
Safari 10.1 - stablemap
https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/content/releasenotes/General/WhatsNewInSafari/Articles/Safari_10_1.html
======
macrael
Safari is a great browser and I'm sometimes surprised at how huge Chrome's
mindshare among developers is. Every time I try Chrome out on my Mac I end up
running screaming back to Safari. Safari doesn't choke on tons of tabs, it
doesn't eat battery and memory for breakfast, it's never started autoplaying
videos when I open a tab in the background, it's got support for picture in
picture video which is my most used new feature of OS X in ages, and is fast
fast fast.

~~~
mmanfrin
Because Safari has consistently lagged behind Chrome and Firefox for
functionality and standards compliance?

And still does: [http://caniuse.com](http://caniuse.com)

~~~
xenadu02
I don't think it is fair to discount battery life, memory usage, and
performance so heavily. Looking at the
[http://caniuse.com](http://caniuse.com) list there are plenty of features
supported by Safari and not supported by Chrome including Audio Tracks, Video
Tracks, ES6 modules, SVG Fonts, Animated PNG, CSS regions. Safari is actually
the first to 100% ES6 compliance; Chrome sits at 89%.

I would also remind everyone that Google chose to fork Webkit to create Blink.
They could have contributed their IndexDB engine to webkit at any time but
chose not to. They could have contributed to the process isolation refactor
but chose to do their own thing instead. They could have collaborated on
JSCore instead of creating V8. That isn't wrong or right but it is the truth
and it does mean duplicated effort.

Some of the features supported by Chrome are interesting to web-only
developers I'm sure, but I don't want the browser on my mobile phone running
service workers eating my battery in the background. With great power comes
great responsibility and the JS-advertising-infested web has a really poor
record on handling responsibility.

If you give a web developer media playback, they force auto-playing media on
you.

If you give a web developer responsive layouts, they steal your ability to
zoom.

If you give a web developer cookies, they inject tracking bugs to invade your
privacy.

If you give a web developer service workers they will absolutely drain your
battery.

(Yes not everyone but it will be widespread enough that browsers will be
forced to invent countermeasures.)

~~~
soperj
That's only the newest version of Safari, before that it was pretty shit (on
par with IE). Can't expect the mind share to change overnight, especially when
it has lagged for years.

~~~
threeseed
It's really weird to see this myth about Safari being the new IE6. At no point
did Apple abandoned WebKit or add proprietary features to the extent that
Microsoft did. They've continued to plug away adding new functionality and as
has been mentioned they are ahead of Chrome/Edge in some areas and behind in
others.

Some features in particular service workers Apple has deliberately chosen to
take a firm position on because they value battery life and security.

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cobralibre
"When the pointer is locked, users will see a banner explaining that the mouse
cursor is hidden, and that they can get out of pointer lock by pressing the
Escape key."

I beg your pardon — which key?

~~~
simonhamp
Funny. But there is still an escape key and it's not altogether impossible to
use

~~~
philliphaydon
Unless of course you touch type in which case you end up looking at the
keyboard now....

~~~
eridius
No you don't. Why would you? Touch-typing relies on you knowing where each key
is, and the Escape key is still in the same place it always was.

~~~
philliphaydon
If I use a normal keyboard, even on my 12" Macbook, I never need to look at
the keyboard, but with the touch bar, I simply cannot press the esc key, i put
my finger there, touch it, and sometimes nothing happens, its like it doesn't
register that you press it, or maybe im touching it wrong.

Regardless I feel like I'm trying to re-learn to type.

I'm moving to a Dell XPS 15 tho. Done with Apple if this is the direction they
are going.

~~~
eridius
What do you mean by "the direction they are going"? Are you implying that next
Apple is going to replace the rest of the keyboard with touchbar-like keys?
Because I highly doubt that's going to happen.

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tdumitrescu
Whew. Custom Elements, Fetch, and async/await all at once? Christmas came real
early in 2017...

