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Hosting a website on a disposable vape

https://bogdanthegeek.github.io/blog/projects/vapeserver/
512•dmazin•3h ago•120 comments

Launch HN: Trigger.dev (YC W23) – Open-source platform to build reliable AI apps

45•eallam•1h ago•21 comments

PayPal to support Ethereum and Bitcoin

https://newsroom.paypal-corp.com/2025-09-15-PayPal-Ushers-in-a-New-Era-of-Peer-to-Peer-Payments,-...
109•DocFeind•2h ago•85 comments

CubeSats are fascinating learning tools for space

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2025/cubesats-are-fascinating-learning-tools-space
81•warrenm•2h ago•16 comments

Programming Deflation

https://tidyfirst.substack.com/p/programming-deflation
55•dvcoolarun•2h ago•29 comments

How big a solar battery do I need to store all my home's electricity?

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/09/how-big-a-solar-battery-do-i-need-to-store-all-my-homes-electric...
84•FromTheArchives•4h ago•122 comments

How to self-host a web font from Google Fonts

https://blog.velocifyer.com/Posts/3,0,0,2025-8-13,+how+to+self+host+a+font+from+google+fonts.html
39•Velocifyer•2h ago•51 comments

RustGPT: A pure-Rust transformer LLM built from scratch

https://github.com/tekaratzas/RustGPT
275•amazonhut•7h ago•125 comments

Removing newlines in FASTA file increases ZSTD compression ratio by 10x

https://log.bede.im/2025/09/12/zstandard-long-range-genomes.html
178•bede•3d ago•67 comments

Show HN: Daffodil – Open-Source Ecommerce Framework to connect to any platform

https://github.com/graycoreio/daffodil
26•damienwebdev•2h ago•2 comments

Apple has a private CSS property to add Liquid Glass effects to web content

https://alastair.is/apple-has-a-private-css-property-to-add-liquid-glass-effects-to-web-content/
151•_alastair•2h ago•80 comments

Folks, we have the best π

https://lcamtuf.substack.com/p/folks-we-have-the-best
249•fratellobigio•9h ago•70 comments

Microsoft to force install the Microsoft 365 Copilot app in October

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-to-force-install-the-microsoft-365-copi...
22•mikece•29m ago•5 comments

The Mac App Flea Market

https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2025/mac-app-flea-market/
173•ingve•9h ago•89 comments

Meta bypassed Apple privacy protections, claims former employee

https://9to5mac.com/2025/08/21/meta-allegedly-bypassed-apple-privacy-measure-and-fired-employee-w...
76•latexr•1h ago•24 comments

Language Models Pack Billions of Concepts into 12k Dimensions

https://nickyoder.com/johnson-lindenstrauss/
305•lawrenceyan•12h ago•101 comments

A string formatting library in 65 lines of C++

https://riki.house/fmt
8•PaulHoule•1h ago•6 comments

Show HN: I reverse engineered macOS to allow custom Lock Screen wallpapers

https://cindori.com/backdrop
48•cindori•8h ago•32 comments

Creating a VGA Signal in Hubris

https://lasernoises.com/blog/hubris-vga/
11•lasernoises•1h ago•2 comments

Death to type classes

https://jappie.me/death-to-type-classes.html
78•zeepthee•3d ago•49 comments

Boring Work Needs Tension

https://iaziz786.com/blog/boring-work-needs-tension/
6•iaziz786•1h ago•0 comments

A qualitative analysis of pig-butchering scams

https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.20821
150•stmw•12h ago•83 comments

Which NPM package has the largest version number?

https://adamhl.dev/blog/largest-number-in-npm-package/
137•genshii•13h ago•56 comments

Show HN: Semlib – Semantic Data Processing

https://github.com/anishathalye/semlib
27•anishathalye•3h ago•9 comments

Pgstream: Postgres streaming logical replication with DDL changes

https://github.com/xataio/pgstream
39•fenn•4h ago•2 comments

Not all browsers perform revocation checking

https://revoked-isrgrootx1.letsencrypt.org/
79•sugarpimpdorsey•13h ago•62 comments

