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.