The web on my phone
It’s funny how times have changed. Remember back in the 90s when Microsoft — quite rightly — lost an anti-trust case? They were accused of abusing their monopolistic position in the OS world to get an unfair advantage in the browser world. By bundling a copy of Internet Explorer with every copy of Windows, they were able to crush the competition from Netscape.
Mind you, it was still possible to install a Netscape browser on a Windows machine. Could you imagine if Microsoft had tried to make that impossible? There would’ve been hell to pay! They wouldn’t have had a legal leg to stand on.
Yet here we are two decades later and that’s exactly what an Operating System vendor is doing. The Operating System is iOS. It’s impossible to install a non-Apple browser onto an Apple mobile computer. For some reason, the fact that it’s a mobile device (iPhone, iPad) makes it different from a desktop-bound device running OS X. Very odd considering they’re all computers.
“But”, I hear you say, “What about Chrome for iOS? Firefox for iOS? Opera for iOS?”
Chrome for iOS is not Chrome. Firefox for iOS is not Firefox. Opera for iOS is not Opera. They are all using WebKit. They’re effectively the same as Mobile Safari, just with different skins.
I had a dream where this was removed:
“2.17: Apps that browse the web must use the iOS WebKit framework and WebKit Javascript” #ItsTime— Dion Almaer (@dalmaer) March 19, 2016
But there won’t be any anti-trust case here.
I think it’s a real shame. Partly, I think it’s a shame because as a developer, I see an Operating System being let down by its browser. But mostly, I think it’s a shame because I use an iPhone and I’m being let down by its browser.
It’s kind of ironic, because when the iPhone first launched, it was all about the web apps. Remember, there was no App Store for the first year of the iPhone’s life. If you wanted to build an app, you had to use web technologies. Apple were ahead of their time. Alas, the web technologies weren’t quite up to the task back in 2007. These days, though, there are web technologies landing in browsers that are truly game-changing.
In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m very excited about Service Workers. It’s doubly exciting to see the efforts the Chrome on Android team are making to make the web a first-class citizen. As Remy put it:
If I add this app to my home screen, it will work when I open it.
I’d like to be able to use Chrome, Firefox, or Opera on my iPhone — real Chrome, real Firefox, or real Opera; not a skinned version of Safari. Right now the only way for me to switch browsers is to switch phones. Switching phones is a pain in the ass, but I’m genuinely considering it.
Whereas I’m all talk, Henrik has taken action. Like me, he doesn’t actually care about the Operating System. He cares about the browser:
Android itself bores me, honestly. There’s nothing all that terribly new or exciting here.’
save one very important detail…
IT’S CURRENTLY THE BEST MOBILE WEB APP PLATFORM
That’s true for now. The pole position for which browser is “best” is bound to change over time. The point is that locking me into one particular browser on my phone doesn’t sit right with me. It’s not very …webby.
I’m sure that Apple are not quaking in their boots at the thought of myself or Henrik switching phones. We are minuscule canaries in a very niche mine.
But what should give Apple pause for thought is the user experience they can offer for using the web. If they gain a reputation for providing a sub-par web experience compared to the competition, then maybe they’ll have to make the web a first-class citizen.
If I want to work towards that, switching phones probably won’t help. But what might help is following Alex’s advice in his answer to the question “What do we do about Safari?”:
What we do about Safari is we make websites amazing …and then they can’t not implement.
I’ll be doing it here on adactio, over on The Session (and Huffduffer when I get around to overhauling it), making progressively enhanced, accessible, offline-first, performant websites.
I’ll also be doing it at Clearleft. If you work at an organisation that wants a progressively-enhanced, accessible, offline-first, performant website, we should talk.
This was originally posted on my own site.
