Tim Perry writes a persuasive blog post on Safari and the state of browsers, Safari isn’t protecting the web. It covers a lot of ground but I get the larger picture now, having struggled with getting relatively simple web APIs working in Safari but without issue in Firefox and Chrome. In this regard, I do wish Apple would walk the walk. I really do not want to live in a world of Chromium-based browsers as it is not good for the web in the long term. I am more interested in the side effects on digital methods that use the web.
The post provokes reflections on what might be the wider implications of the move to app stores and the increasing balkanization of the web. Many digital methods rely on web browsers for using the methods or teaching them. It is both unreasonable and unsustainable to tell students or readers to not use a particular browser. What ever the reasons for not adhering to standards or APIs, an upshot is a mistrust in such methods from students: “if this/your method does not work for me on my machine, why would I trust it?”. As teachers, we might argue that the logic is flawed but that is an undertone that I have heard.
As researchers it places potentially interesting edge cases to take a critical approach to the tool but , again, this is wearing. It would become unproductive as a practice.
That written, the Safari moves might be an interesting piece of multi-method research for someone. It might be an interesting science and technology, Internet History, and/or organization studies piece of work.
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