~~~
j_s
Does this mean Safari is no longer the new IE?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9804533](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9804533)

~~~
dested
WebRTC is the main killer for me

~~~
dchest
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13466306](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13466306)

~~~
alwillis
Plus it's been on the under development list for a while:
[https://webkit.org/status/](https://webkit.org/status/)

------
0x0
This is prerelease documentation though. Any idea about when this reaches a
stable release?

Also, haven't most of these features already been available in the tech
preview? [https://developer.apple.com/safari/technology-
preview/](https://developer.apple.com/safari/technology-preview/)

~~~
gsnedders
When macOS 10.12.4 ships [edited from 10.12.3, because I can't type]. And
Apple doesn't comment about future product releases in general, so good luck
finding out when that is. :)

~~~
eridius
You probably meant 10.12.4.

~~~
gsnedders
Yeah, I did. Edited.

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Eric_WVGG
“Reduced Motion Media Query” The extents to which Apple goes for people with
disabilities is as baffling as it is commendable. I can’t think of another
company in any industry that does so much.

~~~
FireBeyond
Unless you're a blind user with a Touchbar Mac...

~~~
stephen_g
Actually not at all, Apple has already thought about that:
[https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT207258](https://support.apple.com/en-
au/HT207258)

There's VoiceOver support for the blind, zooming for visually impaired, etc.
all implemented already.

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tbrock
Biggest deal here (for me) is the HTML 5 download attribute.

Without that you cannot name or provide an extension for files that are
triggered for download.

~~~
eridius
The server can do this with the Content-Disposition header. The `download`
attribute just lets you trigger downloads (optionally with a filename) for
URLs that otherwise wouldn't be downloaded.

~~~
AshleysBrain
It's important to download JS-generated data as well, such as something in a
Blob. You can't set a HTTP header on local content. The 'download' attribute
lets the user "download" that without having to wastefully post it to a server
and back.

~~~
Turing_Machine
To make what AshleysBrain said a little more concrete, imagine an image editor
program (or a music editor, or a word processor, or whatever) that's written
completely in client-side JS. There are starting to be a _lot_ of these,
actually. Without a working download attribute, the only way to save your work
is to post it back to the server and redownload it. That is a slow, ugly, and
unsatisfying hack to get data that's actually already present on the local
machine.

Even IE 11 has a way to do this (non-standard, of course, but it does have a
way to do it :-). Edge supports the standard way.

As I noted in a different post, though, support for the download attribute has
already landed in Webkit Nightly for macOS, and is apparently being worked on
for iOS.

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dcgudeman
Support for fetch and async/await, that's pretty big news.

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franciscop
We just need support for _required_ as in <input required> now (;

[http://stackoverflow.com/q/23261301/938236](http://stackoverflow.com/q/23261301/938236)

> If an attribute is not listed here, it is not supported by Safari and
> WebKit:
> [https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/Ap...](https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/AppleApplications/Reference/SafariHTMLRef/Articles/Attributes.html)

~~~
shadowfiend
That seems to be a documentation oversight. The blog post announcing form
validation support mentions `required` explicitly as a supported attribute:
[https://webkit.org/blog/7099/html-interactive-form-
validatio...](https://webkit.org/blog/7099/html-interactive-form-validation/)

------
madeofpalk
I'm always pleasantly surprised when Apple graces us with Safari updates. They
tend to come with fairly cutting edge features when they actually ship.

The _opportunity_ they have at the moment is the super long gap between
releases, which is even more apparent on iOS. I wish Safari could switch to a
more Chrome-like model of shipping smaller updates more frequently, perhaps in
an evergreen model. I guess there's only so many new emoji's Apple can use to
encourage people to upgrade...

~~~
alwillis
You do realize that Safari's engine WebKit is used for mission critical things
in macOS and iOS… many apps like Mail, the App Store, iTunes and many
thousands of 3rd party applications, right?

Every WebView in a macOS or iOS app is backed by WebKit—it's not just a
browser; it's an extremely important system software component on over a
billion devices.

I think Safari Tech Preview and WebKit Nightlies are a good tradeoff—I'd
rather that than frequent instability on my Mac or iPhone just for the
appearance of being an evergreen browser.

You can see what's being developed and what's being considered for WebKit just
like you can for Chrome and Firefox:
[https://webkit.org/status/](https://webkit.org/status/)

~~~
madeofpalk
Yup. Of course I realise that. But also I believe that implementation details
of iTunes also shouldn't hold users (and/or developers) back.

