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A comment on Apple has made it difficult to use web-based technology on its platforms. Parent comment

Re:Apple has made it difficult to use web-based technology o... by st3fan on Friday November 08, 2019 @05:50PM (#21487744)
Let’s be clear: they are important APIs that would allow non-Safari (WKWebView based really) browsers be competitive on macOS.
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Re:Apple has made it difficult to use web-based technology o... by jsjohnst on Friday November 08, 2019 @06:16PM (#21487933)
If GP is correct, that’s not the case. They are important APIs for someone who wants to maintain their cross-platform abstraction layer without muddying up their codebase.
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Re:Apple has made it difficult to use web-based technology o... by threeseed on Friday November 08, 2019 @06:18PM (#21487948)
This comment makes no sense to me.

How are Firefox and Chrome not competitive given that Safari isn't the overwhelmingly dominant browser ?

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Re:Apple has made it difficult to use web-based technology o... by st3fan on Friday November 08, 2019 @06:42PM (#21488152)
They are now because they both use those APIs. You can read about the impact of this specific one here:

https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2019/10/22/dramatically-red...

Before using those private APIs, with no other options to reach the same performance as Safari, both Chrome and Firefox were in a completely different league.

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Re:Apple has made it difficult to use web-based technology o... by threeseed on Friday November 08, 2019 @08:03PM (#21488725)
It is ridiculous to say that Chrome/Firefox are only popular now because they use private APIs.

Your own article says that Firefox only recently started using them.

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Re:Apple has made it difficult to use web-based technology o... by jolux on Friday November 08, 2019 @07:26PM (#21488483)
CALayer and IOSurface are not private...
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Re:Apple has made it difficult to use web-based technology o... by Null-Set on Friday November 08, 2019 @08:03PM (#21488729)
CALayerHost and CAContext were listed in the offending apis in this rejection of an electron app https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/20027
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Re:Apple has made it difficult to use web-based technology o... by kalleboo on Friday November 08, 2019 @11:06PM (#21489520)
Firefox does not use CALayerHost. It uses the public IOSurface and CALayer.contents APIs.

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2019/11/04/electron-apps-rejected-fr...

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Re:Apple has made it difficult to use web-based technology o... by jolux on Friday November 08, 2019 @08:20PM (#21488829)
Are those mentioned in the Mozilla post?
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Re:Apple has made it difficult to use web-based technology o... by yoz-y on Friday November 08, 2019 @06:33PM (#21488076)
“On macOS” is the important part. Safari is by far the most battery friendly browser there and quite possibly has significant market share too. Mozilla has recently managed to reduce their consumption significantly using these APIs: https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2019/10/22/dramatically-red...
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Re:Apple has made it difficult to use web-based technology o... by darklion on Friday November 08, 2019 @06:24PM (#21487999)
Which Apple may keep private for any number of reasons, none of which have to do with hobbling competitors, nor is it proven that Safari uses these particular APIs to gain a performance advantage for itself in any way whatsoever.

So you’re basically just talking out your ass, saying that Apple should open up APIs that have always been private for the sole purpose of helping a competitor who knowingly adopted them in violation of platform rules.

“Yes, officer, I broke the law. But I think, now that I’ve broken it, you should just abolish the particular laws that I broke because some people think I’m a big deal.”

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