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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)."

87 of 527 comments (clear)

  1. Chrome by bbqsrc · · Score: 5, Informative

    Worked for me in Chrome.

    --
    Disagree != mod troll.
    1. Re:Chrome by f3rret · · Score: 3, Informative

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

      --
      Admit nothing. Deny Everything. Make Counter-accusations.
    2. Re:Chrome by Taagehornet · · Score: 2

      I don't know about Chrome, but it definitely works on Android (HTC Desire), front-page as well as the individual demos. So whatever bug Apple may have had in their browser detection code has apparently been fixed by now - at least partly.

    3. Re:Chrome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Hmm, why should I have to?

      Every new Apple mobile device and every new Mac -- along with the latest version of Apple's Safari web browser -- supports web standards including HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. These web standards are open, reliable, highly secure, and efficient. They allow web designers and developers to create advanced graphics, typography, animations, and transitions. Standards aren't add-ons to the web. They are the web. And you can start using them today.

      The way they say it, makes it seem that you know any HTML5 enabled browser should run HTML5 enabled content.

    4. Re:Chrome by ShadowEFX · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes, it did. Many of them also work in Opera. You're just - no offense - too stupid to change your browser's User Agent string so that it identifies itself as Safari, which is the only thing these demos check for.

      You are - no offense - an arrogant prick who has missed the point. They claim to advocate standards across the intarwebs for all, putting up a page to view a new whiz-bang standard, but are forcing you to either download their browser, or take (what are to normal users) extraordinary means, to view the content.

      Ability to change the User Agent has nothing at all to do with anything in this case.

    5. Re:Chrome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Or how about I DON'T?

      This is an interoperability demo, dumbass!

      Which means that Firefox's "failing" is really Apple's own epic fail.

    6. Re:Chrome by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You seem to be missing the point: The fact that UA spoofing works is generally proof of either laziness or malice. Laziness is certainly common enough(remember the good old days when large numbers of sites would shriek for IE; but render just fine if FF was set to IE's UA string?); but malice also occurs from time to time(The old Opera/MSN story, for instance).

      In this case, the fact that Apple is just UA sniffing is shabby at best. Just checking for feature support isn't rocket surgery. Neither would be sending the least interesting summer intern to test the demos on a couple of other browsers that are likely to work and accepting those UAs as well. The fact that their "HTML5 demo" is just "transparent Safari propaganda" isn't illegal or anything; but talking up "web standards" and then hardcoding your demo to only work with your browser doesn't exactly scream "intellectual honesty"...

    7. Re:Chrome by Cryacin · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'd of bought an iPad if it ran flash. I will not be buying another iPhone, as it does not run flash. I will never buy another piece of apple anything because Jobs is a narcissistic prick, who's only trying to wall everyone into his magic garden named the iStore at the cost of splintering the web.

      Good lord let's get some universal standards in place, no matter what the hell they are.

      --
      Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
    8. Re:Chrome by MrNaz · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Criticizing Apple for making a showcase of what they can do with standards not comply with standard browsers is trolling?! What does Apple have to do for fanboys to realize that they are just another GenericBigCompany(tm) who will rape you to death if they thought it'd add 1% to their quarterly bottom line?

      Trolling... Indeed... *shakes head*

      --
      I hate printers.
    9. Re:Chrome by Low+Ranked+Craig · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I ran the entire demo in Chrome and I had issues with the video, which is to be expected at this point, because they still can't pick a standard, and the CSS3 3-D transforms which I don't understand because Chrome supports 3-D transforms.

      open /Applications/Google\ Chrome.app --args -user-agent="Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10_6_3; en-us) AppleWebKit/531.22.7 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Safari/531.22.7"

      In this case I think Apple is right to limit the demo to Safari, because at this point not even Chrome works for all the demos. I don't like everything that Apple does, but in this case what are they supposed to do? Due to no standard being set on video, no other browser will properly render the demos. I do question what the deal with the CSS is.

      Remember, this page is a showcase of Apple's products based on the not completely baked HTML 5 standard - it is not a general HTML 5 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.

      I think the submitter is twisting the purpose of the html5 page on apple.com, and there is a whole lot of piling on Apple in this discussion without any real basis. Again, right there on the page it says this that it shows how Apple's latest products support HTML 5. It doesn't say that apple.com supports the latest version of Firefox or IE.

      --
      I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
    10. Re:Chrome by Dracker · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It actually means one very important thing: The demos Apple are using actually are standard, by and large, and that it is only Apple being dicks preventing other users of browsers from enjoying the content, not actual incompatibility at the browser level.

