Abject Praise

https://infrequently.org/2026/07/abject-praise/

24 22 16 days ago

tgv4• 10 days ago

If not all browsers support a feature, don't use it, or make it optional. It's not that hard. If you can't figure it out, ask your LLM.

chowells2• 10 days ago

The article is about how Apple is underdelivering in browser features and compatibility while pretending they aren't. It's about Apple. Apple. The ones responsible for a great many features not being supported in all browsers.

What does a web dev have to do with Apple's choice? How do you improve Safari by not using features it doesn't support? What does your comment have to do with the argument the article is making?

fmajid• 10 days ago

And since outside the EU, all alternative browsers on iOS/iPadOS are just rebadged Safari, this degrades the Web on those platforms. Not entirely coincidentally, Apple has a strong incentive to encourage native apps over web ones.

tgv4• 10 days ago

What does a web dev have to do with Apple's choice?

From the article:

But how much relief should long-suffering web developers expect? ... Web developers wouldn't have cause ... influential developers like Jeremy ... That chasm is instrumental in trapping users and developers ... That's to say nothing of the heavily requested features no developer can use on iOS
What does your comment have to do with the argument the article is making?

The article isn't very honest, IMO. There's no need for Safari to adopt all those changes. Almost none is an improvement for the user, and certainly not for users with older browsers (there are quite a few of those, and telling them to upgrade is basically telling them GTFO).

And the author is heavily involved in Blink/Chrome/Edge. There's a section devoted to it, where he blasts nonsense such as "Chromium and Blink are explicitly organised to make and defend space for leadership, but our ability to lead in new areas is tied to quality." No, they are explicity organized to allow Google to stay dominant. It is not in the interest of the user. It is actively working against the user. Complaining about Safari only serves Google's ad kingdom.

dTal• 10 days ago

You appear to be arguing that we shouldn't care that Apple provides a consistently bad experience and locks their users into it, because web developers can level the field by degrading everyone else's experience too. There's a nice couple paragraphs in the article that explain why we should in fact care, and you don't seem to have addressed them, so let me reproduce them for you in case you missed them. (also fyi "it's not that hard, ask your LLM" comes across a bit snarky):

These large, persistent gaps matter to the mobile and web ecosystems because Apple is unique in denying access to more capable, less-buggy engines and actively erecting unlawful barriers to choice when forced by legislation to enable it. This is accomplished through eye-watering budgets for legal shenanigans, direct lobbying, and well-heeled astroturf front groups to maintain a capability gap between web and native.4

That chasm is instrumental in trapping users and developers in the extractive vice of Cupertino's App Store. A persistent, material gap in capabilities creates a perception of the web being less-than; a budget option for the unserious. Should users choose more capable, more private, less buggy browsers for a larger share of their computing needs, Apple might lose the leverage that enables it to extract rents.

tgv4• 10 days ago

eye-watering budgets

What do you think Google and Microsoft have? The writer is an MS engineer, deeply involved in Chrome/Edge. This has nothing to do with being able to deliver for the user or the developer, but only for Google's position in the ad market.

conartist6• 10 days ago

Yow! Well said.

madibo3156• 10 days ago

This is all very deep in the weeds, biased and opinionated, so it's hard for me to draw my own conclusion with all the missing facts that may or may not exist from Apple's side. What I will say is that it's very funny that Apple, on all of its browsers, does not currently support the squircle corner shape—a piece of flair that is iconically Apple.

oasisbob3• 10 days ago

The author may get further if they put love of communication over love of language.

"Rubbishing" is a worthless gerund. Is rubbish even a verb anywhere?

afandian2• 10 days ago

"To rubbish" is a very common verb, at least in British English.

oasisbob3• 10 days ago

Is it transitive? As an American I know the word, but rubbish as a verb is utterly unfamiliar.

stonogo• 10 days ago

It's the UK equivalent of the US "trashing".

srean• 10 days ago

https://64.media.tumblr.com/32cb3be24eb46c26ffcaea9bbebc1c62...

Allow me to rubbish your claim. It's a common use.

ckmate-king-2• 10 days ago

"v. [with obj.] Brit. informal criticize severely and reject as worthless: 'he has pointedly rubbished professional estimates of the development and running costs.'" New Oxford American Dictionary (2010).

Abject Praise

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