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Comment Re:Whew! (Score 2) 155

I honestly don't understand why people would buy a "smart" TV instead of a monitor, surround sound speakers, and plug it in to a laptop or computer. How many people really use OTA broadcasts nowadays?

Yeah, because computers aren't susceptible to attacks at all. Everyone knows there's nothing more secure than keeping an internet-connected computer running 24/7 in your house.

Comment Re:IE's release model is failing (Score 1) 173

That's why the iphone flopped when Apple decided it wouldn't support flash in an era where flash was pretty important.

But you see, it really wasn't that important at all. Flash was mainly used for 3 things: ads, video and games. Video and games the iPhone could do fine and ads nobody wants anyway.

It would be very different for real web stuff, as people can just install another browser on their devices. I think there would be quite a backlash amongst both developers and the general public if a vendor suddenly decides to artificially limit the capabilities of their web browser. In a way, that is what Microsoft is doing by adopting new features so slowly and their market share is but a fraction of what it used to be. People want to be on the platform that works.

But the larger view is its a catch-22; most developers won't use features that aren't widely available cross-platform -- so any major closed platform that sees those features as a threat simply can refuse to implement them, and most developers will in turn avoid using those features.

When I'm developing for the web, I don't even bother to look at what new-fangled nonsense Chrome has just released. My baseline is to only use features that are widely supported.

The difference between what's widely supported and what's new-fangled is fading with IE's decreasing popularity though. The world in which non of the new stuff was actually usable is long gone. Can you release a web app that uses Web Audio right now and you would serve about 80% of the market, including iPhones and iPads.

Comment Re:IE's release model is failing (Score 1) 173

Your desire that you want the browser to be a 'platform for applications' is fine, but is not related to the release schedule at all. How come your long term desire can't be accomplished in slower bigger steps?

Because that makes it harder to correct mistakes. The current model of releasing small, frequent updates is a really powerful mechanism for developers to explore what works and what doesn't. The things that make it are adopted and become the standard, the rest is discarded. Google and Mozilla are really pushing the web forward doing this, but Microsoft isn't playing ball.

Windows, iOS, Debian Stable, and OS X Mavericks are all "platforms for applications" and none of them need 25 feature updates a year, but fixes yes... but not whole new releases with new features every couple weeks.

Not anymore they don't. But that's because those platforms are actually quite feature complete and have been for a long time, if not from the beginning. The web however is just barely starting to be able to render graphics and play sound. They've got a long way to go, that's why it would be nice if things didn't take another decade to mature.

The 'web' is no more going to bring about that future than Java did. Especially in a world where hardware vendors are actively seeking to prevent it. (ie Expect Apple to limit the functionality of its iOS browser the minute it starts to threaten app store revenue in a credible way.)

I highly doubt that. I think the moment a vendor starts shipping a lesser web experience in a world where the web is increasingly more important, they will see a drop in adoption and sales.

Comment Re:IE's release model is failing (Score 1) 173

I don't really give a shit about new bleeding edge features though, I just want to see the standards met.

That's well and nice if you just want to make a document available through the web. But I want to web to more than just delivering documents, I want it to be a platform for applications. I want games in my browser, write code in my browser, image editing in my browser, audio processing my browser, everything I do in my browser. Why? Because *every single device out there* has a browser. I want a future where any applications runs on any device, running any operating system, any browser. That's when we can really use the best device for the job, instead of having to resort to the stuff that happens to run the software we need.

Comment Re:IE's release model is failing (Score 1) 173

Why are "new features" so important to you? It is a web browser. It's not suppose to change drastically or it causes standards problems.

Because I want the web to be a real application platform so I can develop things that run on any device. Google and Mozilla are committed to making that a reality, but Microsoft isn't because they provide a large application platform themselves in the form of Windows.

You know, standards problems like Chrome has caused over the last decade. Tossing out new features, only present in one browser and not officially determined to be a standard, is not helping the Internet.

Then why are Chrome and Firefox more compatible with each other than Internet Explorer is with any of them?

If Microsoft is seen as dragging it's feet, it's because they only enact what is officially a standard. To put things in perspective, HTML5 is still not ratified with W3C yet. Internet Explorer did not roll-out HTML5 until it reached Draft Recommended status, which in my opinion is the prudent thing to do

That ship has long left the harbour. HTML5 is a reality and it has been for quite some time now. Whatever the W3C decides to do isn't really relevant as long as the browser vendors are on the same page. The W3C could have had a nice role in this, but they're just too slow and overly bureaucratic to keep up with what is going on in the real world.

Comment Re:IE's release model is failing (Score 1) 173

At what sort of latency? For example, when I press the Up arrow key to jump, how long would it take before the jump noise starts coming out the speaker?

It would be almost instant, as Web Audio API provides a way for a web application to interact with the native audio capabilities of the host environment through the browser. There are lots of demo's on the web where you can see all sorts of applications running without any problems or hiccups, even on older systems. Even filters, reverbs, delays and all sorts of processing is possible without perceivable lag.

I think Plink is a cool example of the possibilities: http://labs.dinahmoe.com/plink... - it's a real-time multiplayer audio game that runs in the browser. Every player controls an instrument and together you can make "music" by changing your sound and pitch. It seems they haven't updated their code to work with Firefox yet, but since Firefox switched to the "common" Web Audio API, it's totally possible to do cross platform audio now with a single code base.

I also like this simple synthesizer a lot: http://www.femurdesign.com/the... - it works great on a touch device, but also works in desktop browsers.

Comment Re:IE's release model is failing (Score 1) 173

It isn't stupid. Not at all. Both Google and Mozilla are taking the web serious by adding features frequently. They want to get to a point where the web could be a real viable application platform that's available on any device. Since we're still a long way from that, we need new stuff and we need it now. Microsoft however doesn't really want this to happen at all, because it means the web will make Windows obsolete. So they're stalling it for as long as they are able to. They have been since the days of IE6 and the only reason they have somewhat stepped up the pace of development on IE is because are switching to other browsers.

Comment Re:IE's release model is failing (Score 4, Informative) 173

It's not a hype, we need things like Web Audio API to enable the web to be a real application platform. Audio-intensive apps are simply not possible without something like what Web Audio API provides.

Firefox introduced the Audio Data API in 2010. Chrome has supported Web Audio API since 2011. Apple introduced Web Audio API support in 2012 on both Mac OS X as well as iOS. Mozilla deprecated Audio Data and supported Web Audio API since 2013. October 2013 was the point that for example a web game could support audio in Chrome, Firefox and on the iPhone/iPad. But where is Microsoft in all this? Nowhere to be found. It took them another 7 months to just announce they were going to have support for this in their _next_ version.

If that isn't a prime example of IE holding back the web I don't know what is.

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