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)."
Standards and "Standards" (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Chrome (Score:0, Insightful)
How about you actually try clicking one of the showcase items before you claim that it 'worked'?
A very nice HTML5+CSS3 demo that actually works (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, HTML5 is the future and as soon as we get rid of flash the better, but if you are going to try and show how its done, then do it right or don't do it at all, Apple.
Have a look at this: http://apirocks.com/html5/html5.html#slide1 [apirocks.com]
This is a very nice demo that doesn't tell you to get XYZ browser. Sure, some parts might not work at all if you are not running on the latest chrome or webkit browser, but most demos work and I find it to be a nicer way of doing things (IMHO).
(This was part of a presentation done by some googlers about HTML5 a few months ago)
A hard choice (Score:4, Insightful)
Given that it's meant to be a showcase of things to come, it makes sense to require you to use the one browser that currently works with it. Even Mozilla sometimes releases demos that require the latest Firefox beta to test. Using browser sniffing to enforce it is certainly bad form, but they probably thought that otherwise people would just click through, see a broken demo, and not even realize they aren't seeing what they're meant to see. Hopefully they'll relax the restriction once (if) more browsers implement support for these proposed new features.
Apple's just pushing existing standards (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see anything wrong with this, other than it making other browsers like FF3 look like they haven't been innovating.
Re:Chrome (Score:5, Insightful)
Every new Apple mobile device and every new Mac -- along with the latest version of Apple's Safari web browser -- supports web standards including HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. These web standards are open, reliable, highly secure, and efficient. They allow web designers and developers to create advanced graphics, typography, animations, and transitions. Standards aren't add-ons to the web. They are the web. And you can start using them today.
The way they say it, makes it seem that you know any HTML5 enabled browser should run HTML5 enabled content.
Re:Chrome (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, it did. Many of them also work in Opera. You're just - no offense - too stupid to change your browser's User Agent string so that it identifies itself as Safari, which is the only thing these demos check for.
You are - no offense - an arrogant prick who has missed the point. They claim to advocate standards across the intarwebs for all, putting up a page to view a new whiz-bang standard, but are forcing you to either download their browser, or take (what are to normal users) extraordinary means, to view the content.
Ability to change the User Agent has nothing at all to do with anything in this case.
Re:Chrome (Score:2, Insightful)
This is an interoperability demo, dumbass!
Which means that Firefox's "failing" is really Apple's own epic fail.
Re:Chrome (Score:5, Insightful)
In this case, the fact that Apple is just UA sniffing is shabby at best. Just checking [modernizr.com] for feature support isn't rocket surgery. Neither would be sending the least interesting summer intern to test the demos on a couple of other browsers that are likely to work and accepting those UAs as well. The fact that their "HTML5 demo" is just "transparent Safari propaganda" isn't illegal or anything; but talking up "web standards" and then hardcoding your demo to only work with your browser doesn't exactly scream "intellectual honesty"...
Apple's the next microsoft (Score:3, Insightful)
Not the popular opinion, but think about it. M$ started out the same way.
- Get people hooked on the new-exciting-and-different (windows 3.1)
- you were a Luddite if you weren't adopting it
- People that new almost *nothing* about computers could "use" a computer
After the customer base was established, Microsoft Works came in and locked everyone into a proprietary format (they didn't know better). This was followed by Excel, Word and Access, and then Exchange.
Apple is taking the same road and once again people who don't know they don't know, don't know.
Re:Chrome (Score:4, Insightful)
Criticizing Apple for making a showcase of what they can do with standards not comply with standard browsers is trolling?! What does Apple have to do for fanboys to realize that they are just another GenericBigCompany(tm) who will rape you to death if they thought it'd add 1% to their quarterly bottom line?
Trolling... Indeed... *shakes head*
Re:A hard choice (Score:3, Insightful)
that's not the point. The point is they advertise this as standards demo, not Safari demo. Ie. saying Safari is the only standards compliant browser, just like Microsoft telling IE is standards compliant.
Re:http://developer.apple.com/safaridemos/ (Score:4, Insightful)
Not that odd, really. Developers want to bang on things until they break. End users just want things to work. Ergo, the dev site lets you try the demos in any browser, while the end user site makes sure you have a browser that supports the demos 100%.
