I've been building websites for 10+ years as well, and I can't tell you how many hours I've wasted on workaround to make something trivial work in Safari that required no work in other browsers. I've also run into some pretty gnarly animation performance issues over the years.
That being said, Apple has clearly upped the focus on the browser in the last two years, and they are shipping a ton more features and fixes in each update, so kudos to them for refocusing as of late.
If you develop for Safari first you will feel the exact opposite: you'll get it working perfect in Safari only to have to frustratingly deal with tons of issues in Chrome.
I think it was objectively true that Safari was lagging 3 years ago, but in the last two years in terms of standards, Safari is equal or better. Safari feels much faster in practice for quite a while.
HoloKit, originally a Google Cardboard-like AR device for the iPhone, has been relaunched as a more premium $150 iPhone accessory. Unfortunately no SDK available anymore (for now at least).
> HoloKit, originally a Google Cardboard-like AR device for the iPhone, has been relaunched
Is it more than a premium version of Google Cardboard? I can't tell. The "Technical Specs" mention "optical lenses" but otherwise mention no hardware details--well, other than the bring-your-own items (iPhone, Airpods, Apple Watch)...
It looks exactly like those under $20 VR kits for phones. My guess is that the added value is in the app if it can overlay VR on top of the realtime video from iPhone cameras.
No, it's quite different from those, and it's not overlaying VR on top of camera video. You're looking at the real world through a diagonal window, and the phone screen is reflecting off that same window so you see it overlaid on your direct view of the world.
Looking at tech specs there is no touch controls. Input is either by using CV hand tracking or sending motion controls from an Apple Watch. Basically they are using Apples SDK for everything.
I bought one and regretted it as there is a strict no return policy. My purpose was possibly using it for AR development but I found the experience not much better than Google Day Dream, as far as I can remember, and possibly worse because the hard plastic molding made it harder to position your phone. Also I missed the Daydream remote.
On the upside it disabused me of the idea that AR was any closer to ready at a relatively low consumer price point.
Per typical AR product, the preview videos were wildly better quality than the actual experience.
I'm a developer myself and use Apple both professionally and personally. I hear the walled garden excuse frequently from those who choose not to use Apple products, but honestly I don't run into limitations often on macOS. I have to ask - what is it that you're trying to do that makes you feel as though macOS is a walled garden? Short of really serious kernel extensions, I don't find myself pressing up against a walled garden on macOS.
That being said, iOS is absolutely a walled garden, though I rarely find myself in need of something that it doesn't accommodate anymore (with the exception of WebXR, which isn't exactly popular yet). But Microsoft doesn't have its own mobile OS anymore, so not sure this is analogous.
That being said, Apple has clearly upped the focus on the browser in the last two years, and they are shipping a ton more features and fixes in each update, so kudos to them for refocusing as of late.