Telegram founder is not very happy with Safari on iOS
Durov has shared his criticism on his public channel on Telegram. He claims that Apple is intentionally restricting web app features and that this limits developers from what they can do in iOS. The restrictions that Apple currently has for web apps impact the web version of Telegram too. Additionally, he suspects Apple’s reasoning behind this is to force users to download native apps from the App Store, and he brings up the 30% commission fee that Apple takes on purchases made via the App Store. Many developers have had issues with the infamous ‘Apple Tax’, as this 30% cut has unofficially been called (remember the Epic vs Apple court battle? It was about the same thing).
Telegram is available in the App Store; however, not everything was sailing smoothly for the company (via 9to5Mac). In the past, Telegram has reportedly faced some issues with Apple’s review process because of its public channels (where there are no content restrictions). Telegram has a web version with all the same features – but it is also limited on iPads and iPhones.
“Safari is killing the web” points out Durov, citing developers complaining about Apple’s native browser and a blog post on HTTP Toolkit, which lists multiple ways in which Safari is not helping the web. The blog post lists reasons such as Safari omitting features, many bugs present and the slow speed at which those are fixed, and ignoring proposed APIs by the Chrome team.
Apart from citing the mentioned above article, Durov also highlights that Telegram developers have signaled a list of 10 issues they have with Safari on iOS. Among those, there is the lack of push notifications, random reloading, slow application of blur effects, and sometimes appearing visual artifacts. The post also includes a few more development-related things missing from Safari’s toolkit.
The UK investigation, which we mentioned in the beginning of this article, is also highlighted in Durov’s post. He hopes that the investigation will lead to regulatory action against Apple Safari’s restrictions and shortcomings.
The investigation he is talking about is actually going to be led by UK’s CMA, a watchdog who’s recently found Apple and Google to have an “effective duopoly” in the mobile tech market because of Safari and Chrome. The agency is now going to look at Safari’s WebKit restrictions under a microscope, to determine whether or not those are harming competition and innovation.
