alt Hacker NewsOf course I have to debug it, but I develop for standards, not Apple's wonky implementations of touch events and lots of other things. So I should not need Apple hardware to debug a web browser. I can't install Safari on Android or any other platform, so if there's a bug that only shows up in Safari, then I have to buy Apple hardware. I'd rather not give Apple one goddamned cent of my money, they have already mistreated us - we actually sued them in a class action lawsuit and won (2011 MBP). So no, I do not want to pay for an overpriced phone just to fix their stupid proprietary bugs. Everything works great on Chrome and Firefox and Opera and a bunch of other mobile browsers.
>There are a bunch of things that suck about Chrome too. And Firefox as well. No product is perfect.
Google doesn't prevent Apple from offering Safari for Android, Apple just wouldn't be able to make money offering it through Google's app store the same way they can extort iOS developers that sell anything through the native app.
"Chrome sucks too" is very subjective. I've never had a problem with it. I'm curious what you think sucks about Chrome. Firefox - well, I used to use it a while ago, but not so much anymore. I will fix bugs there and they are easy and free to fix. I can't say the same about Apple's Safari.
Apple used to make Safari for Windows, but it sucked so badly, and they figured they couldn't make any money from it, so they discontinued it. So they could definitely make Safari for other platforms, but they would rather force developers to buy an iPhone instead. Fuck that.
I'm sorry iPhone users, but you'll forever be second class citizens in my product sphere, and you can blame Apple for that, until they allow other browser engines.
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> I'm sorry iPhone users, but you'll forever be second class citizens in my product sphere
I can’t help but wonder if your company’s leadership shares your level of disdain for your customers.
You have a very idiosyncratic take. I've never heard anyone else complain, as a dev, that Safari was harder to develop for because it was buggier. When I run into JavaScript API differences between Safari, Chrome, and Firefox (as I have many times), they just mostly do different things where the spec is underspecified. I don't assume Chrome is doing it the right way and Safari is the buggy one. It sounds like you just develop Chrome-first.
Yeah, if you want to test against Safari you need Apple hardware. If you can't be bothered to get some cheap secondhand Apple hardware for testing for your business, then that says more about the business decisions you're making. The idea that Apple ought to be obligated to make its browser available on other platforms seems pretty silly to me.
You sound like someone complaining they want to develop a Microsoft Word plugin on Linux, and they're upset Microsoft doesn't sell a Linux version of Office and that they have to get a copy of Windows. What do you expect? You develop and test on the platforms where your desired users are. If you can't accept that basic reality, then maybe you shouldn't be making software.