> compatible and stable implementations of WebAssembly behind a flag on trunk in V8 and SpiderMonkey, in development builds of Chakra, and in progress in JavaScriptCore
[Emphasis Mine]
They also make the bulk of their profits selling phones that view web pages, so this is very important to their core business.
They've paid out 50 billion USD to app developers since the beginning of the app stores (1). Since they are taking 30% of the profits, are you saying it has cost them around 21 billion USD to run the appstore?
(1) http://www.theverge.com/2016/8/3/12371006/app-store-50-billi...
Apple suggested last week they expect around a 40% profit margin, and sold 45m phones last quarter. Assume an ASP of $500 that's $200/phone profit. Multiply it out you get $9bn in the quarter (not their strongest, they expect winter to go better.
But that's a quarter. So take a quarter of 3bn and you get $750 million, which is only 8.3% of the phone profit.
They make some money on the App Store, but it's not like it's 30% of their busines.
http://kangax.github.io/compat-table/es5/
Getting to 100% on ES6 was pleasant, but still a surprise given their track record not just with JS support but with some CSS features too. They're often stragglers, even more so now that Microsoft's browser is getting better.
Asked about the missing Apple, he responded that he was sure they were on board but hadn't submitted their written statement by his deadline. I asked why he would assume they were going to publicly commit to it if they hadn't. It would have taken a one-line statement.
He got very snippy and said that they were obviously just a bit busy getting ready for one of their regular public performances (maybe WWDC, I don't remember.) Yeah, sure, that must be it.
Their show came and went, and I must have missed the announcement. More shows came and went. If Apple ever publicly committed to supporting wasm, as all the other companies did on day one, I haven't seen it, but maybe they eventually did. (It would be easy for me to miss, so I'm seriously asking here.) Is anyone aware of any link to that public announcement of support, the one that we would have seen on day one if Apple hadn't been so busy?
If not, then there is another possibility. There are Apple people contributing to the wasm technology, both the development of the spec and the implementation in WebKit (I believe, but correct me if I'm wrong.) That would give Apple the option of supporting wasm if they ever chose to do so. I'm sure they want that option. And no public announcement of support means they are hanging on to their option to exercise their iOS/Safari veto power over this significant advance for open web apps (vs. vendor-controlled native apps).
If they're primarily about tablet and mobile devices now (lots of indicators that's the case), they're going to be concerned about battery life, performance, and other impacts on user experience. If history repeats itself, they're probably concerned about these things at a level of fussiness that other vendors often don't share. They might well not be on board with wasm for related reasons, or they might take longer to conclude it'll be OK, or work out whatever efforts make them feel good about it.
Or they might just lurve their walled garden a lot.
I expect wasm to be be less resource intensive than JavaScript, as GC's and such won't be necessary.
But, then again, most people don't write ASM. They target it. So in practice, the performance of apps taking advantage of wasm will have a lot to do with compilers and the culture/choices developers bring to writing the software targeted at the browser-as-runtime.
Apple is the new Microsoft (but worse than MS ever was).
Apple's lack of public engagement probably has more to do with management's priorities. Apple's lack of community engagement is a problem: they drag their feet on WebView, block 3rd party browsers, and stymie adoption of open codecs like Opus and WebM.
However, Wasm can be polyfilled, so it can reach critical mass without Apple's explicit cooperation. At some point, not supporting Wasm will mean losing market share (and thus revenue) to Firefox and Chrome.
As such, I'd read absolutely nothing in to them refusing to commit to supporting it in a future release: that's just their normal behaviour, because per Apple policy they cannot. What actually are signs (whether they're implementing a given feature—typically publicly, whether they're sending detailed feedback on the spec, and what they're willing to say about implementing it off-the-record in private) are all there for WASM. I would be entirely unsurprised if Eich had off-the-record confirmation that it will almost certainly ship in Safari 11.
I'm an Eich fan, so what I DO trust is that he's doing everything he can to make this happen. I do trust that whatever he says is an attempt to help the web platform become the best it can be, meaning he's trying to help me.
I'll remain a bit skeptical about the literal correctness of those words until I hear what Apple has to say, but I'm encouraged by some of the other comments I see here.
They haven't made such a statement, but that's not unusual for them because their corporate policy is to "not make forward-looking statements". They do have representation in the WebAssembly W3C community group and do send representatives to the (rare) in-person summits that we've held. (Turns out the proverbial smoky back rooms do exist, it's just that smoking is not allowed).
This seems to be mainly an abundance of caution rather than obstinance or objection. It does seem that they have started working on an implementation, but we are careful not to put words into their mouths or read too much into that.
They were kept abreast of the planning this particular announcement and of late have ramped up their interest in settling design issues.
https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=159775
dependencies are getting attention. Note also who is assigned to some of the recent ones: JF Bastien, formerly of Google (long-time PNaCl team member).
I may also have been unwilling to put people I know at Apple, with whom I'd spoken about WebAssembly in person at CurryOn in Prague (July 2015), on the spot. But suffice to say they're keen on WebAssembly and everything looks as on track as it can be, for a stealthy prima-donna company like Apple!
Apple's "courageous" willingness to enforce their own agenda and disappoint those with other priorities does not inspire confidence that Apple is fully on board with this wide-open web app platform, and that "no comment" is just how they express their enthusiasm.
But maybe they really are enthusiastic, and maybe they can hardly wait to announce their support for progressive web apps, too. Since I'm not in the smoky back rooms, I'll just have to wait and see.
But you and others who are working toward making these things happen, not just creating the tech but also working on the politics, should know that you're doing a valuable thing for the world, and lots of us appreciate what you do.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9736138
I don't think that counts as caps-lock shouting, as it's not all caps-lock. :-/
But whatever you call it, sorry about that. Re-reading it, I still think you seemed a bit over-aggro re: Apple, hence my mocking (again, sorry) -- but who knows? You could be right and they'll slow-roll or cripple WebAssembly.
I doubt it, based on what I know, but it is all speculation until they ship. Only thing to do is carry on and do what we can to up the competitive pressure.
But you've answered my real issue ("how serious are they, really?") as far as you possibly can at this point, and I'm more optimistic than before, while still reserving a bit just in case....
And I really hope that more of the "extensible web" enabling technologies will follow sooner rather than later. Good luck and thanks.