[whywhywhywhy]

I can count the number of developers I've worked with over the last 5 years that care about it working in any browser other than Chrome on one finger.

This idea that only Chrome matters is absolutely coming from the bottom up and when you point out something broken in Safari the first response from them is "Does it work in Chrome?" before they even look at it because they themselves don't even test in a second browser.

[ballenf]

That mirrors my experience. It's not POs or PMs that hear about some new niche browser feature only supported by Chrome. It's devs that want to play with the latest toys and kind of look at you weird if you use Safari.

There's an annoying assumption from other devs that I must be using Safari out of ignorance. They quickly get over it, but it's a problematic first impression thing when working with new teams.

[52-6F-62]

Oh man, I split my time between Safari and Firefox. I must be some kind of sicko.

[lotsofpulp]

I solely use Safari because it greatly increases my battery life.

[MaanuAir]

So do I.

[lotsofpulp]

> This idea that only Chrome matters is absolutely coming from the bottom up and when you point out something broken in Safari the first response from them is "Does it work in Chrome?" before they even look at it because they themselves don't even test in a second browser.

I would have thought at least iOS Safari would be a major consideration for anyone due to the ubiquity of iOS devices.

[mistersquid]

> I would have thought at least iOS Safari would be a major consideration for anyone due to the ubiquity of iOS devices.

If web developers give any consideration to iOS, it usually results in a comparison of Mobile Safari to IE 6.

In reality, Google Chrome’s unilateral provisioning of unratified features drives developers to dismiss competing products as obsolete. In this way, Google Chrome advances the “extend” phase of technological dominance while well-intentioned and overworked web developers implement the “extinguish” phase.

[1over137]

Ubiquity of iOS devices? They are only about 15% of smartphones.

[handrous]

They're way, way more of:

1) Smartphone use, both in general and for web browsing, and

2) Spending on smartphones

These have been true long enough and to a large enough degree that they're usually taken as assumed, baseline facts by anyone involved in mobile software products.

The two of which are why companies not only care about them, but, in fact, iOS' numbers are so good on both of those that it can be tempting to go iOS first for many products, if you have to choose only one platform, even if your demographics don't skew iOS.

iOS devices are used more than Android devices, and their owners spend a lot more on average. There are probably several reasons for this and its unclear which is dominant, but in the end, it doesn't really matter why, if you're just chasing the market.

[lotsofpulp]

50% in the US, and I assume greater proportions amongst those more able to spend money. Plus iPads.

[lxgr]

That heavily varies by market.

[TheCoelacanth]

But like 80% of the executives making decisions.

[musicale]

"Web Browser" === "Chrome"

I suppose we're back in the golden era of "Works Best With Internet Explorer."

[atatatat]

Comparing Chromium project to Internet Explorer seems disingenuous.

[olliej]

In this case it’s because Firefox doesn’t support the necessary APIs for FaceTime rather than just not testing.

[Induane]

I test mostly on Firefox and Epiphany; I figure if it works there it's going to work just about everywhere.

Safari is a different beast because I don't have a Mac and it's support for a lot of standards is pretty dismal. It's like the IE6 of browsers these days.

I keep the JS simple though and for CSS I keep around a few handy LESS functions so I can get some basic stuff on crap browsers. Stuff like:

.opacity(@default, @percent) { -webkit-opacity: @default; -khtml-opacity: @default; -moz-opacity: @default; -ms-opacity: @default; -o-opacity: @default; opacity: @default; // ms-filter *SHOULD* work on IE8 & 9 but ... doesn't always // for me? WTF... anyway (filter should also work). This // should be listed before filter to be safe -ms-filter:"progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Alpha(Opacity=@percent)"; filter: alpha(opacity=@percent); /* support: IE8 oh god we're all gonna die*/ }

or

.box-shadow(@value) { -webkit-box-shadow: @value; -khtml-box-shadow: @value; -moz-box-shadow: @value; -ms-box-shadow: @value; -o-box-shadow: @value; box-shadow: @value; }

This way I don't rely on some framework like Bootstrap, and I can write fairly simple stylesheets. I used to transpile compliant and legacy sheets and serve different urls depending on user agent strings but that didn't work well and was generally crap so - one it is.

Don't worry, when I transpile I strip my unprofessional comments.