    11. Re:Chrome by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Criticizing Apple for making a showcase of what they can do with standards not comply with standard browsers is trolling?!

      How does it not comply with standards? Sure it filters users by agent string, but lots of Web sites do that. It's not non-standard at all.

      What does Apple have to do for fanboys to realize that they are just another GenericBigCompany(tm) who will rape you to death if they thought it'd add 1% to their quarterly bottom line?

      This is the strawman logical fallacy paired with the implicit statement fallacy. You implicitly state in your question that fanboys don't realize Apple is simply profit minded. Since no one but you made that statement, it's just a strawman.

      We're talking about Apple's demo of some new portions of the spec that are in the process of becoming a standard. Sure they want to do that because it will profit them in the long run, but the organic farmer down the street only works in the field because it will profit him in the long run. Just because someone is working for a profit does not mean what they're doing is "evil" or not beneficial to me, or for that matter that I don't realize they're working for a profit.

    12. Re:Chrome by Runaway1956 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      chromium-browser --user-agent="Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X 10_5_8; en-us) AppleWebKit/531.22.7 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Safari/531.22.7"

      You have to change the user agent string, for any of it to work. There is no GUI method for doing so with Chromium. Modify as needed if you're on a Microsoft operating system.

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    13. Re:Chrome by Alex+Zepeda · · Score: 3, Informative
      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.

      --
      The revolution will be mocked
    14. Re:Chrome by Snover · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

      --

      [insert witty comment here]
    15. Re:Chrome by hairyfeet · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Actually I'm afraid it is you who are mistaken, although I won't call you names. If you would have clicked on the first link you would have seen a massive banner that reads "HTML 5 and web standards". Now if "web standards" only work on OSX, we might as well say that IE6 quirks mode is the standard the web should be based on.

      The WHOLE POINT of having web standards in the first place is so we DON'T end up with another broken web with some things only working for client a, others only on client b. If this page where put out by MSFT, and only worked correctly on IE8 on Windows 7, wouldn't everyone have a fit? Of course they would.

      Look, I really respect old Steve, I really do. He took a company on life support and brought them not only back from the dead, but back to the top of the heap. And I understand to a point why he wants to make everything only work the way he wants it to and that is because he wants to control the experience, so that everything "just works" the way he designed it. I get that. But what we have to be careful of is his "vision" polluting web standards so that the ONLY way to get the full web is HIS way. We have already been down that road with MSFT and IE6, just because old Steve is good at making iShiny doesn't mean we should head down that road again, okay?

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    16. Re:Chrome by EriDay · · Score: 4, Insightful

      In this case I think Apple is right to limit the demo to Safari, because at this point not even Chrome works for all the demos. I don't like everything that Apple does, but in this case what are they supposed to do? Due to no standard being set on video, no other browser will properly render the demos. I do question what the deal with the CSS is. Remember, this page is a showcase of Apple's products based on the not completely baked HTML 5 standard - it is not a general HTML 5 showcase:

      If we are to accept what you say then the following can't be true:

      Standards aren't add-ons to the web. They are the web. And you can start using them today.

      Standards aren't standards if they're not standard.

    17. Re:Chrome by bennomatic · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      Likewise, it is not a standard, then. If people code their pages to fit what Apple are currently touting as a standard, they will find in many cases that once the standards are solidified, they will have to recode to ensure cross-browser. support.

      --
      The CB App. What's your 20?
    18. Re:Chrome by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 3, Informative

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

    19. Re:Chrome by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 3, Informative

      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.

    20. Re:Chrome by Low+Ranked+Craig · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Standards aren't standards if they're not standard.

      Not sure what your point is. Apple's point at face value is that you can start using their products to start browsing HTML5/CSS3 sites today. If one company implements the agreed to standard and other companies don't that doesn't make the standard a non-standard...

      I opened the page in Chrome and it didn't work 100%. Now, if you want to analyze Apple's source and point out where their site breaks standards, that would be something more interesting

      You might have missed this bit as well:

      Not all browsers offer this support. But soon other modern browsers will take advantage of these same web standards

      --
      I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
    21. Re:Chrome by Alex+Zepeda · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Woosh. Vendor prefixes are all good and well, but they're *not standard*.

      --
      The revolution will be mocked
    22. Re:Chrome by toddestan · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The site can't break standards because there isn't a standard to break yet for HTML5/CSS3. All it really is just Apple showing what they think the standard should look like. However, it doesn't seem to stop Apple from claiming that their version is the "standard".

