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by DasIch 5283 days ago
Android and iPhone are the only mobile platforms worth worrying about for the rather longterm goal of improving the web, both have good browsers.

So unlike Mozilla Google is not practically irrelevant on mobile platforms, why then should they invest more money?
2 comments
MatthewPhillips 5283 days ago
I disagree that both have good browsers. What I'm worried about is the lack of emphasis that seems to be placed; Android browser is missing a lot of html5 features (according to caniuse.com it only supports 66% of current features in Android 4.0).

Mozilla, on the other hand, seems to be making mobile a priority with all of the work they are doing in WebAPI. Their browser is updating a lot faster than Android's, which I believe still only updates with OS upgrades.

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hub_ 5283 days ago
OS upgrades that a lot of Android users don't get. If I want to get an up to date browser on my Nexus One, I have to use Firefox... as Google said they no longer support the phone.

iOS users are in the same boat, but Apple has been providing much more support to older devices.

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redthrowaway 5283 days ago
To be perfectly honest, Apple pushing the latest iOS versions to older devices is not really a good thing. iOS 5 is a dog on my 3GS.
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Xuzz 5283 days ago
Weird, my 3GS seems no different on iOS 5 vs iOS 4. At worst, it's nothing like the iOS 4 performance on the iPhone 3G. This video apparently shows the 3GS being faster than iPhone 4 (believable, actually, if you consider the quadrupling of pixels on the iPhone 4 from the 3GS): http://techuncover.com/blog/tag/iphone-3gs-is-faster-on-ios-...
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redthrowaway 5283 days ago
It's entirely possible that ios's shitty performance is due to me rescuing it from brick state via oven, but I don't really buy it. The phone works perfectly, except that it's very slow and experiences the occasional hang. It's. Ertainly nowhere near as smooth as my buddy's 4s. I don't expect it to be, but I do expect it to unlock without a 4 second lag.
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cpeterso 5283 days ago
Old Android browser versions are going to become the "IE6" of this decode.
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justincormack 5283 days ago
It is easy to just use firefox on android though. Could push people to that.
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Dylan16807 5282 days ago
If you have an armv7 chip, sure. But apparently nobody is motivated to fix the alignment bugs and make it work on older chips.
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zobzu 5283 days ago
is it about market shareor advancing mobile?

the point, right there.

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