but Safari is still consistently slower to make new features available than other major browsers.
Safari was the first browser to ship the most anticipated web feature of the last 3-4 years by web developers: the parent selector :has() [1] back in March.
When you check the Interop 2022 dashboard [2], Safari Technology Preview is ahead of both Firefox nightly and Chrome dev for the shipping the latest web features. Safari Technology Preview is passing 97% of the interop tests.
In case nobody noticed, the WebKit team kicked ass by shipping a ton of new features this year:
* dialog element
* lazy loading
* inert
* :has() pseudo-class
* new viewport units
* Cascade Layers
* focus visible
* accent color
* appearance
* font palettes for color fonts
* BroadcastChannel
* Web Locks API
* File System Access API
* enhancements to WebAssembly
* support for Display-P3 in canvas
* additions to COOP and COEP
* container queries
* subgrid
* web push
* shared workers
* CSS Offset Path
* AVIF
* Passkeys
Plus it’s faster and has better battery life on macOS than either Chrome or Firefox. What’s not to like?
Another point here: you can't update safari without updating ios itself. That means people who don't update or have old devices won't get new fetures. Also, safari STILL doesn't support a lot of new wasm extensions. So not really the picture GP is painting.
Another point here: you can't update safari without updating ios itself.
True. But each release of iOS gets to around 90% of the installed base by the time the next version of iOS gets rolled out; it’s non-issue for the vast majority of iOS users.
iOS 15 was updated 12 times [1] between September 2021 and July 2022; iOS users either got bug fixes or new features (usually both) in Safari each time, including users of the iPhone 6s, which shipped September 2015, more than 7 years ago.
Also, safari STILL doesn't support a lot of new wasm extensions.
According to caniuse [2], Safari’s WASM support seems to be just as current as Chrome and Firefox.
[1]:
Version Build Release Date
15.0 19A341, 19A346 September 20, 2021
15.0.1 19A348 October 1, 2021
15.0.2 19A404 October 11, 2021
15.1 19B74 October 25, 2021
15.1.1 19B81 November 17, 2021
15.2 19C56, 19C57 December 13, 2021
15.2.1 19C63 January 12, 2022
15.3 19D50 January 26, 2022
15.3.1 19D52 February 10, 2022
15.4 19E241 March 14, 2022
15.4.1 19E258 March 31, 2022
15.5 19F77 May 16, 2022
15.6 19G71 July 20, 2022
Safari was the first browser to ship the most anticipated web feature of the last 3-4 years by web developers: the parent selector :has() [1] back in March.
When you check the Interop 2022 dashboard [2], Safari Technology Preview is ahead of both Firefox nightly and Chrome dev for the shipping the latest web features. Safari Technology Preview is passing 97% of the interop tests.
In case nobody noticed, the WebKit team kicked ass by shipping a ton of new features this year:
* dialog element
* lazy loading
* inert
* :has() pseudo-class
* new viewport units
* Cascade Layers
* focus visible
* accent color
* appearance
* font palettes for color fonts
* BroadcastChannel
* Web Locks API
* File System Access API
* enhancements to WebAssembly
* support for Display-P3 in canvas
* additions to COOP and COEP
* container queries
* subgrid
* web push
* shared workers
* CSS Offset Path
* AVIF
* Passkeys
Plus it’s faster and has better battery life on macOS than either Chrome or Firefox. What’s not to like?
[1]: https://webkit.org/blog/12445/new-webkit-features-in-safari-...
[2]: https://wpt.fyi/interop-2022