Embedded in this year's network and device estimates is hopeful news about the trajectory of devices and networks. It has never been easier to deliver pages quickly, but we are not collectively hitting the mark. Indeed, the latest CrUX data shows not even half of origins have passing Core Web Vitals scores for mobile users. Browsers will need to provide stronger incentives. This will be unpopular, but it is clearly necessary.
Apple bent the knee for months, leaving many commentators to ask why. But the reasons are not mysterious: Apple wants things that only the government can provide, things that will defend and extend its power to extract rents, rather than innovate. Namely, selective exemption from tariffs and an end to the spectre of pro-competition regulation and the threat of real browsers in the US, the EU, and around the world.
Apple wants to launder the consequences of its own anticompetitive, anti-user choices through a credulous tech press. The goal is to frame regulators for Apple's own deeds, and it's rotten to the core.
I've been hearing confusing reports of Apple's openness to collaboration on challenging APIs so often that either my priors are invalid, or something else is at work. To find out, I needed data.
Working Groups do not invent the future, nor do they hand down revealed truths by divining entrails like prophets of the House of Iamus. In practice, they are diligent, thoughtful historians of recent design expeditions. Anyone who tries to convince you otherwise, or invites you to try your hand at invention within a chartered Working Group, does not understand what those groups are designed to do.
By subverting the voluntary nature of open standards, Apple has defanged them as tools that users can employ against the totalising power of native apps in their digital lives. This high-modernist approach is antithetical to the foundational commitments of internet standards bodies and, over time, erode them.
Apple vs. Facebook is, and always was, kayfabe. In reality, Apple is Facebook's chauffeur; holding Zuck's coat while Facebook wantonly surveils iPhones owners. How can we be sure? Because Apple continues to allow wide-scale abuse of In-App Browsers.
Not only is unattributed business and technical writing a time-waster, careers hang in the balance. If you write anything, put your name on it; not for me, but for your future self.
Conway's Law is generally discussed in the context of organisations trying to solve a problem. But what if there are defectors? And what if they could prevent all progress without paying a price? This problem is rarely analysed for the simple reason that such an organisation would be deranged. But what if it happened regularly, and even threatened the basis of web standards?
If frontend aspires to be a profession — something we do for others, not just ourselves — then we need a culture that can use statistical methods for measuring quality and reject the marketing that dominates the React discourse.
Apple's Developer Relations folks want you to be grateful to Cupertino for unlocking features that Apple has been the singular obstacle to. Don't fall for it.