I completely disagree. Apple supported the defacto standard for handling touch input (http://www.w3.org/TR/touch-events/) before any other browser vendor, and Google followed them very quickly. The w3c decision to abandon touch events and pursue pointer events was only after Apple submitted to the w3c patent advisory group that they held patents on the standard (with no indication of requiring royalty -- and no indication of going after other browser vendors supporting touch events such as Google).
Furthermore, what is a pointer event going to do on an Apple or Google platform? Apple devices only support touch and mice as of this writing -- why do they need pointer events, which adds things such as stylus support with tilt? What would be the purpose of implementing that? Same goes for Google, only Android products I can think of with stylus support are the Samsung Note series, and I don't think those even support the special features of pointer events (I'm thinking tilt and pressure).
Anyways, if you feel that strongly about it, you can use pointer events, and polyfill them on Apple platforms with this: https://github.com/jquery/PEP
Or you can keep using touch events and polyfill them on to platforms that only support pointer events with this: https://github.com/CamHenlin/TouchPolyfill/ (disclaimer: I helped write this one :) )
The article isn't about polyfills, and polyfills don't make up for specs everybody agrees on.
You say you disagree with the article,but nothing in your message is related in anyway with the article.
Pointer events are a better spec, Touch events are like Mouse events, a narrow definition of the possible interactions with a device.Each time there is a new medium, are we going to write a new spec? no ,that's what pointer events are about.It's a better spec. Apple thinks touch events are good enough right now and choose not to give a fuck, well, if other vendors choose to act like Apple,there is no consensus anymore. If Microsoft did the same right now, they'd be insulted out of existence by developers, but when it's Apple,hey free pass.
I'd like to point out that Microsoft did the exact same thing with pointer events with IE10-11 up until the very latest version of Windows 8.1 which is still not rolled out to all devices on all networks
When you say "supported the defacto standard", I suppose you mean "Apple just did something, and the others copied it to be compatible".
The problem is, as it always is, that since the details aren't specified the implementations turn out incompatible. A concrete example: Should the touchmove event trigger the mousemove event? I believe it does in IE and Firefox, while it does not in Chrome and Safari. It isn't specified anywhere, and can make it incredibly complex to implement something that works with both mouse and touch input. And it is exactly the type of thing that Pointer Events sets out to fix.
This is also exactly the same story as with the <meta name="viewport"> tag. Apple did something, and the others made not-fully compatible copies. No exaggeration: Right now the only(!) thing that works consistently cross platform is setting width=device-width. It is insane, and it hurts the web.
Except Google began using it immediately and did so for years before the patents were disclosed, and the w3c abandoned the standard prior to even asking about royalties. I think the w3c is at fault for the fracture in the standards more than anyone else. It's my understanding that Apple holds patents on the canvas standards that they do not require royalties for as well
I can see why you might think that's a dick move, but on the flip side: you admit that it doesn't directly benefit their hardware. If it doesn't benefit their hardware, what benefit at all does it provide to them? The good will of developers wanting to use pointer events? And how many hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of developer time is that going to cost? Developers who want to can use a polyfill for Apple platforms and users won't even notice the difference.
Furthermore, what is a pointer event going to do on an Apple or Google platform? Apple devices only support touch and mice as of this writing -- why do they need pointer events, which adds things such as stylus support with tilt? What would be the purpose of implementing that? Same goes for Google, only Android products I can think of with stylus support are the Samsung Note series, and I don't think those even support the special features of pointer events (I'm thinking tilt and pressure).
Anyways, if you feel that strongly about it, you can use pointer events, and polyfill them on Apple platforms with this: https://github.com/jquery/PEP
Or you can keep using touch events and polyfill them on to platforms that only support pointer events with this: https://github.com/CamHenlin/TouchPolyfill/ (disclaimer: I helped write this one :) )