  2. Standards and "Standards" by allo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Apple is Microsoft 2.0

    1. Re:Standards and "Standards" by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 5, Funny

      Apple is Microsoft 2.0

      When they hit Microsoft 3.1, they will have finally achieved a usable level of evilness.

    2. Re:Standards and "Standards" by DaMattster · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I am starting to agree. Microsoft is looking less evil now. In fact, they provided some generous assistance last summer to Samba 4 developement. They helped the Samba 4 developers figure out why DRS (Directory Replication Services) was not working.

    3. Re:Standards and "Standards" by Draek · · Score: 3, Informative

      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.

      --
      No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
    4. Re:Standards and "Standards" by drinkypoo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You say "less evil". I say "more scared". If Microsoft is working on interoperability, you know they're frightened of becoming irrelevant. Of course, helping Samba will severely cut into their share of the server market, because Samba4's unreadiness is still selling Windows licenses, but perhaps they're expecting to fail there anyway.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    5. Re:Standards and "Standards" by jo_ham · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It was a demo designed to show off HTML5 and also promote Safari.

      It was Webkit-specific CSS, which is a little funny in a demo designed to show off full web standards, but targeted engine CSS is not unique. One of the benefits of stylesheets is you can send specific CSS to different browsers. If the demo were tuned to Firefox, it would easily have delivered Gecko-specific CSS instead. As it is, they decided to use a user agent block, which was not all that great (the bulk of the talk is about the block, rather than the demo), when they should have just warned that the demos might fail on other browsers.

      A properly designed website won't need to say "requires Safari or better" it'll just give the right stylesheet to the right browser. As long as they all support the (eventual) final HTML5 standard (and appropriate CSS), you can tailor a site to your browser.

      Perhaps the ultimate goal is platform independence, but even with CSS2 and HTML4 that was just never on the cards.

      Should there be engine-specific CSS? Ideally no, but all of the engines have it. It's up to the site designers themselves how they use the tools they have though - you don't have to use the specific stuff.

      In the case of this demo, it might just be stopgap while they work on the generic html5 implementation - on the other demo someone posted below, Safari has some trouble with a couple of the generic ones, usually related to external borders. Who knows. It's all a bit up in the air until everything is finalised.

    6. Re:Standards and "Standards" by jo_ham · · Score: 2, Informative

      Citations please.

      What makes it erroneous?

      Other than the original iTunes music (which had DRM at the RIAA's insistence, but is now gone) and iTunes movies (with still have DRM due to the movie studios), Apple's data formats are open.

      You have mbox for email, documented XML for their iWork and iLife apps, AAC for audio, H.264 for video, .ics for calendars, vcard for address book, human readable plist files, support for NFS out of the box, CUPS for printing, use of png for screencapture format by default...

      I think your anonymous anti-apple nerd rage is blinding you to reality.

      So, if you would like to attempt a proper response (and not posting AC is a good start - tends to look better), then I'd like to hear of some cases where Apple makes it hard to move your data into and out of Apple systems.

    7. Re:Standards and "Standards" by coaxial · · Score: 2, Funny

      Well Microsoft is also irrelevant.

      Hating Microsoft today is like hating Prussia.

    8. Re:Standards and "Standards" by BatGnat · · Score: 4, Funny

      It is only fair! Andrew Tridgell, helped them understand their own SMB protocol.

    9. Re:Standards and "Standards" by jo_ham · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Why can't I just drop my game's C code into an HTML wrapper and have it work? Is your "better" UI in flash better than a native widget set provided by the OS your app is running on?

      Also, I assume your Flash app is going to "run" on those android phones with no flash support, right?

      We're not arguing that Apple is strongly vertically integrated - this is clearly the case, but you data is free to move in and out.

      Your core C code is portable - you can take it right over to Android, and just connect it up to native UI widgets. For your email you just take your mbox files with you if you don;t want to use Apple's Mail app any more (unlike, say Outlook .pst files). If you don't want to use iWork all your files are easy to convert since they are fully documented XML files (unlike, say .docx), if you don't want to keep using iTunes for your music you can just move it to any music software that supports AAC (an open standard that Apple does not control).

      This HTML5 demo is DEMONSTRATING WHAT SAFARI CAN DO WITH HTML5, which is why YOU NEED TO USE SAFARI - it is not a generic HTML5 demo suite for your browser of choice - there are plenty of those out there. You're trying to equate this demo page with some overarching "Apple wants to close off the web" mantra, which is simply not the case.

      You can view the page by changing the UA string, but some of the demos might break. That was not the intent of the demo - the purpose is to show what Safari can do with the state of it's HTML5 support to this point (as far as possible with the draft standard).

