Apple cites security concerns for killing PWAs in europe. I mean they could‘ve made changes to the system to allow running PWAs in other browser engines by offering an API in which other applications could hook themselves into, akin to how Android did it with the web activity that is used by other apps.
But then that would mean conceding to the EU and we can‘t have that, can we?
Can’t harvest data from a PWA like you can an app.
For other people’s benefit and my own:
PWA: Progressive Web App
I was wondering… passwords with attitude?
Mine are pretty sassy
Boo paywall
Freedium.cfd
Can we kill locally running web apps from the AppStore next, please?
Things that run in a WebView?
Yes, electron-based stuff and the likes are a plague
agreed
Don’t use them?
Hard to do when half the applications are built that way. Git GUIs, code/text editors, chat programs, even the next outlook is jumping on this stuff.
I get it that it’s faster to code like that and you basically get cross platform compatibility for free since you’re writing a website, but it’s a hog of resources that should have been stopped years ago.
All those examples you listed have alternatives…
EU users will be able to continue accessing websites directly from their Home Screen through a bookmark with minimal impact to their functionality.
We expect this change to affect a small number of users. Still, we regret any impact this change — that was made as part of the work to comply with the DMA — may have on developers of Home Screen web apps and our users.from: https://mashable.com/article/apple-kills-home-screen-web-apps-pwas-in-eu-dma
I understood it as a technical limitation imposed by the changes Europe are demanding. They now have to allow different browser engines, so they can’t just use Safari under the hood for PWAs. They will need some UI and the technical underpinning to allow the browser engine to be selected.
They aren’t killing PWAs. They’re simply removing them from the home screen. Nothing about this will interfere with the ability to load and operate PWAs.
Except stuff like push notifications, that requires the pwa to be added to home screen.
That’s the social engineering aspect of insecurity on pwas.
I’m genuinely baffled by this comment section.
Apple’s implementation of other PWA standards requires an app to be opened from the home screen. A user can’t access features of the app if they can’t add it to the homescreen.
Yeah, ok. So now I have the ammunition to convince my friends to avoid apple. Thanks apple. :)
You think that’s going to convince them? Plenty of people consider Apple as the second coming of the messiah. They would cheer if Apple dropped a bucket load of crap on their desk.
I agree that there are addicts and these need therapy indeed. I’m talking about the others. Those who actually think apple does a good job.
No, it will kill PWAs. And since Apple dictates what everyone else does, this also automatically means PWAs are dead on Android, too. It’ll probably get prevented system-side in the future no matter which browser you use, they’ll find a way.
Why would they be dead on Android?
Same reason NFC payments on Android were super niche for years before Apple finally implemented it. Or why so many apps don’t use Android features that would improve them because iOS doesn’t offer that feature. For whatever reason, Apple has an outsized mind share and are able to use that to hold back competing platforms because people don’t want the iPhone version of their apps to be less capable.
Of course, the biggest loser in all this isn’t Android. It’s smaller platforms that want to compete with both Android and iOS.
I think this has to do with web/mobile dev and higher management usually being apple users
But then there are other features on Android that are thriving in spite of Apple not supporting them, like app sideloading.
Same reason NFC payments on Android were super niche for years before Apple finally implemented it
I’m very interested in why you think that. Do you have numbers?
The concept of a mobile wallet was invented in Kenya in 2007 with no input from Apple. That then spread to East Asia where in China, not NFC payments but QR-code payments have been a thing since 2011 and they have barely caught on in the West. There are massive developments and usage of different technologies happening outside of Western countries of which the majority are now on Android simply due to price.
Or why so many apps don’t use Android features that would improve them because iOS doesn’t offer that feature
Which features are these?
Are you an Android user? And which continent are you on? I’m guessing your views are very much centered around a personal experience in a single country or even region, but I may be wrong.
A big benefit is writing the app once and it working everywhere. If it only works on Android, people will just default to the tools tailored to that platform anyway.
But it wouldn’t only work on Android. It would also work on Windows and Unix and any other niche operating system that can run a browser (my Blu-ray recorder has a browser in it). There’s a whole world outside Apple/Android. This message brought to you by a browser running on Windows…
That’s theoretically true, but in practice, the desktop experience (screen size, interaction model, etc.) is sufficiently different that adapting it to mobile to get an app-like experience is not that different from building a separate app.
It’s not at all like building a separate app. All the back-end code is identical - all you have to do is make the mobile version not take up as much screen-space, and that’s not much work. e.g. on desktop I use icon and text, but on mobile icon only.
Then why do you think most business are already writing a separate Android app rather than just optimising their mobile website?