The Culture novels as a dystopia

https://www.boristhebrave.com/2025/09/14/the-culture-novels-as-a-dystopia/
39•ibobev•8h ago•66 comments

Grapevine canes can be converted into plastic-like material that will decompose

https://www.sdstate.edu/news/2025/08/can-grapevines-help-slow-plastic-waste-problem
374•westurner•18h ago•303 comments

The madness of SaaS chargebacks

https://medium.com/@citizenblr/the-10-payment-that-cost-me-43-95-the-madness-of-saas-chargebacks-...
51•evermike•5h ago•73 comments

NASA's Guardian Tsunami Detection Tech Catches Wave in Real Time

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-guardian-tsunami-detection-tech-catches-wave-in-real-time/
126•geox•2d ago•20 comments
Open in hackernews

Apple has a private CSS property to add Liquid Glass effects to web content

https://alastair.is/apple-has-a-private-css-property-to-add-liquid-glass-effects-to-web-content/
151•_alastair•2h ago

Comments

iruoy•1h ago
> It stands to reason that Apple wouldn't have developed this feature if they weren't using it. Where? We have no idea. But they must be using it somewhere. The fact that none of us have noticed exactly where suggests that we're interacting with webviews in our daily use of iOS without ever even realising it.

This is what stood out to me. I've never really suspected webviews and can't think of a place now.

echeese•1h ago
I assume they're going to use it on Apple.com, the same way that they were using backdrop-filter to simulate the frosted glass on earlier iOSes
bstsb•1h ago
according to the post, it doesn't exist on Safari
JakaJancar•1h ago
I often suspect things in Settings, esp. account/iCloud section to be webviews, just based on how they load (icons appearing a short moment after the page opens for example).
ciabattabread•1h ago
When you tap some of the menu items in the “Saved to iCloud” section, they don’t have the normal grey item highlight that happens with the rest of the settings app.
JimDabell•10m ago
Yes, those parts of the Settings app are built with web views that embed React Web:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30648424

dcarmo•1h ago
The App Store app seems to be using web views extensively.
alwillis•1h ago
Both Mail and Calendar use web views for starters.
ivape•1h ago
I’m sure there are many apps like the Apple Store app and parts of the App Store that pull in web views. That’s most likely what this is for. Probably parts of News, Music, Games apps as well.
inc3pt•1h ago
I’m fairly certain Apple Music makes pretty heavy use of webviews.
galad87•1h ago
Actually it does not. It used to, but then was rewritten. The Accessibility Inspector app can be used to see what's the class of the UI elements, if you want to check.
snackbroken•1h ago
Providing an OS feature only to first-party programs is a plainly anticompetitive practice. Using your privileged position in one market (cell phones/cell phone operating systems) to gain an advantage in another market (smart phone applications) that you withhold from your competitors is a textbook case.
integralid•1h ago
I wanted to be outraged at apple, but I really can't. Read WinAPI documentation and try to count all "reserved" parameters for example. OS developers build features just for internal use all the time.

Granted, this is just UI tweak so I'm not convinced it has to be private, but they probably just don't want to have to maintain that forever.

senkora•1h ago
Yeah, this seems reasonable to me. The better thing to get annoyed at Apple for is being slow to implement web standards. I guess you could make the argument that they are choosing to work on stuff like this instead, but I think that’s a weak argument.
lysace•1h ago
Private/secret APIs in DOS/Windows were a prominent part of the US and EU antitrust lawsuits against Microsoft in the 90s/00s.
alwillis•1h ago
> Private/secret APIs in Windows were a prominent part of the US and EU antitrust lawsuits against Microsoft in the 90s/00s.

