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Apple Announces Support For WebRTC in Safari 11 (webkit.org)
Youenn Fablet, software engineer at Apple, writes: Today we are thrilled to announce WebKit support for WebRTC, available on Safari on macOS High Sierra, iOS 11, and Safari Technology Preview 32. [...] Currently, Safari supports legacy WebRTC APIs. Web developers can check whether their websites conform to the latest specifications by toggling the STP Experimental Features menu item "Remove Legacy WebRTC API". Legacy WebRTC APIs will be disabled by default on future releases. Websites that need to accommodate older implementations of the WebRTC and Media Capture specifications can take advantage of polyfill libraries like adapter.js. Peer5, a startup that offers serverless CDN for massively-scaled video streaming, writes in a blogpost: This is HUGE news for the computing industry. Since its introduction in 2011, WebRTC has become an incredibly important part of everyone's favorite platforms and applications. It is at the core of a few services that you might have heard of, including Google Hangouts, Facebook Messenger, Snapchat and Slack. WebRTC is also supported natively by most major web browsers, including Chrome, Firefox and Opera. But there were 2 big holdouts -- Microsoft's Edge browser and Apple's Safari. This meant that people using those browsers couldn't access WebRTC-based services without installing some type of plug-in. Well, those days are over given the WWDC news and Microsoft's announcement back in January regarding WebRTC support in Edge. Developers can now create compelling browser-based applications that incorporate real-time audio and video (and maybe even a peer-to-peer component) and know that 99% of the world's Web surfers will be able to use their services without having to install any plug-ins or additional software. This newfound ubiquity for WebRTC might even make a developer question whether he has to build a native iOS or Android app to deliver his service to end-users.
>> there were 2 big holdouts -- Microsoft's Edge browser and Apple's Safari.
Was there any recent announcement from Apple that didn't being with "finally, Apple is introducing (feature that everyone else has had for years)"
As a daily Mac user, I think it's safe to ask...does anyone really still use a Safari on the desktop? Doesn't everyone just use Chrome (and occasionally pull up Safari for another look before flipping over to the virtual desktop to try IE and Edge)?
so who added more exxon mobil stock to their retirement account recently get going on it you heard which one
Yeah, finally Apple invented WebRTC so all the other players can implement it!
Safari is good if you're on battery power. FWIW, it's got a really fast javascript engine and it doesn't have all the "send Google everything you're doing on the web" stuff built in.
That said I only use it when on battery power.
apple; leading the world in technology compromises.
Today Apple announced they pulled their finger out of their asses and introduced an amazing an innovative feature that has been standard in other platforms and software for a while now. This has shocked many Apple users who fear that the new direction of the company will give them choices and make them start thinking for themselves. These announcements have left many IT experts questioning: "Is Tim Cook holding the company wrong?" But as one Apple supporter has pointed out for a company like Apple supporting standards and implementing features that others take for granted really takes courage.
I'm still waiting for the compelling part of the application to be realized.
I use Safari. It's pleasantly stable, like Mac OSX generally.
Apple is rarely the first to introduce something, but they have a better than average track record of being the first ones to do a thing successfully.
Look back through their major products over the decades: the Mac wasn't the first PC, the iPod wasn't the first MP3 player, the iPhone wasn't the first smartphone, the iPad wasn't the first tablet, the Apple TV wasn't the first set-top box, and the Apple Watch wasn't the first smartwatch. Some of those succeeded, others not so much, but none were the first. It seems odd to ask when the last time was that they were first, given that they've made their name by not being first.
As for Safari, from what I recall hearing recently (i.e. I have no citation), Safari still commands the majority share of browser usage on the Mac, likely on account of it coming preinstalled. I actually went back to Safari on the Macs we have at home after being on Chrome for years. The experience of using Safari on a Mac has for the last few years, in my opinion, provided the best out-of-box experience out of any browser (which stands in sharp contrast to the experience of using Safari on Windows, which was even worse than using iTunes on Windows). That said, for people who want more out of their browser, Chrome is still the right choice for many of them, especially given the dearth of Safari extensions compared to Chrome extensions. For me, however, I was getting creeped out by Chrome's increased invasiveness, and I didn't care for the way it sucks up power and RAM on the laptop I use at home, so I was willing to trade a little convenience for better efficiency and privacy.
