The highlights:
The yawners:
Overall I’m kind of meh on the updates. I was hoping for more.
As a security precaution, Microsoft Edge uses network isolation by default. You can override it via the command line right now, but it will be in about:flags in the future.
I wonder how many app developers will needlessly flip this switch and cut off every iOS device that doesn’t have a 64 bit processor. Given that with every new phone release, sales of the old ones spike, the folks that buy the older models may be a little miffed to find out the apps they want to use have decided it’s inconvenient to support them.
The New York Times is training every employee that mobile matters. I wish more companies would do this!
I love that Opera is building its browser for as many platforms as possible. OS X and Windows of course, but they are also on iOS, Android, Blackberry, Symbian, Java ME, Bada, Windows Mobile, Zeebo, and now Windows Phone.
Go Opera go!
Greg Whitworth shares the status of srcset in Microsoft Edge along with what’s coming (and a request that you update Picturefill if you’re using it).
Brilliant post on progressive enhancement for performance. Well worth a read.
Chris Wilson is dead-on with this post. The web isn’t of the platform, but it can integrate really well and with less friction for our users.
The web… excels at just-in-time interaction, as it IS hassle-free. But it’s a natural progression to enable users to move that onto their home screen, and let them get notifications and other engagement features if they so desire. This is still the web, though – I don’t need to have the NYT app open just to read the article at a link I followed. There are also app-like behaviors you may want occasionally too, e.g. a “what’s near me?” app. There’s an assumption that app-like behaviors demand native, and that the web is for documents.
Note: I no longer use “native” in this context, but it remains in quoted material.
Sounds like this was an awesome workshop!
George Williams, one of the workshop organizers and author of the chapter “Disability, Universal Design, and the Digital Humanities” in Debates in the Digital Humanities (2012), offered the example of the curb cut, which, as he says in his chapter, was designed to facilitate wheelchair users crossing the street, but “became recognized as useful also to other people such as someone making a delivery with a dolly, a traveler pulling luggage on wheels, a parent pushing a child in a stroller, or a person walking beside their bicycle.” Williams urged us to recognize the broad benefits of accessible design, while also raising questions about the “universal” in universal design.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Everyone has special needs and not all of them revolve around disabilities.
There will be another Accessible Futures workshop this Fall. If you have the opportunity, you should go.
Stuart Langridge has been writing smart JavaScript for the last 18 years. We should all be that pragmatic.