Why this is a story I have no idea. Mozilla, Google, and the WebKit team have been adding non-standard features and making tech demos that only work on specific versions of their own browser for years, but no one thinks they're trying to fragment the industry. Apple puts a browser detect on a page to ensure an end user demo works without a hiccup and geeks everywhere are up in arms. Go figure.
Re:A very nice HTML5+CSS3 demo that actually works (Score:3, Insightful)
hmmm... I wonder what the web will look like in 5-10 years?
Re:Apple's the next microsoft (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, except that Apple's not locking anyone into any proprietary formats. HTML5, seriously? It's not proprietary. It's still in development, and not widely supported, but not proprietary.
Re:Chrome (Score:4, Insightful)
I ran the entire demo in Chrome and I had issues with the video, which is to be expected at this point, because they still can't pick a standard, and the CSS3 3-D transforms which I don't understand because Chrome supports 3-D transforms.
open /Applications/Google\ Chrome.app --args -user-agent="Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10_6_3; en-us) AppleWebKit/531.22.7 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Safari/531.22.7"
In this case I think Apple is right to limit the demo to Safari, because at this point not even Chrome works for all the demos. I don't like everything that Apple does, but in this case what are they supposed to do? Due to no standard being set on video, no other browser will properly render the demos. I do question what the deal with the CSS is.
Remember, this page is a showcase of Apple's products based on the not completely baked HTML 5 standard - it is not a general HTML 5 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.
I think the submitter is twisting the purpose of the html5 page on apple.com, and there is a whole lot of piling on Apple in this discussion without any real basis. Again, right there on the page it says this that it shows how Apple's latest products support HTML 5. It doesn't say that apple.com supports the latest version of Firefox or IE.
Re:Its Apple (Score:3, Insightful)
Not quite.
This was supposed to be an HTML5 demo served up with a heaping helping of FUD.
"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."
Their nonsense with browser sniffing is clearly a crass attempt to perpetrate a fraud on the unsuspecting user. They want to give the false impression that no one else supports this stuff. They want to create the myth of your "100Ghz" supermachine when the reality is quite different.
Apple is indeed the new Microsoft: Microsoft 2.0.
Re:Standards and "Standards" (Score:3, Insightful)
You say "less evil". I say "more scared". If Microsoft is working on interoperability, you know they're frightened of becoming irrelevant. Of course, helping Samba will severely cut into their share of the server market, because Samba4's unreadiness is still selling Windows licenses, but perhaps they're expecting to fail there anyway.
Re:Chrome (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Selling mine (Score:4, Insightful)
So DRM has gone the way of "bricked" and "literally" then.
Maybe the French were on to something with managing their language.
Re:Chrome (Score:1, Insightful)
Many Brits do the "would of" error as well. It's common among all native users of the English language who border on illiteracy.
Ok, you nerds need to get a clue. (Score:5, Insightful)
This was the executive summary for general public consumption.
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.
This is all about presenting the technology to the average user in the best light when other browsers are still playing catchup.
Re: Don't you get it? (Score:1, Insightful)
An interwebs only accessible by apple proprietary software IS the future of standards they are looking for
Re:A hard choice (Score:2, Insightful)
This is the showcase that checks your browser:
http://www.apple.com/html5/ [apple.com]
On that same page, scroll down and click on "Developers: Learn how to do it yourself," which I'm surprised no slashdotters have clicked on yet. It brings you to a new version of the gallery:
http://developer.apple.com/safaridemos/ [apple.com]
Which is exactly the same, except it works on Google Chrome, and presumably any standards-compliant browser. My bet is, it actually does feature-sniffing, although I haven't checked (everything works fine in Chrome).
The message is clear: Are you a consumer? If so, Apple has the world's best browser which does all kinds of fancy stuff your browser doesn't.
...Oh wait, you mean you're a developer? Oh actually just kidding this is all standards compliant, any browser can do this stuff, how great is that?
Re:Chrome (Score:1, Insightful)
If you had said "what they can do" as opposed to "what they can do with standards" then maybe I'd let you off the I'm-a-fucking-retard train.