  3. A very nice HTML5+CSS3 demo that actually works by Superken7 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yeah, HTML5 is the future and as soon as we get rid of flash the better, but if you are going to try and show how its done, then do it right or don't do it at all, Apple.

    Have a look at this: http://apirocks.com/html5/html5.html#slide1

    This is a very nice demo that doesn't tell you to get XYZ browser. Sure, some parts might not work at all if you are not running on the latest chrome or webkit browser, but most demos work and I find it to be a nicer way of doing things (IMHO).

    (This was part of a presentation done by some googlers about HTML5 a few months ago)

    1. Re:A very nice HTML5+CSS3 demo that actually works by Cryacin · · Score: 2, Insightful

      HTML5 will be great! It will just take about 5-10 years for all the other browsers to adopt the standards carefully laid out today.

      hmmm... I wonder what the web will look like in 5-10 years?

      --
      Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
    2. Re:A very nice HTML5+CSS3 demo that actually works by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Works fine on Opera, but whats impressive about it? It does not have a preloader nor transitions nor custom design. Flash can do the same since flash 5?

      And you've been able to do the same thing with Silverlight and numerous other plug-ins... not with native HTML. That's what is impressive. Functionality using standards and not proprietary plug-ins.

      HTML5 is not the future, it's a probable future, really really think if you'd like to support HTML5 when this show[sic] us that Apple have an agenda there, You think the web will be "more free (tm)" if Apple gets to decide what is a standard?

      Apple has an agenda? What agenda is that, beyond making HTML5 more functional and useful for media and Web apps? And how does Apple decide what is the standard when they're one of several major companies contributing to the creation of it? You might as well say it's Google or Mozilla deciding the standard, as that has just as much support.

    3. Re:A very nice HTML5+CSS3 demo that actually works by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 2, Insightful

      HTML5 will be great! It will just take about 5-10 years for all the other browsers to adopt the standards carefully laid out today.

      Thanks to Google, I don't think so. There are a lot of big players pushing hard at getting these adopted. MS will be a holdout as much as they can, but losing share in mobile Web use and overseas browsers share combined with Google's Chrome plug-in will make them much less able to pull it off. Web standards have stagnated a long time because of MS, but times are changing.

  4. Re:It works in Safari... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  5. A hard choice by Shin-LaC · · Score: 4, Insightful

    HTML5 is still a work in progress. They could have made a demo that only uses those features which are already widely supported, but it wouldn't have been as impressive. Or they could have made a demo that uses the latest bleeding-edge proposals for HTML5, and let it fail on most people's browsers - perhaps even worse.
    Given that it's meant to be a showcase of things to come, it makes sense to require you to use the one browser that currently works with it. Even Mozilla sometimes releases demos that require the latest Firefox beta to test. Using browser sniffing to enforce it is certainly bad form, but they probably thought that otherwise people would just click through, see a broken demo, and not even realize they aren't seeing what they're meant to see. Hopefully they'll relax the restriction once (if) more browsers implement support for these proposed new features.

    1. Re:A hard choice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      On Snow Leopard, the demos work on Chrome 5.0.375.55 (latest official version) - I didn't even get a pop-up. The demos don't run as well as on Safari but most of them do work.

    2. Re:A hard choice by tsa · · Score: 5, Funny

      They should have made a demo in Flash so everyone could see it.

      --

      -- Cheers!

    3. Re:A hard choice by Skal+Tura · · Score: 3, Insightful

      that's not the point. The point is they advertise this as standards demo, not Safari demo. Ie. saying Safari is the only standards compliant browser, just like Microsoft telling IE is standards compliant.

    4. Re:A hard choice by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

    5. Re:A hard choice by tronbradia · · Score: 2, Insightful
      It would be nice if they were this well-meaning, but they're not. Actually they do have a version of the same showcase that doesn't do a browser check: in the developer's page.

      This is the showcase that checks your browser:
      http://www.apple.com/html5/
      On that same page, scroll down and click on "Developers: Learn how to do it yourself," which I'm surprised no slashdotters have clicked on yet. It brings you to a new version of the gallery:
      http://developer.apple.com/safaridemos/
      Which is exactly the same, except it works on Google Chrome, and presumably any standards-compliant browser. My bet is, it actually does feature-sniffing, although I haven't checked (everything works fine in Chrome).

      The message is clear: Are you a consumer? If so, Apple has the world's best browser which does all kinds of fancy stuff your browser doesn't.

      ...Oh wait, you mean you're a developer? Oh actually just kidding this is all standards compliant, any browser can do this stuff, how great is that?

