improve the
general behavior of the developer tools in addition to adding these new techs.

~~~
ino
If you change the new tab to a blank page in the preferences, it opens
instantly.

I just wish one thing: that it would remember the zoom level on a per website
basis.

It's incredible that it's still impossible to do so. Don't the devs use
Safari? Or maybe they all have perfect vision and the most expensive displays.

~~~
bartvk
In my case, it lags (up to two-three seconds) even if I set new tabs to
about:blank. Haven't been able to find a workaround, and it occurs
infrequently.

~~~
heelhook
You might want to try doing a SCM reset. I was having the same issue and did
an SMC and noticed that opening a new tab went back to being instantaneous
(also using about:blank).

------
jbob2000
I love that they are supporting Shadow DOMs, but until the other browsers
support it, the feature is dead in the water. I mean, it's a feature that
you'd build a whole app around, but if IE and Firefox don't support it, I
can't really do that.

~~~
spankalee
Chrome already supports the v0 Shadow DOM spec, and will soon support v1.

Edge(nee IE) and Firefox are committed to support and active in the standards
discussions, and I believe allocating people to work on it, if not working on
it already. Support across all the major browsers will arrive before we know
it.

We also have polyfills for Shadow DOM and the other Web Components standards,
and are updating them for the v1 spec:
[https://github.com/webcomponents/webcomponentsjs](https://github.com/webcomponents/webcomponentsjs)

The Shadow DOM polyfill is a bit slow, but soon it'll only be necessary on
older browsers, so some properties might be able to adopt full Shadow DOM
within the year.

If you use Polymer, we have a fast Shadow DOM-like shim called Shadey DOM, and
you can pretty seamlessly opt-in to full Shadow DOM where available.

------
talles
Chrome -> Chromium

Firefox -> Firefox Developer Edition

Safari -> Safari Technology Preview

Am I getting that right? What about Edge?

~~~
masklinn
> Chrome -> Chromium

Chrome -> Chrome Dev Channel. Chromium is a different product than Chrome.

> What about Edge?

Edge Previews? [https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-
edge/platfor...](https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-
edge/platform/changelog/)

~~~
therealmarv
Or Chrome Canary if you want a side by side installation
[https://www.google.de/chrome/browser/canary.html](https://www.google.de/chrome/browser/canary.html)
I think Chrome Dev replaces your Chrome Stable or Beta.

------
ksherlock

        fetch("...");
        Promise {status: "rejected", result: "Fetch is not yet implemented"} = $1
    
    

If you use a fetch polyfill, it won't install itself because there's a native
fetch. But the native fetch is only there to tell you that it's not really
there.

------
mortenjorck
It's great to see Apple doing this on the desktop - I wonder if they have any
similar plans for Mobile Safari? I would imagine they could do something
similar to the process for iOS public betas: allow users to install a cert for
Safari Technology Preview, keeping them on a parallel channel of updates.

------
d2ncal
I wish they support WebGL stuff for 360 Video Playback...
[https://milkvr.com/view/VUNmjRRDV60](https://milkvr.com/view/VUNmjRRDV60)

~~~
eyesee
Safari does support WebGL and can do 360 video playback:
[https://360fly.com/videos/aiHPVUMLZHUPJEoiZ2yXia/](https://360fly.com/videos/aiHPVUMLZHUPJEoiZ2yXia/)

It has somewhat more restrictive CORS requirements than other browsers which
not every 360 player has addressed. There's also the issue that Safari on
iPhone can't play 360 videos because of the media player taking over
fullscreen playback.

------
AbraKdabra
> Programmatic cut and copy to the clipboard

Wow, this is huge.

~~~
ryan_lane
Already in released versions of Chrome and Firefox. It'll be nice when it's in
safari, though, because then it'll actually work on mobile. It seems that
Safari isn't using the same API, though.

------
lobster_johnson
While I'd love to use this app, there's no way to transfer your current Safari
config — including extensions and the last browser session — to the Tech
Preview. Copying the files doesn't work.

~~~
mikhailt
That's actually intentional, this is not supposed to carry over the current
Safari configuration.

If you want that, you might as well keep using WebKit Nightly, which reuses
your Safari stuff.

~~~
lobster_johnson
Sorry to be obstinate, but then I'm not going to use it. Too much hassle. If
it turns out that the Tech Preview is too buggy, I can't easily migrate back.