It mattered because Microsoft had 95% of the operating system market at the time and was using its monopoly position to take over the web, even after signing a decent decree with the US government.

lysace•1h ago
Edit: It can probably be argued that Apple is a acting like a monopolist in one or a few areas though?

The current web monopolist (Google) was coincidentally founded 2 months after the US antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft was decided (july - september 1998).

Similarly meh results with US vs Google two weeks ago.

blahyawnblah•10m ago
Microsoft doesn't punish you for using those though.
snackbroken•1h ago
The key distinction is the withholding from your competitors part. WinAPI may have a ton of features labelled "pls no use thx" but MS doesn't block you from distributing a program that uses them anyway.
ivape•1h ago
Shouldn’t this be easily available in Electron/Tauri and React Native apps?
jakelazaroff•1h ago
Electron doesn't use WebKit, so definitely not. Not sure about Tauri desktop, but how would you use it for Tauri mobile and React Native?
ivape•1h ago
Woah, TIL. Chromium apparently forked WebKit in 2013. wtf?

So, if you wanted webviews that could leverage this you’d basically need a native swift app with webviews to get access.

jjtheblunt•1h ago
Isn't the article saying they added a new css element, but it's not restricted to apple apps only really, just not in documentation yet? for example, this article is preview documentation, of a sort?
thefreeman•42m ago
No, it says it is restricted. You need to set a private attribute on the webview to enable it. And if you interact with private APIs your app will be rejected in review.
galad87•1h ago
Only if you consider making UI text unreadable an advantage.
brookst•1h ago
Wait so are all non-standard CSS attributes "anticompetitive"? This seems like wild hyperbole.

Is Google's "-webkit-tap-highlight-color" also anticompetitive? Should we ban the current practice of shipping proprietary CSS attributes while sometimes also proposing them for standardization?

It's just really hard for me to read that as a legit complaint.

kuschku•36m ago
If you use this CSS liquid glass effect in your app, Apple will reject it from the App Store.

If Apple uses this CSS liquid glass effect in their apps, it'll pass App Store review just fine.

Do you see the issue now?

ezfe•11m ago
iOS has many private APIs, this one is no different. The fact it's implemented in WebKit is a red herring.
bigyabai•1m ago
> The fact it's implemented in WebKit is a red herring

So when Google creates self-serving APIs in a web browser engine, it's anti-consumer and is killing the free web.

But when Apple does it, it's just another private API, a red herring and their right as the proprietor of Safari.

Hmm...

elaus•36m ago
You can use `-webkit-tap-highlight-color` on your website or PWA and distribute it any way you want. It will just not work in non-webkit browsers like Firefox.

What apple does and what the article talks about: They have a CSS property that ONLY they can use, you can't put that in your PWA, it won't work (no matter the browser).

rs186•35m ago
I can install chrome on Windows, Linux and Mac, so I give them a pass. Not to mention that was ancient history.
tshaddox•47m ago
What are your thoughts on computer hardware which is much more restrictive? Video game consoles, for example, require all code to be cryptographically signed, meaning that third parties can't publish any software whatsoever without the blessing of the console manufacturer.
sho_hn•35m ago
I'm assuming they don't like that either.

Apple does plenty of bad things, and many are worse than this, but it doesn't mean it's not fair to point out this one is bad, too.

It all comes down to "the vendor can do things with your computer you can't do yourself" in the end.

Muromec•22m ago
>It all comes down to "the vendor can do things with your computer you can't do yourself" in the end.

It's not even that. A console vendor that locks down everything behind the TPM helps to not deal with cheaters is arguably fine. A console vendor that is also a game develop and caps the FPS of all games that aren't their own is abusing their monopoly position in one market to gain unfair advantage on a different market.

nashashmi•30m ago
I think there is line that a company can cross: using a locked-down appearance setting to make an app look like it is from the company.

For example, if there was a glowing light on the edge of the phone that only lights up with stock apps and company apps, and that signfies for security that an app belongs to a company, that is ok.

