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0 pointsleptons3d ago0 comments

>The fact is that Google wrote these specifications, couldn’t convince any other rendering engine to implement them, and somehow it’s Apple’s fault the rest of the world rejected their idea.

Apple is on the W3C board that gets to decide which APIs become standards. They are preventing these APIs from becoming standards. They have an interest to forbid Web Bluetooth and NFC from becoming standards, because they profit heavily from native apps on their iOS platform, where they collect a percentage of all sales made through apps, so they want to force developers to create native apps instead of web apps.

I'll also point out that Opera, Edge, Samsung and others did implement the Web Bluetooth API, so you are wrong about your assertion that they "couldn't convince any other rendering engine to implement them".

https://caniuse.com/web-bluetooth

If you don't think Apple is abusing their power here, then you are either lacking understanding of how Apple operates, or you just love Apple a little too much.

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JimDabell3d ago

> Apple is on the W3C board that gets to decide which APIs become standards. They are preventing these APIs from becoming standards.

They are not. You have this almost entirely backwards. To become a standard, you only need two independent interoperable implementations. This means Apple cannot block something from becoming a standard. The only thing Google needs to do is convince anybody else to implement their proposals. So far they have managed to convince precisely zero other rendering engines to do so.

> I'll also point out that Opera, Edge, Samsung and others did implement the Web Bluetooth API, so you are wrong about your assertion that they "couldn't convince any other rendering engine to implement them".

All of these are Chromium / Blink users, not independent implementations.

leptonsOP2d ago

If Apple won't allow an API onto Safari because it competes with native apps, then why should Firefox bother to implement it? Just because something moves forward in standards, does not mean Apple will ever implement it in their browser. They may never, and so why should Firefox do so, if Apple just blocks Firefox on their platform anyway? Chrome already has the APIs I want on Android, so Firefox won't spend the money to implement a non-standard before it is a standard.

Apple has a lot more control over this situation than Firefox does, and Firefox has limited resources.

rjrjrjrj3d ago

Opera, Edge, Samsung and I suspect "others" use the Chromium rendering engine.

eipi10_hn3d ago

Opera, Edge and Samsung run Chromium. They don't use their own "rendering engine".

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