------
mark_l_watson
Good move on Apple's part. Similar to Microsoft providing Windows 10
VirtualBox images with versions of their browsers.

~~~
vardump
> ... Similar to Microsoft providing Windows 10 VirtualBox images with
> versions of their browsers.

I must have missed something. Are you saying it's possible to run these Safari
previews on any platform, not just on OS X?

~~~
542458
No, but it's a sign of goodwill towards webdevs.

------
aorth
Where is Safari in terms of security? Speed, battery usage, and standards
support are one thing, but as far as I know, neither Firefox nor Safari have
the robust level of sandboxing and other Chrome security features.

------
circlingthesun
Will localStorage work in private mode on mobile safari?

------
spankalee
With Shadow DOM!

------
taf2
I can't take them seriously until WebRTC...

------
karmakaze
Requires 10.11 El Capitan.

~~~
r00fus
Which supports 7.5 year old hardware. This should not be a stopper if you're
serious about web-dev.

~~~
karmakaze
4 downvotes for stating an informational fact

------
an4rchy
It would be great if they mentioned El Capitan as a pre- requisite before
people download and find out.

I know the expectation is that most Macs are up to date but if you can't
install it on Yosemite, they should let people know.

~~~
X-Istence
It's mentioned right there on the download page:

[https://developer.apple.com/safari/download/](https://developer.apple.com/safari/download/)

"Compatible with OS X 10.11.4 or later"

------
ricardobeat
Amazing to see this released while we still can not click links in mobile
Safari :/

~~~
ceejayoz
I can click links just fine in mobile Safari...

~~~
chris_wot
Yeah, don't go to booking.com :-)

~~~
ceejayoz
So a particular website goofing something up is Safari's fault?

(Incidentally, just went to Booking.com on iOS Safari. Works fine here.)

~~~
chris_wot
You haven't been following the news lately I see.

Yes, it is.

~~~
ceejayoz
Since I've apparently missed "the news", would you care to provide a link?

~~~
chris_wot
[https://bencollier.net/2016/03/unable-to-open-links-in-
safar...](https://bencollier.net/2016/03/unable-to-open-links-in-safari-mail-
or-messages-on-ios-9-3/)

[http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/28/technology/iphone-safari-
bug...](http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/28/technology/iphone-safari-bug/)

[http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/28/its-not-just-you-
clicking-o...](http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/28/its-not-just-you-clicking-on-
links-in-ios-9-3-can-crash-your-iphone/)

[http://www.news.com.au/technology/gadgets/mobile-
phones/new-...](http://www.news.com.au/technology/gadgets/mobile-phones/new-
software-update-causes-misery-for-iphone-users-but-heres-how-to-stop-the-bug-
crashing-your-apps/news-story/2b06c149b797031a875c0067b823dc0f)

[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/27/apple_safari_bug/](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/27/apple_safari_bug/)

[http://m.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&obj...](http://m.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11613674)

[http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-
tech/new...](http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-
tech/news/ios-93-bug-makes-some-phones-break-if-people-click-on-links-users-
claim-a6956036.html)

[http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/science-
technology/63841...](http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/science-
technology/638412/iPhone-Safari-Suggestions-Glitch-iOS-Apple-Crash-URL-New-
Search)

[http://milwaukee.suntimes.com/mil-
news/7/121/284320/glitch-o...](http://milwaukee.suntimes.com/mil-
news/7/121/284320/glitch-on-ios-9-3-causes-links-to-crash-some-apps-heres-a-
possible-fix)

[http://betanews.com/2016/03/24/ios-9-3-os-x-10-11-4-el-
capit...](http://betanews.com/2016/03/24/ios-9-3-os-x-10-11-4-el-capitan-
upgrade-issues/)

[http://www.techshout.com/macintosh/2016/28/ios-9-3-link-
bug-...](http://www.techshout.com/macintosh/2016/28/ios-9-3-link-bug-causes-
apps-crash-freeze/)

[http://www.mactechnews.de/news/article/Link-Crash-Apple-
kuen...](http://www.mactechnews.de/news/article/Link-Crash-Apple-kuendigt-
Update-an-163779.html)

~~~
ceejayoz
OK, so users with a particular _app_ had Safari issues, the app got patched,
and Apple's planning on fixing their end of the bug per
[http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/28/its-not-just-you-
clicking-o...](http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/28/its-not-just-you-clicking-on-
links-in-ios-9-3-can-crash-your-iphone/). "Booking.com associates its app with
all sorts of domains — too many domains to be precise. With 2.4MB worth of
domain-name-to-deep-link entries, Safari and other apps crash when iOS checks
links against its Universal Link database because this database is too big."