    6. Re:A hard choice by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 2, Interesting

      What Apple should've done is written something like Microsoft's IE9 HTML5 demos [microsoft.com] that actually work in multiple browsers, and maybe just linked to it from their developer portal.

      Umm, Apple does link to all of these without the user agent filtering from their developer site. They also just posted these so Safari users could come take a look.

      I suspect they've tried to be too clever and shot themselves in the foot in this little 'standards' skirmish...

      Actually they tried to be open and cutting edge, but people with a chip on their shoulder insist on bashing them here, although I'm not sure why. The number of slanted summaries and absurdly negative interpretations make me wonder if it is an astroturf campaign.

    7. Re:A hard choice by e4g4 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      HTML5 is still a work in progress. They could have made a demo that only uses those features which are already widely supported, but it wouldn't have been as impressive.

      Spot on. This is a Safari demo - they appear to be desperately trying to demonstrate why they aren't allowing Flash on their iDevices. At the very bottom of the page, there are two image/link thingys, one that says "iPad Ready" and another that says "Thoughts on Flash". Apple's goal here was to provide the shiniest, flashiest (but not Flashiest) html 5 demonstration they possible could, and only show it to the browser that will render it all perfectly. They're using published standards, that other browsers can (and probably will, eventually) support, and they're publishing the source code for all of the demos.

      I really don't understand what all the vitriol is about on this thread. When your browser of choice can do the things with HTML 5 that Safari can in these demos, you'll be thrilled. What the hell is wrong with Apple pushing open standards? Okay - I get that the h.264 standard, while in some senses open, has some issues, but still - isn't this a good thing? Isn't it good for everyone that Apple is using some of that mountain of money they're sitting on to push an open standard, and at the very least reduce the necessity of the beast that is Flash?

      --
      The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. - Albert Einstein
    8. Re:A hard choice by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 2, Funny

      I know, I know! Let's write an HTML5 renderer in Flash!

  6. Apple's just pushing existing standards by Oceanplexian · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Apple tends to take standards that are in their infancy, and make them mainstream.

    I don't see anything wrong with this, other than it making other browsers like FF3 look like they haven't been innovating.

  7. some works in firefox with user agent switcher by modestgeek · · Score: 2, Informative

    Some of this (about a third) worked for me in Firefox with the user agent switcher add on. The default user agent switcher doesn't include safari but you can import them from the following URL. http://techpatterns.com/forums/about304.html

    1. Re:some works in firefox with user agent switcher by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yeah but not fully, when viewing a video example under WebKit nightly I got a perspective switch that was not event present in Safari 4.

      I really recommend downloading Safari 4 or even WebKit nightly (sorry Chrome users, no transform3D for you) and trying those demos, it is pretty neat, something to get really exited about.

      Oh, and as for the QuickTime thing on windows machines, Safari uses it to handle html5 media playback, same as iTunes uses it for its media.

  8. Shows why HTML5 is not ready to replace flash by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    1) Select the Typography demo
    2) Select "Pincoya Black fonts"
    3) Enter a couple of lines of lower case "o" (they are underlined)
    4) Rotate slowly so you see the step by step motion

    What you'll see: spacing between each "o" varies at each rotation step, and you can see "steps" in the underlining. That wouldn't happen with flash.

    Basically while the fonts are anti-aliased, the position of each letter is computed as an integer. In flash, every coordinate is computed in floating point.

    Welcome back to pixel world.

    1. Re:Shows why HTML5 is not ready to replace flash by Skal+Tura · · Score: 3, Informative

      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.

  9. Re:It works in Safari... by MrMr · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If that were true you might have a point. But this is just Apple being the biggest company in IT. I checked the canvas pixel manipulation and the 360 deg demo on Linux x86_64 with firefox by faking a safari 4 user-agent string.
    I'd say Microsoft 2.0 is quite to the point.

  10. Its Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Once again Slashdot jumps to conclusions. The showcase is to promote Safari not web standards. The way the write up reads is that these are the web standards, and these are what they can do. Its blatant in the second paragraph, "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." that they are promoting Safari and not web standards. This our toy and this is why it works better then yours is the message. Its Apple. If Apple were not so full of themselves all the time I'd think they were not following their mission statement. Showing me web standards that no one has implemented yet and only works on your browser is akin to giving me a 100 GHz processor writing a really graphics heavy OS (that only you sell), and has no application base, when the rest of the world has Windows 3.1.

    1. Re:Its Apple by jedidiah · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Not quite.

      This was supposed to be an HTML5 demo served up with a heaping helping of FUD.

