Why Developers Compared Safari to IE and WebKit's Response

For several years, web developers frequently compared Apple's Safari to legacy browsers like Internet Explorer due to its slow adoption of modern web APIs and infrequent release cycles. This article explores the technical and strategic reasons behind Safari's delayed feature implementations, the frustration it caused within the developer community, and how the WebKit team ultimately responded by overhauling their communication, joining cross-browser initiatives, and rapidly closing the compatibility gap.

The Root of the Frustration

During the late 2010s and early 2020s, a vocal segment of the web development community began referring to Safari as the "new Internet Explorer." This comparison stemmed from the era of Internet Explorer 6, when developers had to write workarounds and polyfills just to make websites function on a single, dominant browser that lagged behind web standards.

Developers leveled this criticism at Safari for three main reasons:

  • OS-Coupled Updates: Unlike Chrome, Firefox, and Edge—which update automatically in the background every few weeks—Safari updates were historically tied to major, annual macOS and iOS releases. If a bug existed in Safari, developers and users often had to wait months for an operating system update to fix it.
  • Missing Modern APIs: Safari was noticeably slow to implement features that were already standard in Chromium-based browsers and Firefox. Key omissions included Web Push notifications, Service Workers, Web Bluetooth, WebUSB, and various CSS grid and flexbox properties. This actively hindered the growth of Progressive Web Apps (PWAs), which rely on these APIs to function like native mobile apps.
  • The iOS WebKit Monopoly: On iOS, Apple mandates that all third-party browsers (including Chrome and Firefox) must use Apple's WebKit rendering engine under the hood. Because of this restriction, developers could not simply tell iOS users to download a different browser to access missing web features; every browser on an iPhone was fundamentally limited by Safari's capabilities.

Apple's Justification for Delays

The WebKit team did not delay these APIs out of negligence; rather, their hesitation was driven by Apple’s strict focus on user privacy, security, and battery life.

Google, the primary driver behind the Chromium project, often pushed new APIs rapidly to make the web as capable as native platforms. However, the WebKit team frequently rejected or delayed these APIs because they posed fingerprinting risks. For example, APIs that expose device hardware—like Web Bluetooth, WebUSB, and the Network Information API—can be used by malicious trackers to uniquely identify users without their consent. Safari engineers argued that they needed time to design privacy-preserving versions of these features before shipping them to over a billion devices.

How the WebKit Team Responded

By 2022, the "Safari is the new IE" narrative had reached a boiling point, prompting a massive shift in how the WebKit team operated and communicated with the public.

Direct Developer Outreach

Apple’s Developer Evangelist team, led heavily by figures like Jen Simmons, took to social media to confront the criticism head-on. Instead of dismissing the complaints, they asked developers to list the exact bugs and missing APIs that were causing them problems. The team noted that many developers were still complaining about bugs that had actually been fixed years prior, highlighting a communication issue regarding Safari's progress.

Joining the Interop Project

To prove their commitment to web standards, Apple partnered with Google, Mozilla, and Microsoft to launch the "Interop" project (starting with Interop 2022). This initiative is a public benchmark that tests how well the major browser engines implement agreed-upon web standards. By participating, the WebKit team aligned their roadmap directly with other browser vendors, focusing on fixing incompatibility issues in layout, CSS, and JavaScript.

Accelerating Feature Releases

Apple increased its investment in the WebKit team and began shipping features at a much faster pace. Within a remarkably short window, Safari introduced long-requested features that developers thought might never arrive:

  • Web Push for iOS: Finally allowing web apps added to the home screen to send notifications, a massive win for PWAs.
  • Cutting-Edge CSS: Safari was actually the first browser to ship critical modern CSS features, such as the :has() relational selector and CSS Container Queries, beating Chrome and Firefox to the punch.
  • Passkeys and WebAuthn: Apple led the charge in implementing passwordless authentication standards across the web.

By decoupling some Safari updates from major OS releases, actively participating in cross-browser benchmarks, and aggressively shipping modern CSS and JavaScript APIs, the WebKit team successfully shed the legacy browser comparisons and repositioned Safari as a modern, standards-compliant browser.