Apple's HTML5 and Standards Gallery Not Standard 527
snitch writes "Apple has created an HTML5 Showcase that presents its vision for the next generation of the WWW. The fact that this page is only accessible using the Safari browser, while Apple advocates about web standards, has caused many to criticize the company's lack of broader platform support. The showcase demonstrates several HTML5 capabilities and features that have to do with video, typography, transitions, audio, etc. Further, on the front page the company states that 'Standards aren't add-ons to the web. They are the web. And you can start using them today.' The latter statement falls short by the fact that the featured examples only work with the Safari browser, and in the case of the CSS 3D transforms demonstration, require Mac OS X Snow Leopard (Safari PC or plain Leopard won't do)."
Chrome (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Chrome (Score:3, Informative)
No it didn't. I use chrome and I got a 'download safari' dialog box when I tried to view any of the showcases.
Re:It works in Safari... (Score:3, Informative)
Uh, yeah Apple considering you can't even access the demos with anything other than Safari. Repeat, you cannot even try them because it gives you a Download Safari popup. It won't let you in. So it's not that other browsers aren't HTML5 compatible (Chrome) it's that Apple won't even let you try.
Re:A hard choice (Score:2, Informative)
On Snow Leopard, the demos work on Chrome 5.0.375.55 (latest official version) - I didn't even get a pop-up. The demos don't run as well as on Safari but most of them do work.
some works in firefox with user agent switcher (Score:2, Informative)
http://developer.apple.com/safaridemos/ (Score:1, Informative)
Its odd that the examples at http://www.apple.com/html5/ browser sniff..
Whereas the same examples at http://developer.apple.com/safaridemos/ work fine in other browsers.
Re:Chrome (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Standards and "Standards" (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah. With their desire to subvert industry standards for their own gain, their love for releasing overpriced, crippled and locked-in products and their ability to convince their fanboys that Big Brother Knows Better(tm), Apple is more like the v2.0 of the '80s IBM than Microsoft or Adobe.
Re:It works in Safari... (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah, like it's possible to do. But just think about it - WebKit was forked from KHTML is 1998. Were you using a web browser in 1998?
I was using Mosaic on Linux back when you had to have Motif and build it yourself.
It should be ENTIRELY possible to figure out where the code came from in WebKit. But keep in mind that it first started with KHTML and further has received significant contributions from a variety of sources [webkit.org]. Apple claims only to have done the "majority" of work since the fork. The WebKit Wiki in fact credits other developers for many major features.
Re:Shows why HTML5 is not ready to replace flash (Score:4, Informative)
Flash uses pixels just like everything else too.
The thing is, Safari hasn't implemented sub-pixel calculations yet, thus you get that "jerkyness". That "pixel world" you meantion really means lack of sub-pixel calculation and only means lackluster implementation.
Developer Link (Score:2, Informative)
At the bottom of every page, there is a link to
http://developer.apple.com/safaridemos/ [apple.com]
On this page, there are duplicates that are not UA restricted, which you can test with whatever browser you like, and download the implementation code.
User agent detection is appropriate on the consumer (www.apple) page, since that's an executive summary. Most people on that page are not going to understand why it isn't working, since they don't even know what browser they're using, unless Apple actually bars the door.
Re:A hard choice (Score:5, Informative)
that's not the point. The point is they advertise this as standards demo, not Safari demo.
No they clearly advertise this as a demo of Safari, and it's support for HTML5. Here's the text:
HTML5 Showcase The demos below show how the latest version of Apple’s Safari web browser, new Macs, and new Apple mobile devices all support the capabilities of HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. Not all browsers offer this support. But soon other modern browsers will take advantage of these same web standards — and the amazing things they enable web designers to do.
They specifically call out this as a demo of what they've implemented in Safari so far.
Ie[sic]. saying Safari is the only standards compliant browser, just like Microsoft telling IE is standards compliant.
No they actually state that "Not all browsers offer this support" which very, very strongly implies that some other browsers do offer this support. They go on to briefly mention how other modern browsers are adding support for HTML5 features so everyone will be able to use these new standards.
Re:Scary - location? (Score:3, Informative)
See http://www.seamonkey-project.org/doc/2.0/geolocation [seamonkey-project.org] for a description of the how & why. In short, yes, the geolocation info comes from Google.
When you visit a location-aware website, SeaMonkey will ask you if you want to share your location.
If you consent, SeaMonkey gathers information about nearby wireless access points and your computer's IP address. Then SeaMonkey sends this information to the default geolocation service provider, Google Location Services, to get an estimate of your location. That location estimate is then shared with the requesting website.
If you say that you do not consent, SeaMonkey will not do anything.
This is a violation of Apple's own guidelines (Score:2, Informative)
Back when the iPhone first came out, and people were shrieking for native development, Steve Jobs announced his "sweet spot", which was the ability to write web apps for the thing (??). To support this position, Apple posted on their development site guidelines on best practices for modern web apps. These guidelines specifically advise against using browser sniffing (except under certain rare conditions which are not met here). One should instead use object detection.
Here [apple.com] are those guidelines. The document lists at length all the reasons not to engage in browser sniffing which are rehashed here. Basically there may be low or no correlation between the information in the user agent string and the browser's abilities. For example all browsers claim to be Mozilla, but it doesn't mean they all have the same feature set as Mozilla's Firefox.