      "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."

      Their nonsense with browser sniffing is clearly a crass attempt to perpetrate a fraud on the unsuspecting user. They want to give the false impression that no one else supports this stuff. They want to create the myth of your "100Ghz" supermachine when the reality is quite different.

      Apple is indeed the new Microsoft: Microsoft 2.0.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  11. Re:Selling mine by jo_ham · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What DRM? Do you have movies on it from the iTunes store?

  12. Re:It works in Safari... by Dogun · · Score: 2, Funny

    Which in turn was given to us by an Apple engineer with a time machine.

    Take that, causality!

  13. Apple's the next microsoft by bl8n8r · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Not the popular opinion, but think about it. M$ started out the same way.
    - Get people hooked on the new-exciting-and-different (windows 3.1)
    - you were a Luddite if you weren't adopting it
    - People that new almost *nothing* about computers could "use" a computer

    After the customer base was established, Microsoft Works came in and locked everyone into a proprietary format (they didn't know better). This was followed by Excel, Word and Access, and then Exchange.

    Apple is taking the same road and once again people who don't know they don't know, don't know.

    --
    boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
    1. Re:Apple's the next microsoft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yeah, except that Apple's not locking anyone into any proprietary formats. HTML5, seriously? It's not proprietary. It's still in development, and not widely supported, but not proprietary.

  14. Exactly by copponex · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The hypocrisy can be summed up on that single page:

    Apple CEO Steve Jobs explains why iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad do not support Flash and why open standards are the future of the web.

    This demo was designed with the latest web standards supported by Safari. If you’d like to experience this demo, simply download Safari.

    The next keynote should just have two massive murals of Stalin flanking the podium while Big Brother Steve tells you what you'll be allowed to do with your own equipment. And when he announces that they are no longer preventing you from running certain applications, that will become a feature. I guess he did learn a thing or two from Mr. Gates.

  15. Re:http://developer.apple.com/safaridemos/ by pushing-robot · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Not that odd, really. Developers want to bang on things until they break. End users just want things to work. Ergo, the dev site lets you try the demos in any browser, while the end user site makes sure you have a browser that supports the demos 100%.

    Why this is a story I have no idea. Mozilla, Google, and the WebKit team have been adding non-standard features and making tech demos that only work on specific versions of their own browser for years, but no one thinks they're trying to fragment the industry. Apple puts a browser detect on a page to ensure an end user demo works without a hiccup and geeks everywhere are up in arms. Go figure.

    --
    How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
  16. Re:It works in Safari... by drinkypoo · · Score: 2, Informative

    Yeah, like it's possible to do. But just think about it - WebKit was forked from KHTML is 1998. Were you using a web browser in 1998?

    I was using Mosaic on Linux back when you had to have Motif and build it yourself.

    It should be ENTIRELY possible to figure out where the code came from in WebKit. But keep in mind that it first started with KHTML and further has received significant contributions from a variety of sources. Apple claims only to have done the "majority" of work since the fork. The WebKit Wiki in fact credits other developers for many major features.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  17. How dare Apple advertise their own products! by itsdapead · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Shock! horror! Apple are using their own website to push Safari and claim that their own browsers are ahead of the game on standards support? The bastards!!!

    In large friendly letters on the page in question (my emphasis):

    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.

    Note how that doesn't say "Here's a handy resource to allow you to objectively compare different browsers' HTML 5 implementations"? That is because you are looking at an advert for Safari! As is traditional in these "adverts" it is trying to get you to download and try Safari, not find out how close the competition comes. In other news, if you go to a Mercedes dealership they're not going to offer you test drives in a BMW...

    Wake me up if anybody smart enough to spoof their browser ID finds out whether Apple's demos use undocumented or non-standard features (rather than ones which don't work in Firefox, yet).

    --
    In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
  18. Re:Selling mine by jo_ham · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That's not DRM.

    The device is vertically integrated, and tied to iTunes, but DRM is a very specific term that relates to the "protection" of media content.

    But it's ok, because copyright infringement is the same as piracy right? It's ok to play fast and loose with the definitions when it suits you.

  19. Developer Link by ThrowAwaySociety · · Score: 2, Informative

    At the bottom of every page, there is a link to
    http://developer.apple.com/safaridemos/

    On this page, there are duplicates that are not UA restricted, which you can test with whatever browser you like, and download the implementation code.

    User agent detection is appropriate on the consumer (www.apple) page, since that's an executive summary. Most people on that page are not going to understand why it isn't working, since they don't even know what browser they're using, unless Apple actually bars the door.