As it is, however, you have a concession card entitling you to free travel whenever you want.
Re:Chrome (Score:2, Insightful)
It's called the iTunes Store.
Also, what?
You would have bought an iPad if it had flash, yet you won't buy anything Apple because Jobs is a narcissist?
He was a narcissist before flash was excluded from the iPhone OS for performance reasons, so what has changed? Or are you just trolling?
Re:Chrome (Score:1, Insightful)
The way they say it, makes it seem that you know any HTML5 enabled browser should run HTML5 enabled content.
And they do. What does that have to do with Apple blocking access to their showcase - at least for the lazy ones? See what they also say?
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.
The showcase does exactly what it says on the box. When you go around the block, it does even more - what they said before.
Re:A very nice HTML5+CSS3 demo that actually works (Score:3, Insightful)
HTML5 will be great! It will just take about 5-10 years for all the other browsers to adopt the standards carefully laid out today.
Thanks to Google, I don't think so. There are a lot of big players pushing hard at getting these adopted. MS will be a holdout as much as they can, but losing share in mobile Web use and overseas browsers share combined with Google's Chrome plug-in will make them much less able to pull it off. Web standards have stagnated a long time because of MS, but times are changing.
Re:A hard choice (Score:5, Insightful)
HTML5 is still a work in progress. They could have made a demo that only uses those features which are already widely supported, but it wouldn't have been as impressive.
Spot on. This is a Safari demo - they appear to be desperately trying to demonstrate why they aren't allowing Flash on their iDevices. At the very bottom of the page, there are two image/link thingys, one that says "iPad Ready" and another that says "Thoughts on Flash". Apple's goal here was to provide the shiniest, flashiest (but not Flashiest) html 5 demonstration they possible could, and only show it to the browser that will render it all perfectly. They're using published standards, that other browsers can (and probably will, eventually) support, and they're publishing the source code for all of the demos.
I really don't understand what all the vitriol is about on this thread. When your browser of choice can do the things with HTML 5 that Safari can in these demos, you'll be thrilled. What the hell is wrong with Apple pushing open standards? Okay - I get that the h.264 standard, while in some senses open, has some issues, but still - isn't this a good thing? Isn't it good for everyone that Apple is using some of that mountain of money they're sitting on to push an open standard, and at the very least reduce the necessity of the beast that is Flash?
But Apple took the other fork - no lock-in (Score:4, Insightful)
After the customer base was established, Microsoft Works came in and locked everyone into a proprietary format
And how is Apple doing this? The webkit tags they are using, work in pretty much any up-to-date webkit browsers - which included Android or just about any other popular mobile device.
Apple is explicitly not locking you in, instead of going down that road they are strongly promoting a standard (HTML-5) and a powerful rendering engine (Webkit) that anyone can use.
Where's the locki-n?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Chrome (Score:5, Insightful)
If we are to accept what you say then the following can't be true:
Standards aren't standards if they're not standard.
Re:Developer Link (Score:5, Insightful)
Beyond that, of course, I've seen it mentioned that it's disingenuous to talk about standards while using webkit-specific tags. While I'm a happy user of many Apple products, I agree with this statement; if Apple are going to make webkit-specific tags, they should have full feature compatibility with their standarized equivalents.
Re:Chrome (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Likewise, it is not a standard, then. If people code their pages to fit what Apple are currently touting as a standard, they will find in many cases that once the standards are solidified, they will have to recode to ensure cross-browser. support.
Re:Developer Link (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Chrome (Score:3, Insightful)
Standards aren't standards if they're not standard.
Not sure what your point is. Apple's point at face value is that you can start using their products to start browsing HTML5/CSS3 sites today. If one company implements the agreed to standard and other companies don't that doesn't make the standard a non-standard...
I opened the page in Chrome and it didn't work 100%. Now, if you want to analyze Apple's source and point out where their site breaks standards, that would be something more interesting
You might have missed this bit as well:
Not all browsers offer this support. But soon other modern browsers will take advantage of these same web standards
Re:Chrome (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ok, you nerds need to get a clue. (Score:3, Insightful)