I was more focused on developers getting better returns (monetarily - both from the willingness of those buying and availability of funds to buy with) and the consistency of the platform to develop with.
Beyond the storage on the device, iOS is much more the same on a 5, 5s, 6, 6s, 7 and the variety of iPads than Android is across the multiple manufacturers, their phone models and tablet models.
When I look at Android, I look at the manufacturers and their specific full featured phones. The $50 to $100 phones tend to be very limited in features, lack regular updates and get abandoned within 8 months.
Yes, there is an issue that needs to be resolved (with Safari) and they will get to it at some time.
What is more relating to this thread is that functional fixes are being negated because of personal preferences/desires. If someone (the generic reference) chooses to stay within a specific environment that is not fully functioning and doesn’t have a solution to the issue at hand, that would be a developers focus of fixing. If there is a solution available that is not part of that specific environment, then use it. Then provide developers information and feedback details comparing a variety works and failures to help narrow down the browser differences.
You (specifically) have discovered issues that are specific to Safari (with some zoom levels working and some not). Reproducing the same success/fail results in a different browser in your environment and submitting those setting, values and time stamps gives the developers something to narrow down and resolve.
What I am debating in this thread is an unwillingness to use a solution that is available to you.The expectation of Safari is supported thus fix it (with the self imposed limitation of nothing but Safari means my Glowforge is useless) is pretty short sighted.
Helping the developers identify what is effecting your preferred environment will benefit you and others in the long run, but if you want to do things with your GF , use what works while things are being investigated and resolved.
I wonder if the overlay of the two images should be done in the cloud rather than in the browser. It seems like positional accuracy is too important to leave to the browser when there are multiple versions and each can have numerous plugins that can have an effect. A bit of overlaid text / image going astray on a browser page is common and normally just annoying but if it causes wasted material it is more serious.
They have the feedback. [edit to remove bitter rant: I must be going through caffeine withdrawal or something]
I’ll try it with all extensions disabled tonight. Hard to imagine how an ad-blocker can cause weird zoom issues, but stranger things have happened in the world of Javascript.
Just what I was thinking. Presumably they’re drawing these layers and scaling them locally, and running afoul of yet another CSS quirk. At the same time, I assume some of the lag in the UI is due to round-tripping to the cloud, so maybe I should be careful what I wish for.
When the 1st iPhone 6 Plus 128 Gig phones came out, I replaced my iPhone 5 64Gig model with it. Having more storage available I was able to fully sink my iTunes library (Apps, Podcasts, images and videos). Everything was working fine until it hit the 55Gig storage level. The phone stopped receiving data, wouldn’t update emails, no new programs, nothing. It would not even talk to iTunes.
At first, I thought it was a bad backup image (from the iPhone 5). Did a factory reset and tried again. After the third time of the massive restore and transfer, I just set it up as a new phone. No issues. Added all the Apps (I am an app junkie). No problems. Went to the Podcasts next… Crap same problems. Did a reset again and tried everything, but Podcasts. Happy phone.
Figuring that I had a corrupt podcast(s), I choose a chunk at a time. Worked well to some portion of the podcasts then crapped out again.
Decided to call Apple for support. Many hours and up the levels of tech support (because nothing had documented this behavior). The equivalent of 3rd/next to the engineers. He remoted into my Windows computer collected data from iTunes and such to send to the engineers.
Calls me back a couple days later to get more technical info and logs.Calls me again (a few more days later) saying the engineers couldn’t find any issues. He asked if I knew of anyone with a Mac because they need to run a different set of tools that are Mac only. Surprised him that I had a Mac and had him remote into my Mac Mini.
Runs the tools, collects the data and sends it off to the engineers again (this is like the 4 or 5 time of gathering info for them). Call me back a few days later. Engineers say they cannot find anything wrong.
I ask him if there is anyone else reporting this problem. Nope. He even has the same model as mine. BTW, as long as I kept it below 50 to 55 Gigs of usage, phone works as designed,
I them ask him about getting the phone exchanged. Since the engineers could not find any hardware issues, he would have to get it approved. Tells me he will call me back once it is approved.
A week goes by before he calls. He nearly sheepishly starts the conversation saying they have found the issue. It surprised me that his tone was like that. We had enjoyed many a conversation of the 6 weeks previously. Turns out that the current version of iOS had a memory allocation issue that until storage levels (for user info and device needs) crossed over the 64 Gig level, it was not known.
I was the very first one to work with Apple that had a device with 128 Gigs (which previously max out at 64 Gigs) who didn’t just return the phone for an exchange.
So after more than 2 months of working with Apple, they discovered the software flaw that was patched 3 months after they originally released the $970 iPhone 6 Plus 128 device.
The demographic you’re looking for here is not “the entire world of mobile devices” but the demographics of GlowForge buyers, which likely leans more towards Apple ecosystem users and less towards “Asian markets with bottom-tier android devices.” What I mean is that your slant that Safari is a ~4% browser share is the wrong metric for this audience and product. Android has the higher sales numbers worldwide because they are mostly low-end prior generation phones for cheap or free (look at the Chinese market alone, for example). That demographic isn’t really jumping on the GlowForge train anytime soon.
Here is where I suspect you are projecting your own biases. Do you have definitive statistics on browser share or operating system for the Glowforge demographic?
The only Apple device I have is an iPad, and I only have that because my Mackie Digital mixer requires an iPad for operation. I am not, however, holding myself up as a typical user–because I don’t know either.
I think the primary use cases are Windows and OS X, in what proportion remains to be determined. I primarily use Edge, but that is, in part, because I never liked Firefox, and Google tries to monetize every bit of data they can get their hands on.
That said, I am typing this on the aforementioned iPad because I’m not at my desktop or laptop Windows system right now.
As for Android, yes, lots of cheap (as in shoddily made) devices run Android. However, there are many high quality Android devices in phone, phablet, and tablet form factors.
(I’ve been doing mobile development for 15 years–BREW, J2ME, Android–including modifications to the internals–, Amazon Fire, and Windows Mobile. I’ve shipped code embedded in several of these by their OEMs. I haven’t coded for an Apple device since 1985–but that’s a whole other rant.)
You’re correct…it’s not a solution but a workaround. I’m not using Chrome for anything else but the Glowforge app. If this issue gets ‘fixed’ I’ll just go back to using Safari, but for now I made an alias of Chrome for my ‘dock’ and renamed it Glowforge App, and set it up to go directly to that site…so it’s one click away on my desktop. I’m not saying that this is something everyone will want to do, but it’s sure a quick ‘workaround’ for me. It will get me by in good stead until something better comes along.
I let my laptop upgrade to Windows 10 but Edge didn’t work so I reverted to Win 7. The only thing that impressed me about W10 was that it can install and remove itself with no apparent effect.
I agree with @johnse that Edge has gotten much better since the 1507 Release of Windows 10.
I have found that the 1703 Release of Windows 10 of Edge functionality is much closer to Firefox than Internet Explorer 11. I am running all 4 browsers each day (with preference to specific sites with specific browsers). It wasn’t until January 2017 that I could make regular use of Edge.
I still make Internet Explorer 11 the default browser (including putting the IE icon on the desktop, in the Start Menu and on the taskbar) unless they prefer Chrome or Firefox.
My plan is to force myself to use the GFUI in all the browsers to fully understand what the nuances are in each browser.
It’s like you took the words straight from my brain.
For a minute I said “Maybe I should try to like Edge.” But the UI variances from, well, every other browser I’ve ever used, left me thinking “Maybe I’m too old for this sh…”
, use what works while things are being investigated and resolved.