    1. Re:Developer Link by aitan · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

    2. Re:Developer Link by perryizgr8 · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

      --
      Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
    3. Re:Developer Link by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      BULLSHIT!

      http://developer.apple.com/safaridemos/typography.php

      You’ll need to download Safari to view this demo.

      This demo was designed with the latest web standards supported by Safari. If you’d like to experience this demo, simply download Safari. It’s free for Mac and PC, and it only takes a few minutes.

      http://developer.apple.com/safaridemos/photo-transitions.php

      You’ll need to download Safari to view this demo.

      This demo was designed with the latest web standards supported by Safari. If you’d like to experience this demo, simply download Safari. It’s free for Mac and PC, and it only takes a few minutes.

      Enough said.

    4. Re:Developer Link by bennomatic · · Score: 4, Insightful
      I see your point, but I think they could have done it better. The warning coud have said...
      • You're not using Safari; do you want to download it?
      • Some of the features being shown off here aren't yet implemented on other browsers, hence this warning. Do you want to go on anyway? [link to go on]

      Beyond that, of course, I've seen it mentioned that it's disingenuous to talk about standards while using webkit-specific tags. While I'm a happy user of many Apple products, I agree with this statement; if Apple are going to make webkit-specific tags, they should have full feature compatibility with their standarized equivalents.

      --
      The CB App. What's your 20?
    5. Re:Developer Link by BooRolla · · Score: 2, Insightful

      those 'developer' links still filter on browser. Why is there so much justification for this?

    6. Re:Developer Link by silanea · · Score: 2, Informative

      Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; WOW64; en-US; rv:1.9.3a5pre) Gecko/20100606 Minefield/3.7a5pre

      Same annoying Safari nag message here. Lame, just lame.

      --
      Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.
  20. Re:Selling mine by Duradin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So DRM has gone the way of "bricked" and "literally" then.

    Maybe the French were on to something with managing their language.

  21. Re:Missing the point by mischi_amnesiac · · Score: 5, Interesting

    http://i.imgur.com/cT08B.png Well, seems like Chrome is more compatible with HTML5 than Safari is, so why limit the demo to Safari only?

    --
    "Die endgueltige Teilung Deutschlands - das ist unser Auftrag." - Chlodwig Poth
  22. Re:Missing the point by Flipao · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's a demo of Safari's HTML 5 capability. Of Course you need safari to use it.

    Frankly that's the equivalent of Microsoft doing an HTML4 showcase on IE6. If you're locking out other browsers you're indeed missing the point of what a standard is for.

  23. Ok, you nerds need to get a clue. by aristotle-dude · · Score: 5, Insightful
    This is a technology showcase by "Apple" for developers targeting the iPhone OS which uses "safari". They added in the user agent sniffing code so that average Apple users stumbling upon the story would not be able to try the demos with an old build of Chrome which did not support everything or other browsers which supported none of it (IE, older builds of Firefox).

    This was the executive summary for general public consumption.

    If you wanted to look at the demos on other browsers, all you had to do was go to the http;//developer.apple.com/safaridemos/ link. Again, not everything will work on non-safari browers but most of them will work on the latest chrome.

    This is all about presenting the technology to the average user in the best light when other browsers are still playing catchup.

    --
    Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
    1. Re:Ok, you nerds need to get a clue. by Trelane · · Score: 2, Informative

      If you wanted to look at the demos on other browsers, all you had to do was go to the http;//developer.apple.com/safaridemos/ link. Again, not everything will work on non-safari browers but most of them will work on the latest chrome.

      Contrast your claim with the dialog which I just got from one of the demos, http://developer.apple.com/safaridemos/video-effects.php (Firefox 3.6.3) when I click on the "View Demo" button:

      You'll need to download Safari to view this demo.

      This demo was designed with the latest web standards supported by Safari. If you'd like to experience this demo, simply download Safari. It's free for Mac and PC, and it only takes a few minutes.

      Or http://developer.apple.com/safaridemos/threesixty.php. http://developer.apple.com/safaridemos/audio.php http://developer.apple.com/safaridemos/canvas-pixel.php So far we're 0 for 4 attempts.

      --

      --
      Given enough personal experience, all stereotypes are shallow.
    2. Re:Ok, you nerds need to get a clue. by aitan · · Score: 2, Informative

      Wrong, the pages at http://developer.apple.com/safaridemos/ also state that Safari is required.

      The average user will think that this "HTML5 thing" is just something of Apple and not a real Standard.

