Apple desires to know why you hate Safari
An Apple evangelist and developer advocate took to Twitter Wednesday to ask customers what bugs them about Safari. While some have been congenial, others have been open about their distaste for the browser.
An Apple worker who advocates for Safari builders acquired an eyeful after taking to Twitter to ask customers for suggestions on why the Safari browser is unpopular and to ask that they level out particular points with it.
Jen Simmons, an Apple evangelist and developer advocate on the Web Developer Experience workforce for Safari and WebEquipment, was clearly greatly surprised by the responses.
“Catching up with tech Twitter this morning and there seems to be an angry pocket of men who really want Safari to just go away,” Simmons tweeted. “Do we really want to live in a 95% Chromium browser world? That would be a horrible future for the web. We need more voices, not fewer.”
Jen Simmons, a developer advocate on the Web Developer Experience workforce for Safari, requested for consumer views on the Apple browser.
Unlike some rival browsers, equivalent to Mozilla’s Firefox, Apple’s updates to Safari are sparse, with main upgrades simply every year. So the majority of recent options are sometimes rolled out in a single occasion. While which may be interesting for some who dislike frequent browser updates, it additionally means upgrades and/or fixes for Safari don’t come typically.
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In current years, nonetheless, Safari has borne a raft of complaints concerning the browser’s bugs, consumer interface and expertise, and web site compatibility, in accordance with MacRumors.
Last June, Apple unveiled a considerable redesign for Safari on the firm’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC). Many of these modifications, nonetheless, have been met with fast criticism describing them as “counterintuitive.”
Apple went by way of a number of iterations of the browser through the summer time — each on cellular gadgets and desktops — and allowed customers to largely revert to the earlier Safari design previous to the discharge of iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and macOS Monterey.
The developer has additionally continued to work on privateness enhancements in Safari because it seeks to realize market share within the enterprise. For instance, within the present model of iOS 14.5 (in beta), Apple has been engaged on altering how Safari accesses Google’s Safe Browsing service. The Safe Browsing service warns customers once they go to a fraudulent web site. Through that service, Apple points “Fraudulent Website Warning” alerts for iOS and iPadOS gadgets.
While Safari, the native browser on Apple gadgets, has a major variety of customers — particularly on the iPhone and iPad — Google’s Chrome has change into the de facto browser for many with about 64% of the month-to-month consumer share, in accordance with W3Counter, an online visitors monitoring service. Safari is available in a distant second with 16.5% of net visitors. Internet Explorer/Edge is available in third with 6.1% of the visitors, and Firefox and Opera claimed 4% and 1.4%, respectively.
Web visitors tracker Net MarketShare is extra beneficiant to Safari; it pegged Chrome’s consumer share at 56%, Safari at 38%, and Firefox at 5%.
While Safari could also be in second place for utilization, it appeared at instances to come back in final place for likability primarily based on responses to Simmons’ question.
“Everyone in my mentions [is] saying Safari is the worst, it is the brand new IE,” Simmons tweeted.
Hoping to unravel the anger, Simmons requested Twitter customers to level to particular bugs and lacking help that frustrate them or make it more durable for them to create web sites or apps. “Bonus points for links to tickets,” she wrote.
“Specifics we can fix. Vague hate is honestly super counterproductive,” she added.
While some, like @emoryzanef, espoused “love” for Safari, additionally they voiced frustration that it has change into buggy.
“I really like [S]afari,” wrote Emory Fierlinger, an online designer and developer. “Switched years in the past. Unfortunately recently its change into so buggy that I’ve began looking for options. I take advantage of @webflow rather a lot, and it simply performs higher in chromium primarily based browsers. Not positive if it’s a fault of theirs or Safari’s….”
Fierlinger additionally complained that sure pop-ups have been annoying, and scrolling whereas in Safari produces a jittery, “janky” display screen.
Another Twitter consumer, @epintobasto, complained Safari does not “help Metamask or every other crypto pockets. Hope the crypto group adopts Safari in MacOS and iOS.”
Simmons requested customers who discover bugs which can be a number of years outdated and haven’t been fastened to contact her utilizing a bugs.webkit.org hyperlink or through feedbackassistant.Apple.com.
“I’d like to look into it,” she wrote.