It's not just difficult things that are missing. For no apparent reason, Safari (stable, at least) does not support streaming WebAssembly at all. Apple will literally support Vorbis but only allow it in a proprietary container format. This is stupid as hell to the point where IIRC Wikimedia projects just have an ogg demuxer/vorbis decoder in JS to avoid having to special case Apple.
If Apple's goal isn't to stifle App Store competition, then its goal is most likely to ensure that all web developers have to own and use Apple products. In that regard, they're basically succeeding: you can't rent macOS VMs for short periods now, emulating iOS outside the simulator on Apple hardware is very limited and mostly only done by security researchers, Safari has not been available outside of Apple hardware for a long time, and Hackintosh has been beaten down for a long time. The most reasonable option, basically OSX-KVM, still won't get you GPU acceleration, and is a clear EULA violation on non-Apple hardware.
Their strategy becomes especially self-evident when you look at WebM support. Suddenly, Apple is supporting WebM in Safari... only on macOS, where they have no choice but to compete with other browser engines. I'm so fucking sick of this shit.
It's time to stop defending Apple simply because there's a perception that they're being a prick to Google. They're being pricks to us. If we needed a savior, I can tell you for sure that savior isn't Apple. Doubt it if you want, but salvation hasn't come and it is not coming. I'm not defending Google because they definitely earned their reputation, but this attitude of blind acceptance of shit Apple does because everyone wants retribution against Google is stupid. When Apple throws a shit fit over web standards (cough WGSL cough) the party that loses isn't Google, it's us. Apple is a behemoth company that has an inordinate amount of control over the web and web standards considering how much it doesn't seem to have the best interests of the web at heart.
This rant is brought to you by every single time my code written and tested in Firefox worked totally fine in Chrome and Edge, but not Safari. It feels like this is almost every single time I do anything non-trivial anymore.
I'd like to reiterate that I am not saying Safari should implement dumb crap like WebMIDI or WebBluetooth, nor am I saying that I have any problem with their privacy or security features. All of that is fine, but it's not any more heroic than Firefox which, for all its flaws, also does a lot of the same stuff.
If Apple's goal isn't to stifle App Store competition, then its goal is most likely to ensure that all web developers have to own and use Apple products. In that regard, they're basically succeeding: you can't rent macOS VMs for short periods now, emulating iOS outside the simulator on Apple hardware is very limited and mostly only done by security researchers, Safari has not been available outside of Apple hardware for a long time, and Hackintosh has been beaten down for a long time. The most reasonable option, basically OSX-KVM, still won't get you GPU acceleration, and is a clear EULA violation on non-Apple hardware.
Their strategy becomes especially self-evident when you look at WebM support. Suddenly, Apple is supporting WebM in Safari... only on macOS, where they have no choice but to compete with other browser engines. I'm so fucking sick of this shit.
It's time to stop defending Apple simply because there's a perception that they're being a prick to Google. They're being pricks to us. If we needed a savior, I can tell you for sure that savior isn't Apple. Doubt it if you want, but salvation hasn't come and it is not coming. I'm not defending Google because they definitely earned their reputation, but this attitude of blind acceptance of shit Apple does because everyone wants retribution against Google is stupid. When Apple throws a shit fit over web standards (cough WGSL cough) the party that loses isn't Google, it's us. Apple is a behemoth company that has an inordinate amount of control over the web and web standards considering how much it doesn't seem to have the best interests of the web at heart.
This rant is brought to you by every single time my code written and tested in Firefox worked totally fine in Chrome and Edge, but not Safari. It feels like this is almost every single time I do anything non-trivial anymore.
I'd like to reiterate that I am not saying Safari should implement dumb crap like WebMIDI or WebBluetooth, nor am I saying that I have any problem with their privacy or security features. All of that is fine, but it's not any more heroic than Firefox which, for all its flaws, also does a lot of the same stuff.