from Hacker News

Apple Announces Full WebRTC Support in Safari 11

by shacharz on 6/7/17, 7:17 PM with 158 comments

  • by om2 on 6/7/17, 8:56 PM

    WebRTC was the #1 most requested web platform feature for Safari. Now coming to macOS and iOS: https://webkit.org/blog/7726/announcing-webrtc-and-media-cap...

    You can even try it out now on Safari Technology Preview: https://webkit.org/blog/7627/safari-technology-preview-32/

  • by sherbondy on 6/7/17, 9:03 PM

    SO excited about this. Data-channel and all. Non-jailbroken torrenting on iOS at long last :P https://webtorrent.io/

    Also, definitely worth trying out this AR.js demo if you're running the beta: https://freinbichler.me/apps/web-ar/

    Always thought it was a little peculiar that the Media Capture APIs are tied to what is otherwise a very data/protocol-oriented spec.

    Wish we could have had a camera feed in a canvas element on Mobile Safari a few years ago without having to wait for the entirety of WebRTC to be vetted. :P

    ---

    And now, for my own unrelated Web API peeve:

    Beyond service workers and all that jazz, I'm a little bummed out that the Pointer Events API isn't even listed on the Webkit Feature Status page: https://webkit.org/status/

    It just seems like such a pleasant unification of all of the input-type APIs (mouse, touch, pen, hypothetical future peripherals...)

    At least touch events have a "force" property with Apple Pencil input in the meantime. No tilt though.

    Maybe next year :/

  • by ArlenBales on 6/7/17, 8:16 PM

    What WebRTC apps can we expect will be mainstream in, say, 6 years? I'm just trying to picture what this technology will allow (or replace).

  • by dested on 6/7/17, 8:15 PM

    Wow, this has been a long time coming. So many shoddy video communication hacks can finally go away. This is huge.

  • by jameslevy on 6/7/17, 8:16 PM

    Should we assume mobile safari will also get WebRTC support, or is that a lot less likely to happen in the near future?

  • by EGreg on 6/7/17, 8:02 PM

    Does this mean Apple may actually implement Service Workers and Web Push in the next Safari?? :)

  • by gk3 on 6/7/17, 10:54 PM

    ive dreamt of this for years!!! so excited.

    quick question: i noticed that the camera isnt available on iOS 11 if you put a web-app capable page on to your homescreen. when you open the page in full screen, mediaDevices is undefined. is that just an iOS beta bug?

  • by shmerl on 6/8/17, 1:44 AM

    So now they'll start supporting Opus at last, or they'll find another excuse not to support free codecs? Once they'll support it, AAC can be thrown out in the garbage.

    And when are they going to support MSE[1] in iOS Safari?

    1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Source_Extensions

  • by cptskippy on 6/8/17, 2:27 AM

    Anyone else feel like Apple is the new Microsoft and they hold the world hostage by only updating their products every couple years with features we actually want? It seems like just as the unrest is about to hit critical mass they spring into action and implement just enough to placate everyone for another couple years.

  • by lern_too_spel on 6/7/17, 9:27 PM

  • by TheAceOfHearts on 6/8/17, 4:48 AM

    I'll take a quick moment to share my favorite web app which uses WebRTC: Instant.io [0]. I use it all the time to transfer files among local devices, or to send medium to large files to friends.

    [0] https://instant.io

  • by zurn on 6/8/17, 5:17 AM

    It would be interesting to see surveys about mobile IPv6, will it get along with P2P? Will mobile users get P2P video this way or have the operators crippled end-to-end connectivity?

  • by taf2 on 6/8/17, 3:11 AM

    TypeError: nativeMediaDevices.addEventListener is not a function

    still some bugs maybe...

  • by angry_octet on 6/8/17, 11:15 AM

    So, any one know how one might block WebRTC in Safari?

  • by kobayashi on 6/7/17, 11:49 PM

    Can it be disabled? (VPN privacy, and all...)

  • by ap46 on 6/8/17, 6:14 AM

    YASSS!!! FINALLY!

  • by brian_herman on 6/8/17, 1:29 AM

    Yayaya!

  • by bla2 on 6/7/17, 10:01 PM

    Still only supports proprietary codecs from what I understand. So not "full".

  • by hannob on 6/7/17, 8:23 PM

    I saw this yesterday on twitter and my thought was "they don't support webrtc yet?!? seriously?"

    It sometimes baffles me how apple is holding up progress on the web - and that they aren't criticized more for it.

  • by microcolonel on 6/7/17, 8:35 PM

    Apple and Microsoft waited five years to deploy this thing. Given how quickly it was implemented and adopted by other browsers, I have to wonder what their motives were for deliberately not integrating it; because frankly they could've done it pretty quickly at any point in the last five years.

    I remember having to integrate WebRTC through cordova (thank goodness somebody did it first) a couple years ago, and wondering why on earth Apple didn't find time or money for this. libwebrtc has been stable for years, it represents effectively no security risk, it performs well on all of their platforms. It truly boggles the mind.