I don't consider design/appearance to be a feature. YMD.

shuckles•21m ago
True, this is killing innovation in badly written settings panes implemented with web technologies.
carlosjobim•11m ago
How is Apple withholding Samsung from making applications for Android? What kind of textbooks are you reading?
tgv•8m ago
With whom is Apple competing on their own web pages and apps? And how much advantage does some shiny reflection (which, btw, could also be attained by writing the effect yourself) offer them over that competition? It must be something big and obvious, otherwise there's no way it's illegal, but I can't think of it.

If you mean "anti-competitive" without referring to monopolies, then, well, every company does that.

mikeaskew4•1h ago
FEDs are cooked.
seydor•1h ago
Let's pray this liquid jelly doesnt become a trend
Insanity•1h ago
Same boat as you - hope it doesn't but I'm pretty sure it will. Apple is doing it, so other companies will jump on the same bandwagon.
thewebguyd•1h ago
Younger generation is obsessed with nostalgia for Aero/Glass and that whole era's aesthetic. It will definitely become a trend, if not for that then because Apple did it and the industry has lost all innovation outside of "copy whatever Apple does."
jonathanlydall•59m ago
Wow, I didn't stop to think how Windows Vista is actually quite close to 20 years old now. It and Windows 7 still feel "modern" in my mind.
jeroenhd•3m ago
As a fan of aero, I hope Google copies the Apple theme with their own aero theme.

There are some places where I hope Apple improves things like legibility and contrast, but I'll take anything over the bland, flat designs of the Window 8 era.

wpm•1h ago
Already has
brookst•59m ago
Love or hate liquid glass, the paradigm shift from "UI chrome is a wrapper around app content" to "UI is overlayed on top of app content" seems like the future. It's well aligned with AR and better separates UI layout from content for different screen sizes.

I'm neutral on this first implementation (some good, some bad). But I think the approach will be picked up by essentially everyone. Good news for you, there's nothing saying the overlay UI model has to be transparent. Some will probably be opaque but still floating.

hu3•30m ago
I don't buy it.

First, AR is currently aspirational at best. After decades of failures.

Second, overlaying translucid UI over content makes separation of UI from content worse, not better.

Windows Aero tried that 2 decades ago and, while it looked cool, they reverted.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Aero

bigyabai•6m ago
> seems like the future

Please, please cite sources for this. Without context you are really just drawing conjecture here.

Apple certainly seems invested in the idea of an AR future. But users do not - ARkit integrations are few-and-far between, Pokemon Go is a dead fad and Vision Pro failed harder than almost any other contemporary Apple product. It seems less like Apple is skating to the puck, and more like they're begging someone to pass to them. But the rest of the industry seems content ignoring the AR industry to invest away from Apple into stocks like Nvidia. Simultaneously, Apple threw away their stake in consortiums like Khronos, signalling a lack of desire to engage in new software standards.

With how many roadblocks Apple is facing here, I have no idea how you'd conclude that forcing AR on their users is a preferred paradigm.

qgin•23m ago
I do wish they didn't make it bounce and jiggle so much. It changes the whole thing from looking like glass to looking like a gelatinous blob.
bstsb•1h ago
> you have to toggle a setting in WKPreferences called useSystemAppearance... and it's private. So if you use it, say goodbye to App Store approval.

is this true? i know very little of iOS development but i swear i remember watching a decompilation of an app that used various internal APIs to provide animated home screen widgets

JimDabell•9m ago
That would not get through the App Store review process.
skrebbel•1h ago
I like "Alastair's Grand Theory of In-App Webviews":

the main reason webviews in apps have such a bad reputation is because you don't notice the webviews that are integrated seamlessly

actionfromafar•1h ago
There's also, in there somewhere, a corollary about how you don't notice the webviews which don't stick out but just don't feel right. Like, someone mentioned Settings app in MacOS might use them because the icons don't load fast enough.