...which I suppose I'm not helping any, given that I just wrote a Chrome extension this last week to scratch an itch I had at work (controlling the browser-based podcast player I use at work via globally-accessible hotkeys).
My ATA which is an Obi202 supports webRTC, which means one can make browser-based calls through it.
I guess I'm the weirdo. I've never understood why people choose Chrome over Firefox. I use Firefox on all platforms. Chrome is just butt ugly.
Protect your browser with the Force Safe Search add-on
> I think it's safe to ask...does anyone really still use a Safari on the desktop?
I do as my default, mainly because of iCloud Keychain and having my passwords synced across my iDevices. If something isn't working I pull up Chrome. I haven't found a good solution to export iCloud Keychain into google's sync.
The only real complaint I have with Safari is that its authentication mechanism sometimes gets stuck, particularly with Hotmail.
Every couple years I rotate from Safari to Firefox to chrome. At any given point in time one of these is definitely better. But if you continue to assume that whatever was best when you last checked remains the case you are in for a surprise. Leadership definitley movess around. And it's pretty much always the case that Edge and Safari are better on batteries. Safari is also better on network bandwidth too.
At the moment I'm phasing out chrome as I'm finding the others work better at this point in time. Also I dislike that chrome seems to basically spy on me and link everything to my google account even when I try to keep it separate.
for my residual chrome needs I've also been experimenting with Epic, the chrome like browser that is privacy focused.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Speaking of incompatible. I've been trying and failing to create a video Chat kiosk on a Raspberry Pi. It used to be that one could use Jitsi-meet in the web portal fotm, set the browser in kiosk mode and voila. But the web portal using the raspian chromium no longer sees the attached webcams. (tried several and all failed, even though the raspi can see the cameras just fine). Or one could install the application for jitsi-meet. But Jitss-meet seems to no longer offering any Debian-ARM packages. Likewise Skype no longer works on Linux raspberry pi. I've seen one x86 emulator for raspi that claims to be able to run skypeX86 but that's a really stand on your head and fragile way to solve the problem. I looked into ULV4 but it seems to want some components from jitsi-meet so that's a dead end.
Thus things that used to work no longer seem to. Anyone have any pointers for how to stand up a Video Chat Kiosk on a raspberry Pi?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Dear Apple,
How long before you fix Safari so that it no longer gets abysmal numbers in html5Test.com? Apple doesn't support many of the HTML5 features that the other browsers do, so to be cross browser compliant (and to work on an iPhone) they cannot be used. Using Safari Technology Preview you guys get 416 out of 555! You are 100 points behind Chrome and 60 behind Edge and Firefox. You do far better on the ECMAScript compatibility table and the Acid3 test, but you don't get 100% there either... but then only Opera passes that.
Please fix this!
On Macs Chrome chews huge amounts of CPU even when you are not actively using the application. And Chromium on Linux has background processes running that seem to use a lot of CPU power even when the app is completely closed.
Had it not been for us "pussies" taking a stand, chickens and sheep like you would still be suffering from Flash.
I use Safari on a daily basis. It uses less power than Chrome, and is faster. I don't see any reason why I'd use Chrome over it.
I love Safari and its developer tools are way easier to use and more polished than either Chrome or Firefox and pages with heavy JavaScript render visibly faster . The only problem is some libraries like jQuery aren't the most compatible resulting in some weird behavior. Safari will also halt bad JS earlier while Chrome sometimes tries to trudge through things with disastrous results.
I've never had problems with WebRTC support in Safari although that's probably because I only use open source software, no crapware like Google Hangouts, Facebook and Slack (and I've used WebRTC since Adobe Flash was the only implementation).
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
No, they are very good at pretending to do things successfully and act as if it is 'innovation'.
There is still room in the article to put in a few more random acronyms and make it seem even MORE important.
The industry was waiting on two of the least-used browsers to implement WebRTC? That's like saying you're waiting for the Exxon truck to fill up your car in the parking lot so you can go home long after everyone else left.
I'd suggest that they do that too, just as anyone else with decent marketing does, but don't let your distaste for that aspect of the company obscure the fact that they actually have achieved a great deal of success, whether we're talking critically, technically, or commercially. A company can be both deeply flawed and wildly successful; the two aren't mutually exclusive.
