An Abridged History of Safari Showstoppers (opens in new tab)

I was all-in on mobile web apps, but apple’s policy around iOS and browsers pretty much forced my hand. I had to watch how a native app team rewrote the web app I had already built, with the same feature set, except with notifications and more offline storage, crucial requirements at the time. This was over a decade ago, and while things have gotten a little better, the gap between what a web developer can do on iOS and what a native developer can do has never been wider.

This needs more discussion. Too many don't understand Apple's privacy stance, which has some reasonable elements, is being used to massively foot drag on everyone else trying to build an open web ecosystem.

This is something most web developers have passively known to be true for a long time, but it still takes you aback to be presented with it all at once in a timeline. I don't see how anyone takes in this history and does not conclude that Apple's negligence (to put it charitably) has impacted the growth of the web.

TL;DR: iOS Safari is more than an inconvenience for developers, it's the fundamental reason interoperability has been stymied in mobile ecosystems; frequent showstopping bugs, a large patch gap, and lack of competing engines ensures the web is not a credible competitor to native. Here are the receipts to prove it.