Apple's HTML5 and Standards Gallery Not Standard

snitch writes "Apple has created an HTML5 Showcase that presents its vision for the next generation of the WWW. The fact that this page is only accessible using the Safari browser, while Apple advocates about web standards, has caused many to criticize the company's lack of broader platform support. The showcase demonstrates several HTML5 capabilities and features that have to do with video, typography, transitions, audio, etc. Further, on the front page the company states that 'Standards aren't add-ons to the web. They are the web. And you can start using them today.' The latter statement falls short by the fact that the featured examples only work with the Safari browser, and in the case of the CSS 3D transforms demonstration, require Mac OS X Snow Leopard (Safari PC or plain Leopard won't do)."

Comments

Chrome

[bbqsrc]

Worked for me in Chrome.

Re:Chrome

[f3rret]

No it didn't. I use chrome and I got a 'download safari' dialog box when I tried to view any of the showcases.

Re:Chrome

[Alex Zepeda]

Except that they're not.

From http://developer.apple.com/safaridemos/gallery.php

By animating the -webkit-transform CSS property in your code, you can enable hardware-accelerated animations and deliver a top-notch experience in web pages on iPad and iPhone.

* Photos are positioned with -webkit-transform.

* The spotlight effect is drawn with -webkit-gradient.

Those aren't standards. Those are propietary CSS extensions.

Re:Chrome

[Snover]

css3-transform is not proprietary. Nor is css3-images, which describes gradient properties. The reason that these properties are implemented using the -webkit- prefix is because these standards have not reached candidate recommendation status and are still subject to change. A vendor prefix doesn’t mean “proprietary”—it means “experimental”. Once the standard reaches final recommendation status, which can only occur once two independent implementations have been created, then the vendor prefixes will be dropped.

For what it’s worth, there are a good number of people within the development community that are not happy with vendor prefixes, but it is the best option that currently exists to ensure that incompatible implementations do not use the same property name.

Re:Chrome

[shutdown -p now]

The point is that "other browsers", by and large, actually support HTML5 better than Safari.

Re:Chrome

[shutdown -p now]

I thought you were talking about the ancientweb when Netscape roamed the net and sites held out signs like "Explorers only, we don't serve nomads here".

Ancient days were when many sites held out signs like "Netscape Navigator required", pissing off IE users to no end.

Re:It works in Safari...

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, yeah Apple considering you can't even access the demos with anything other than Safari. Repeat, you cannot even try them because it gives you a Download Safari popup. It won't let you in. So it's not that other browsers aren't HTML5 compatible (Chrome) it's that Apple won't even let you try.

Re:Standards and "Standards"

[Draek]

Yeah. With their desire to subvert industry standards for their own gain, their love for releasing overpriced, crippled and locked-in products and their ability to convince their fanboys that Big Brother Knows Better(tm), Apple is more like the v2.0 of the '80s IBM than Microsoft or Adobe.

Re:Shows why HTML5 is not ready to replace flash

[Skal Tura]

Flash uses pixels just like everything else too.

The thing is, Safari hasn't implemented sub-pixel calculations yet, thus you get that "jerkyness". That "pixel world" you meantion really means lack of sub-pixel calculation and only means lackluster implementation.

Re:A hard choice

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

that's not the point. The point is they advertise this as standards demo, not Safari demo.

No they clearly advertise this as a demo of Safari, and it's support for HTML5. Here's the text:

HTML5 Showcase The demos below show how the latest version of Apple’s Safari web browser, new Macs, and new Apple mobile devices all support the capabilities of HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. Not all browsers offer this support. But soon other modern browsers will take advantage of these same web standards — and the amazing things they enable web designers to do.

They specifically call out this as a demo of what they've implemented in Safari so far.

Ie[sic]. saying Safari is the only standards compliant browser, just like Microsoft telling IE is standards compliant.

No they actually state that "Not all browsers offer this support" which very, very strongly implies that some other browsers do offer this support. They go on to briefly mention how other modern browsers are adding support for HTML5 features so everyone will be able to use these new standards.

Re:Developer Link

[aitan]

If you bother to follow the link and click on any of the demos, you'll see that it opens a page with a description, and when you click the "view demo" button, you get the SAME message stating that you need Safari to view some HTML5 demos.

Re:Developer Link

[perryizgr8]

http://developer.apple.com/safaridemos/ doesn't work, too. shows the same "you have to get safari". atleast you could have opened the link in firefox before posting.