I can't help but lament just a little bit. Apple used to be about insane polish. Just think about the mentality that created the rounded screen corners on the original Mac. That's just crazy and I admire it.

sho_hn•37m ago
> Apple used to be about insane polish.

I think that's mostly a brand narrative/myth. MacOS has always had warts at any given time.

graypegg•1h ago
"All toupées look fake. I've never seen one that I couldn't tell was fake."
_alastair•1h ago
"The Toupée Theory of In-App Webviews" is perfect. I might change it in the post.
skrebbel•1h ago
Fwiw I think the personal attribution gives it a nice touch.
john-h-k•20m ago
“Alastair’s Toupee’s theory of in-app WebViews”?
graypegg•1h ago
Totally agree with the sibling comment, you should own it! Just made me think of that quote haha.
swyx•26m ago
you write really well OP! please keep it up.
lagniappe•23m ago
run it
rudedogg•32m ago
I think another split is between:

- people who have gone down the webview path, and know how difficult it is to do well

- people who have been told they can simply package their webapp into a native application

You can probably guess which group has more people

StillBored•3m ago
Which is probably exactly why this was added. The cheap way to usually tell if someone is using a 3rd party UI toolkit, is to start tweaking the system theming and see if the application follows some scaling/color changes correctly.

In this case some subset of apple provided apps weren't following the theme and they fixed it by adding a private css property.

Vs some other OS vendor that likely removed most of the theme controls so they didn't have to keep fixing a huge pile of 1/2 baked abandoned toolkits scattered across their product portfolio.

chmod775•1h ago
For those who don't know what the fuck "Liquid Glass effect" is: it's a sort of frosted glass look that apple uses for their UI.

It's being sold as the best thing since sliced bread. Googling it felt like I entered a parallel universe.

pdntspa•53m ago
Windows 7 did it like 15 years ago
jacobgkau•33m ago
Windows 7's had more character.
olivia-banks•1h ago
Mapbox is such a pretty piece of software.
vlucas•1h ago
Nice find!

Apple's new glass UI seems to draw a lot of ire, but I... kinda like it? It feels like the OS has some actual personality again instead of just being flat and boring. I can visually tell the size of click targets now and the buttons are finally visually distinct from text again. I view it as a welcome change. It's not just "nostalgia" either. It has actual utility.

I installed the iOS 26 Beta to test some things on the websites I maintain in advance of it going public, and while there are some issues here and there I think the overall direction to add more personality back into the OS is a good one. Normies will love it.

presbyterian•53m ago
I like the glass effects and aesthetics, but I think the functionality in a lot of the apps isn't as good as it was. A lot of things that were easy-to-reach buttons are now tucked away in menus, and harder to find.
OsrsNeedsf2P•50m ago
> I can visually tell the size of click targets now and the buttons are finally visually distinct from text

The bar is high

vlucas•27m ago
True, but Apple did this to themselves. Their flat UI also drew a lot of ire for this initially, especially from accessibility concerned circles.
akulbe•48m ago
Count me in the "I think this look is horrendous!" crowd, along with the "What were you thinking, Apple?!?!" crowd.

It's just terrible.

bluSCALE4•1h ago
Liquid Glass icons look like crap and it's pretty broken on iOS.
pdntspa•54m ago
"Liquid Glass" ... you mean that effect that Windows 7 did in like 2007 or so?
jacobgkau•34m ago
No, Windows 7 actually did a glass texture, whereas this is just a blur with marketing.
dymk•26m ago
Chromatic aberration ain’t blur
rckt•4m ago
> Whoever it was at Apple that decided to make this a CSS property is a genius because it makes it incredibly easy to provide different rules based on Liquid Glass support

What is genius here? Create something, that nobody asked for, create an in-house CSS property to use across approved apps. Genius? I would simply call this a dirty trick.

There are a lot of things, that they could have implemented, according to the CSS spec. But they decided to spend workforce on this shit. Yeah, they are a business and free to do whatever they want with their money. But I don’t like their choices.