Going back to the topic of their innovations, to me, a lot of their actual innovation seems to come from their bringing things in-house or figuring out how to do things en masse. For instance, their last-gen phones are--by a wide margin--still outpacing current-gen phones from all of their competitors in every side-by-side test I've seen, thanks in large part to them bringing their chip design in-house a few generations back. And while "unibody" designs are commonplace these days, it's easy to forget that precision milling was considered cost prohibitive for consumer electronics at the time Apple started doing it, making those designs groundbreaking at the time. Similarly, they push bounds in other areas, such as using 7000-series aluminum alloys in their watches, rather than the softer but more common 6000-series alloys, and using in-house metallurgists to create a custom 18K gold alloy for their solid gold watch, that way it didn't come with the drawbacks typically associated with 18K gold.
Of course, they do things we nerds don't like, such as removing headphone jacks and using proprietary connectors, as well as a great many other things not to like, but that doesn't change the fact that they've succeeded quite a bit too. Again, the two aren't mutually exclusive.
In fact, I find the insistence by some in this community that it be only one or the other to be rather odd. I know we all join tribes, and that reason goes out the door as soon as we start to get into tribal warfare, but I continue to find it odd how people who are typically quite open to nuanced and subtle arguments on virtually any other topic will suddenly throw that reason out the door as soon as you say something that doesn't align with their tribal affiliation.
>> there were 2 big holdouts -- Microsoft's Edge browser and Apple's Safari.
Was there any recent announcement from Apple that didn't being with "finally, Apple is introducing (feature that everyone else has had for years)"
As a daily Mac user, I think it's safe to ask...does anyone really still use a Safari on the desktop? Doesn't everyone just use Chrome (and occasionally pull up Safari for another look before flipping over to the virtual desktop to try IE and Edge)?
Apple was first to introduce a laptop with nothing but USB3c ports.
Apple was first to delete the headphone jack from their phone.
There's two recent ones, as you requested.
I use Safari quite often, because I don't trust Chrome reporting back to Google HQ about what I'm browsing.
I use Safari for the same reason. I don't even have Chrome or FireFox on my machine: I haven't run into anything that wouldn't run on Safari in years.
As a daily Mac user, I think it's safe to ask...does anyone really still use a Safari on the desktop? Doesn't everyone just use Chrome?
And why exactly would I use Chrome instead of Safari?
So it's easier for Google to track me? Besides, I hate tabs on top.
Just use Safari for pretty much every-web-things unless the site is not compatible (rare) or I need cross-browser development. Safari is cleaner and simpler to use than Chrome or Firefox in my opinion
With QRcode support in the camera, and webRTC/webGL support, you can now use special hybrid AR-codes (QRcode for site URL surrounded by AR tracking marker) natively for stuff like AR.js enabled websites. So if a user has their camera on, sees a AR-code, they can QRcode redirect to your AR enabled site, which then can load AR.js to manipulate the scene shown from the camera relative to the AR-code marker position (though requires browser allowing site to use camera due to webRTC privacy issues).
https://jeromeetienne.github.io/AR.js/three.js/examples/arcode.html
works on android 6/chrome and now iOS11/Safari 11
I've never understood why people give up everything to Google using Google's tool - chrome.
safari works best for me compared to shitty chrome or the nearing death firefox.
> Apple is rarely the first to introduce something, but they have a better than average track record of being the first ones to do a thing successfully.
Here's one you left out. USB. It was an Intel standard. It already existed. But was not adopted in the PC industry due to inertia. PS/2 connectors were standard, so why change? And who needs easily attached and removable external hard drives? But with the introduction of the iMac, overnight USB was a success. Gazillians of market ready USB peripherals for the iMac. Suddenly USB cards were a thing for PCs because there were gobs of peripheral devices available. Now you expect to have plenty of front and rear mounted USB ports on a new PC.
Disclaimer: I was a huge Apple fanboy in the 80's / 90's when Apple was a great company. Now I think the world would be better off without Apple, its litigation and walled gardens, and snob fanboys. And I once was one of those snob fanboys.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Try playing these videos in Safari. If they fail to play, then please recommend to me a royalty-free video codec that does play in Safari.
The MP3 players that came before iPod were pretty decent, and Apple didn't change much in this regard. Essentially what they did is market it and make it look cool enough that the hipsters got on board, and then MP3 players saw much bigger appeal to the masses than in the past.
(Which doesn't say much because not only do hipsters love Apple, but they also love vinyl when it's in every way an inferior audio format.)