Apple's developers who wrote this gallery appear not to have read this document, or more generally to understand the purpose of web standards at all. Apple's new HTML5 gallery touts standards, but it flouts all the goals of standards. The point of standards is that we can target a standard, rather than a browser. Apple violates the entire purpose, and deserves censure for this hypocrisy.
Re:It works in Safari... (Score:2, Informative)
By far Apple ain't biggest in IT, they are way smaller compared to some other companies. Say, HP, Dell, Microsoft, Nokia.
Apple is the largest company, by market capitalization, from the ones you mentioned.
Re:Ok, you nerds need to get a clue. (Score:1, Informative)
If you wanted to look at the demos on other browsers, all you had to do was go to the http;//developer.apple.com/safaridemos/ link . Again, not everything will work on non-safari browers but most of them will work on the latest chrome.
You people keep saying that, and that link doesn't block you outright, but actually trying to run the demos on that link give the same message - "you'll need to download Safari to view this demo". Heck, even Microsoft let other browsers into their IE9/HTML5 showcase.
Re:Ok, you nerds need to get a clue. (Score:3, Informative)
Contrast your claim with the dialog which I just got from one of the demos, http://developer.apple.com/safaridemos/video-effects.php [apple.com] (Firefox 3.6.3) when I click on the "View Demo" button:
Or http://developer.apple.com/safaridemos/threesixty.php [apple.com]. http://developer.apple.com/safaridemos/audio.php [apple.com] http://developer.apple.com/safaridemos/canvas-pixel.php [apple.com] So far we're 0 for 4 attempts.
Re:Ok, you nerds need to get a clue. (Score:2, Informative)
Wrong, the pages at http://developer.apple.com/safaridemos/ [apple.com] also state that Safari is required.
The average user will think that this "HTML5 thing" is just something of Apple and not a real Standard.
Re:Developer Link (Score:5, Informative)
If you bother to follow the link and click on any of the demos, you'll see that it opens a page with a description, and when you click the "view demo" button, you get the SAME message stating that you need Safari to view some HTML5 demos.
Re:Standards and "Standards" (Score:3, Informative)
Citations please.
What makes it erroneous?
Other than the original iTunes music (which had DRM at the RIAA's insistence, but is now gone) and iTunes movies (with still have DRM due to the movie studios), Apple's data formats are open.
You have mbox for email, documented XML for their iWork and iLife apps, AAC for audio, H.264 for video, .ics for calendars, vcard for address book, human readable plist files, support for NFS out of the box, CUPS for printing, use of png for screencapture format by default...
I think your anonymous anti-apple nerd rage is blinding you to reality.
So, if you would like to attempt a proper response (and not posting AC is a good start - tends to look better), then I'd like to hear of some cases where Apple makes it hard to move your data into and out of Apple systems.
Re:Developer Link (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Developer Link (Score:2, Informative)
BULLSHIT!
http://developer.apple.com/safaridemos/typography.php
http://developer.apple.com/safaridemos/photo-transitions.php
Enough said.
Re:Chrome (Score:4, Informative)
From http://developer.apple.com/safaridemos/gallery.php [apple.com]
By animating the -webkit-transform CSS property in your code, you can enable hardware-accelerated animations and deliver a top-notch experience in web pages on iPad and iPhone.
* Photos are positioned with -webkit-transform.
* The spotlight effect is drawn with -webkit-gradient.
Those aren't standards. Those are propietary CSS extensions.
Re:Chrome (Score:5, Informative)
css3-transform is not proprietary [w3.org]. Nor is css3-images [w3.org], which describes gradient properties. The reason that these properties are implemented using the -webkit- prefix is because these standards have not reached candidate recommendation status and are still subject to change. A vendor prefix doesn’t mean “proprietary”—it means “experimental”. Once the standard reaches final recommendation status, which can only occur once two independent implementations have been created, then the vendor prefixes will be dropped.
For what it’s worth, there are a good number of people within the development community that are not happy [vcarrer.com] with vendor prefixes [quirksmode.org], but it is the best option that currently exists to ensure that incompatible implementations do not use the same property name.
Re:Evil moderators (Score:3, Informative)
The fact that you claim the developer link [apple.com] doesn't require UA spoofing, even though any attempt to actually view the demo through that page brings up the very same "You’ll need to download Safari to view this demo" message, shows how absolutely blinded you are by your need to defend Apple. Slashdot isn't the evil one here.
Re:Chrome (Score:4, Informative)
The point is that "other browsers", by and large, actually support HTML5 better than Safari.
Re:Chrome (Score:4, Informative)
I thought you were talking about the ancientweb when Netscape roamed the net and sites held out signs like "Explorers only, we don't serve nomads here".
Ancient days were when many sites held out signs like "Netscape Navigator required", pissing off IE users to no end.
Re:Developer Link (Score:3, Informative)
Same annoying Safari nag message here. Lame, just lame.
Re:Missing the point (Score:2, Informative)
On a Mac, Safari gets 120 [imgur.com] and Chrome gets 142... Strange.
Although why any browser supports Geolocation worries me. Maybe it's just because Google makes Chrome.
I vote that someone makes a standards-only-compliant browser. No site-specific hacks, so that web designers can just test the page once in that, and if it works there, it should work in any standards-compliant browser.