Microsoft’s Frank Oliver has a nice write-up on the importance of browser interoperability and what the browser team has done with Microsoft Edge.
Dispatches From The Internets
Building a more interoperable Web with Microsoft Edge
High Performance Images: Beautiful Shouldn’t Mean Slow
A bit from Akamai’s Guy Podjarny on the high cost of images and what you can (and should) do about it.
Images are also the single biggest resource type on a page, making up 63% of overall page weight. If we removed all images from the top 1,000 websites, these sites would load 30% faster on average over 3G.
Safari 9: Everything web designers need to know now
The highlights:
- Scroll snapping (see also David Storey’s write-up on this)
- Some ECMAScript 6
- CSS Filters
- Removing some vendor prefixes
The yawners:
- Pinned sites
- Force touch
- HTML Video picture in picture
Overall I’m kind of meh on the updates. I was hoping for more.
How can I debug localhost with MS Edge?
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.
With iOS 9, Apple lets developers cutoff support for older iOS devices without 64-bit CPUs
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 wisely blocks staff from viewing its desktop homepage
The New York Times is training every employee that mobile matters. I wish more companies would do this!
Opera Mini is here for your Windows Phone!
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!
Introducing srcset, our first step towards fully responsive images in Microsoft Edge
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).
The web is fast by default, let’s keep it fast
Brilliant post on progressive enhancement for performance. Well worth a read.
The Web is not Poor Man’s Native
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.