Safari Tech Preview was a huge surprise and an awesome leap for community
engagement and awareness of upcoming works. But the realities are that "the
industry" is moving ahead faster than Safari's (at best) twice-a-year release
cycle. I can 1005 appreciate vendors taking time to let 'specs' 'settle', but
Safari's comparatively infrequent cycle puts them at a weird pace.

~~~
alwillis
The narrative that somehow Safari’s release cycle is causing major problems in
the "industry" or that somehow, macOS and iOS users are being left behind is
false, especially for everyday users.

I use an old MacBook laptop running MacOS 10.7.5 with Safari 6.1.6, an ancient
version of Safari by today's standards--about four years old--when I'm out and
about. Otherwise, I'm using macOS Sierra with Safari 10.x on two different
iMacs.

On the MacBook I use Facebook, Slack and many other websites without a
problem. I get a warning banner on Gmail that says my version of Safari is no
longer supported; other than a few cosmetic issues, I can send and receive
email just fine.

The point: web developers have long figured out how to deal with multiple
browsers across different platforms with different capabilities. Many
differences and bugs have polyfills; it's not a show stopper.

Look, there are major features and minor ones; Safari has been at the leading
edge with support for CSS Grids, wide-gamut color support, variable fonts,
100% of ES6, CSS Snap Points in addition to rendering speed and power
efficiency.

There certainly have been calls to reduce the pace of new specs and releases
so we developers can catch their breath and so that Apple, Google and Mozilla
can release quality implementations--there's nothing wrong with that.

------
thatmiddleway
Lack of custom elements has been a big problem for years. Glad they finally
caught up there. We can finally use semantic HTML with safari!

------
GolDDranks
Hmm, still no support for MediaStream Recording or Media Capture APIs. That's
unfortunate as I'm currently developing a web app that makes use of microphone
input. I'm a Safari user myself, but I'm forced to direct my users to use
Chrome or Firefox to be able to use the microphone utilizing features.

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mrmondo
I really wish I could have a bookmarks bar with just favicons showing in
safari, it's something that's a key part of my workflow in Firefox and I
actually really like safari and other than that and the annoying wide tabs
thing which I'd probably get used to if use it more often.

~~~
tfeldmann
Try dragging a tab to the left side of the tab bar. The tab will shrink to
icon size and stay there after restarts.

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therealmarv
aside from the information: This website is sooo rediculously hard to browse
on my smartphone (Nexus). The arrows are the only thing working to expand the
information and they are really hard to open and close (with strange go
backwards behaviour). Really bad website UX Apple.

~~~
coldtea
It's not meant for mobile use any more than a Javadoc webpage is.

It's a developer resource to consult while coding on your laptop.

~~~
zitterbewegung
Actually, I loaded the link on my iPhone and it is responsively designed at
least for Safari on mobile.

~~~
maaaats
On firefox all I see is "Guides and sample code"-heading, a lot of grey and
some cut off text.

------
jbmorgado
Safari is a great browser for MacOS, what it lacks right now, is not more
features, is opening the extension system.

Let's face it, it is ridiculous to have to pay 100$ a year to be able to
improve Apple's product in exchange for nothing.

Making plugins for a browser doesn't have in any way the same opportunities to
make money from it as making apps for iOS or for MacOS.

Still Apple, in all their usual stubbornness refuse to let people to publish
and sign their extensions for Safari without paying them their 100$ anual fee.

~~~
comex
I don't know whether it's ridiculous or not, but it's definitely a culture
clash.