But “make the mobile version not take up as much screen-space” is not as simple as simply zooming out and just hiding some icon labels. And just the fact that people interact by touch rather than with a mouse and keyboard is already a major adjustment.
Anyway, I’ll leave it at this, since I feel like there’s not much to gain here for me from the discussion anymore :) Cheers!
why do you think most business are already writing a separate Android app
I don’t think that. I know some businesses who are still writing separate apps, instead of switching to cross-platform. You’ll have to ask them why they’re doing that. It frustrates me no end when platform-specific bugs come up because they’re running different code on each platform, each written by different people.
the fact that people interact by touch rather than with a mouse and keyboard
…makes no difference at all. Whether a user has touched a button, clicked on it, or tabbed to it and pressed enter, the same Button.Clicked event gets triggered.
Like it or not, Apple is the trend setter. Everybody feels like they need to do what Apple does. So given that, Apple kills PWAs, everyone else will surely follow.
That’s normally how it goes anyway.
Look for every time Apple has said “reimagined” and you’ll find a feature that Android had 5 years earlier.
I don’t think that’s true. Android has had more features than Apple for over a decade. People forget that iPhones didn’t used to have a proper file manager and the only way to put songs on them was through iTunes. iOS has been trailing behind Android in that respect while maintaining their walled garden.
People also forget that smartphones existed before iPhones and MP3 players existed before iPods.
That’s the point though. Android has all these features, but they only suddenly become “real” to the general public when Apple makes their version of it too.
I was using Google Wallet for NFC transactions years before Apple made the same available, but as soon as they did everyone started asking if I liked the new iPhone when I paid with it.
The comment I replied to suggested the opposite, that whatever decisions Apple makes, Android follows behind which isn’t the case in reality.
I understand your point though. It’s weird that people who use iPhones have this mentality that iPhones are at the forefront of innovation. I know some people who are aware that Apple is behind but the phone does what they require of it so they have no need to ask more.
That doesn’t make them trend-setters though - that just makes them big spenders on marketing. i.e. Android wasn’t following what Apple did - they’d already been doing it first!
Technologically, Apple are far behind. But they’re trend setters in terms of the fact that their big marketing and outsized mind share make people want those features.
It’s dumb, but that’s where we are. iOS is essentially the IE6 of the mobile space at this point, holding back real advancements until Apple figures out a way to make a buck off them.
The original comment was
it will kill PWAs
like if Apple STOPS doing it then everyone else will stop doing it. Like when Apple stopped having 3.5mm jacks everyone else stopped having 3.5mm jacks. Oh wait…
As I said, they’re big spenders, not trend-setters.
And since Apple dictates what everyone else does
Quoting myself again for clarity.
Hmm… OK. Not sure you’re right in this instance. PWAs have been shit on iPhones for ages due to everything being forced to use Safari on that platform. Probably less people use PWAs on iPhone than on Android. Most people probably didn’t even know of PWAs (as seen right in this comment section in a tech community).
The title appears to be quite the reach. If Apple wanted to kill PWA’s, they would have done so worldwide. There is absolutely nothing preventing them from disabling them in the US and Canada (and much of the rest of the world) today, but they haven’t — they’re only disabling them in the EU.
Arbitrarily and suddenly destroying all apps built with a certain tech stack, throughout all of Europe will have a knock on effect for that tech stack that will drive less investment in it for every single European company and every multinational that even sometimes operates there.
Apple is being an absolute piece of shit
if they go through with this, I will never buy one of their products againif they do. They’re a trillion dollar company acting like a petulent child because they were forced to be ever so slightly less monopolistic, they’re acting like huge pieces of shit.They’re a trillion dollar company acting like a petulent child
No. They’re a trillion dollar company acting like a greedy dirty scum that they are.
Yes. Greedy dirty scum regularly act like children.
don’t insult children like that.
Arbitrarily and suddenly destroying all apps built with a certain tech stack…
Except they aren’t. Sure, PWAs may be slightly more disadvantaged on iOS/iPadOS than they are now, but they haven’t been “destroyed”. And they continue to work exactly as they did with the prior iOS/iPadOS release in all the rest of the world.
Everyone seems to think Apple is playing some sort of 4D Chess to kill off PWAs — but if Apple wanted to kill off PWAs they could just disable the functionality completely globally tomorrow, and they’d likely face no repercussions for doing so. They don’t even need an excuse to do so.
I’m not claiming that Apple is acting honourably here; merely that if they actually wanted to kill PWAs it wouldn’t require some sort of Rube Goldberg machine-style planning to do it. There is no conspiracy here.