Your criticism seems doubly odd now. Should Apple pause all Safari development
whenever a bug is encountered? What are you proposing?

 _edit:_ Since I can't reply:

> Any app with a link association file that had too many links can cause
> Safari to totally stop working.

Yes, there's apparently a bug, triggered by the rare apps that pad out the
file to enormous sizes. Not sure why you felt the need to spend ten minutes
updating your post with every mention of it you could find (along with
unrelated stuff from 2015).

> This has been discussed to death already, you are very late to the party
> here.

I'm extremely sorry I missed a bit of tech news about an edge-case bug that
doesn't affect me. I'll try harder in the future.

> It's totally within the realms of possibility that Apple can do more
> frequent bug fixes and develop new features.

OK, but from the looks of the dates on those articles, this bug has been known
about for about a week. Do you always fix every reported bug in a week or
less, or do they sometimes take a little while to fix and QA? iOS has a bit of
a larger user footprint to consider, too. Given there's a workaround - patch
the apps with bloated link associations - I'm dubious of the need to rush an
update here.

 _edit 2:_

> edit: you can reply, press the link that takes you to my direct comme t and
> hit reply.

No, I can't. "Submitting too quickly".

~~~
ricardobeat
There is no workaround, patching the site association file only prevents the
issue for new users. Everyone else still has a non-functional browser for a
week - I'd say that warrants an urgent patch.

------
0x0
That's nice, but no iOS release?

Edit: As it is now, it doesn't look very different from what already existed
as OSX-side-loadable Webkit Nightlies
[https://webkit.org/nightly/](https://webkit.org/nightly/) or building from
source (which even supports iOS simulator!) [https://webkit.org/building-
webkit/](https://webkit.org/building-webkit/)

~~~
Viper007Bond
I don't see that happening as Safari isn't just some application that runs on
iOS as an app, it's more built into the OS itself.

~~~
masklinn
It could be available as something of a public ad-hoc build, or as a sideload-
able package since the iOS9 SDK added support for sideloading. OSX Safari is
also built pretty deep into the OS.

------
chris_wot
So what is Apple going to do about fixing bugs in Safari in iOS quicker?

I shouldn't have to wait for 3 months for awful rendering issues that entirely
prevent me from viewing important websites to be fixed!

Obviously it's unpopular to complain about Apple and their dreadful fix
timeframes, but there are often thousands of affected websites and often Apple
have a fix already checked in and tested. But Apple being Apple, they consider
web rendering bugs to be part of their iOS update process, and not just an
issue with an app so we all must wait for three months for them to roll it
into a major update.

I'm seriously considering setting up a seperate website to track iOS bugs.
Apple are hardly willing to be open and transparent about bugs, so perhaps it
should be taken from their hands?

~~~
frou_dh
How many times are you going to post the same comment multiple times per
story? We get it, >>>3 months<<< is a travesty.

~~~
chris_wot
Are you saying this isn't a timely comment? Or relevant?

I'll keep commenting on their three month timeframe on relevant stories. I
don't mind that you don't like me making the point that it's unreasonable.
Especially as you agree!

Edit: I'll review my comment history:

* The comment you are responding to, I feel is relevant

* I write a reply to this comment that says that Apple's Safari development is getting better, to which I disagree - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11391186](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11391186)

Entirely relevant to that thread. It's funny watching my comment scores bounce
up and down though. I'm not the only one annoyed with Apple I see, there
appear to be as many people who agree with me as who are annoyed I point out
Apple's Safari issues :-)

Don't assume that just because you think I'm unreasonable that I _am_
unreasonable. My comments are downvoted and you are annoyed with my seeming
unreasonableness, but plenty feel the opposite.

~~~
frou_dh
I don't think it's an unreasonable complaint, just that it seemed you were in
a multi-day enraged frenzy with "3 FUCKIN' months" bouncing around your head
:)

~~~
chris_wot
Then I guess you owe me an apology then, because I haven't been. It just so
happens that I've been commenting on relevant stories about iOS Safari bugs.

Pretty horrid really that you assumed such bad faith. I've been commenting on
plenty of stories lately, I've hardly been focussed on this one issue. And
I've never used a swear word (well, I once used "bloody", but in my culture
that's not a swear word).

~~~
frou_dh
I apologise for the inappropriate callout.

~~~
chris_wot
:-) thanks