    3. Re:Ok, you nerds need to get a clue. by hkmwbz · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Except the URL is apple.com/html5, and it's titled "HTML5 Showcase" even though it doesn't really use a lot of HTML5, and the purpose of this marketing crap is to give the appearance that Apple is ahead of everyone else, even though, again, it isn't even showing off HTML5.

      --
      Clever signature text goes here.
  24. Re:It works in Safari... by cynyr · · Score: 2

    That page does't do useragent checking, all it does is fail(maybe) on other browsers.

    --
    All of the above was encrypted with a Quad ROT-13 method. Unauthorized decryption is in violation of the DMCA.
  25. Re:Scary - location? by chebucto · · Score: 2, Informative

    See http://www.seamonkey-project.org/doc/2.0/geolocation for a description of the how & why. In short, yes, the geolocation info comes from Google.

    When you visit a location-aware website, SeaMonkey will ask you if you want to share your location.

    If you consent, SeaMonkey gathers information about nearby wireless access points and your computer's IP address. Then SeaMonkey sends this information to the default geolocation service provider, Google Location Services, to get an estimate of your location. That location estimate is then shared with the requesting website.

    If you say that you do not consent, SeaMonkey will not do anything.

    --
    The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary.
  26. This is a violation of Apple's own guidelines by lethe1001 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Back when the iPhone first came out, and people were shrieking for native development, Steve Jobs announced his "sweet spot", which was the ability to write web apps for the thing (??). To support this position, Apple posted on their development site guidelines on best practices for modern web apps. These guidelines specifically advise against using browser sniffing (except under certain rare conditions which are not met here). One should instead use object detection.

    Here are those guidelines. The document lists at length all the reasons not to engage in browser sniffing which are rehashed here. Basically there may be low or no correlation between the information in the user agent string and the browser's abilities. For example all browsers claim to be Mozilla, but it doesn't mean they all have the same feature set as Mozilla's Firefox.

    Apple's developers who wrote this gallery appear not to have read this document, or more generally to understand the purpose of web standards at all. Apple's new HTML5 gallery touts standards, but it flouts all the goals of standards. The point of standards is that we can target a standard, rather than a browser. Apple violates the entire purpose, and deserves censure for this hypocrisy.

  27. Re:It works in Safari... by FilipeMaia · · Score: 2, Informative

    By far Apple ain't biggest in IT, they are way smaller compared to some other companies. Say, HP, Dell, Microsoft, Nokia.

    Apple is the largest company, by market capitalization, from the ones you mentioned.

    • DELL Mkt cap 25.92B
    • Nokia Mkt cap 35.88B
    • HP Mkt cap 107.99B
    • Microsoft Mkt cap 226.02B
    • Apple Mkt cap 232.91B
  28. But Apple took the other fork - no lock-in by SuperKendall · · Score: 3, Insightful

    After the customer base was established, Microsoft Works came in and locked everyone into a proprietary format

    And how is Apple doing this? The webkit tags they are using, work in pretty much any up-to-date webkit browsers - which included Android or just about any other popular mobile device.

    Apple is explicitly not locking you in, instead of going down that road they are strongly promoting a standard (HTML-5) and a powerful rendering engine (Webkit) that anyone can use.

    Where's the locki-n?

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  29. IE5 by flyingfsck · · Score: 2, Funny

    So Microsoft Internet 5 cannot do HTML 5? Damn, who woulda thunk it...

    --
    Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
  30. Mozilla needs to fix their HTML5 support by maccodemonkey · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It was odd seeing a Mozilla dev talking about them fully supporting HTML5. They may support almost as many features, but they all run like ass. Seriously, most HTML5 demos I see on Firefox aren't unusable because some feature isn't implement, but that they are just far too slow.

    Safari's and Chrome's JavaScript engines are running circles around Firefox right now. I don't know why anyone interesting in HTML5 would even bother with Firefox. WebKit is eating their lunch.

  31. Re:Evil moderators by Mr2001 · · Score: 2, Informative

    The fact that you claim the developer link doesn't require UA spoofing, even though any attempt to actually view the demo through that page brings up the very same "You’ll need to download Safari to view this demo" message, shows how absolutely blinded you are by your need to defend Apple. Slashdot isn't the evil one here.

    --
    Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
  32. Re:Missing the point by MF4218 · · Score: 2, Informative

    On a Mac, Safari gets 120 and Chrome gets 142... Strange.

    Although why any browser supports Geolocation worries me. Maybe it's just because Google makes Chrome.

    I vote that someone makes a standards-only-compliant browser. No site-specific hacks, so that web designers can just test the page once in that, and if it works there, it should work in any standards-compliant browser.