Safari had a hard time attracting ports of other browsers' extensions even
when you could distribute them for free and they were fully HTML-based.
(Probably because there was no Windows version.) Now, not only do you have to
pay, the old extension system has been deprecated in favor of a new system
where you have to bundle your extension within a native app and implement a
native-code-based interface. It's probably not a bad interface in isolation
(haven't tried it myself), and makes it easier for existing native app
developers to add extensions, but I expect it makes code reuse between
extensions for Safari and other browsers quite difficult.

In comparison, both Firefox and Edge are going in the exact opposite direction
and moving to an extension API directly based on, and largely compatible with,
Chrome extensions. So pretty soon you'll be able to use popular extensions
with any browser you prefer... except Safari.

But hey, at least now Safari will be able to take advantage of the popularity
of building apps for the Mac App Store. Oh wait...

~~~
bfred_it
If Safari starts supporting WebExtensions we're halfway there, but I don't see
them switching from their current model anytime soon — sadly for its users.

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arrakeen
still no WebRTC?

~~~
bionsuba
If it's not yet an official standard then don't count on it.

~~~
bfred_it
That doesn't really matter, they pushed CSS Transforms, Transitions and
Animations long before they were "standards", hence the slew of prefixed
properties still enabled on many browsers.

It's more about politics and priorities.

------
ctrlrsf
Would love better clipboard support so we could paste images into Gmail and
GitHub issues. Having to use Safari more often on a new MBP to save battery,
this is one feature I miss daily.

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Geee
> Updated Behavior of Fixed Position Elements

Wow, inputs in bootstrap modal will finally work on iOS!

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elzi
Any catch if it does away with needing the `-webkit-` prefix for CSS yet?

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buovjaga
This confirms 2017 will be The Year of CSS Grid Layout.

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pomber
One polyfill less for custom elements

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jbmorgado
I don't understand the down votes since it's factual that you can't sign your
plugins and distribute them inside Safari (AND ALSO keep them automatically
updated) unless you pay Apple their anual fee.

But well, fanboys will be fanboys.

~~~
eridius
I don't know why your original comment was downvoted, but dismissing people
who disagree with you as "fanboys" is rather insulting.

~~~
jbmorgado
Can you provide any other logical explanation to down vote a factual comment
completely related to the post?

~~~
eridius
My best guess is it's just people tired of seeing someone complain about the
$100 developer program membership every time the subject of Safari extensions
comes up.

~~~
jbmorgado
So people get tired of facing reality and down vote whoever makes them peek
outside their walled garden.

Ok, it's acceptable.

~~~
eridius
You're being insulting again. If you don't want to be downvoted, you might
want to try taking a different tone.

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nkkollaw
I wish they made it usable, favoring function over [their idea of ]beauty.

I still can't use it because of the super-annoing "feature" that greys out tab
favicons making impossible to immediately see what site is loaded in that tab
if you have a lot of tabs open, and of course not showing the full address on
iOS (I'm bother by the fact they think it's a good idea, but at least on macOS
there's a setting to remove it).

Apple is really falling behind both Microsoft and expecially Google in terms
of their own software. It's just not usable anymore. Everything is hidden just
to make it look pretty. So annoying.

They should focus on their iOS version, because on the desktop the
contribution they make is minimal, on iOS no one will install a custom browser
instead of keeping the ad-free default one.

~~~
madeofpalk
Like that _super_ readable Chrome tab bar when you have lots of tabs open?
[http://imgur.com/a/MZ2dI](http://imgur.com/a/MZ2dI)

~~~
nkkollaw
There is no solution to that many tabs.

Not getting it right with 5-6 open seems hard even if you try.

~~~
madeofpalk
I have no difficulty understanding what my 7 open tabs are...
[http://i.imgur.com/LB7BqOT.png](http://i.imgur.com/LB7BqOT.png)

But that's just me I guess. To each is their own.

~~~
nkkollaw
If there were colored icons in each tab, you'd be able to figure out which tab
is which at a glance, without reading every single title until you find what
you're looking for.

It's so obvious that icons are easier than text—and this is why you see icons
everywhere–that I have a hard time understanding how anyone would favor this
solution. However, of course I have no interest in convincing you to switch
browser, it's definitely a matter of preference.

