Understandable... PWAs are ultimately an alternative path from traditional mobile apps which will take away money from apple/google.<p>But as a web dev community we need to stand firm and build PWAs regardless. If we treat pwas on iOS like we did Internet explorer (i.e. giving it special attention and hack solutions as opposed to just not developing for it) we will lose the fight.<p>I suggest you call out the issues with ios and put disclaimers on your app page saying what's not supported, or add taglines like "for the best experience, use <other broswer>".<p>Apple can afford the dev work to update Safari or work with the standards committee, but im sure with their new vr goggles they will take the proprietary route
I love developing PWAs because I can quickly and easily make an app for myself and my family that works without having to provision their devices or pay a dev license to Apple. I also use it at work for internal apps. It’s great for all those things.<p>It’s very obvious to me that I’m a second priority for Apple. Dark mode breaking in iOS 17 and still broken 5 months later. Updating the app is tricky, and making users update is even trickier. Haven’t even bothered to try push notifications.<p>One pro though is that when my brother wanted to use a PWA I had developed it worked flawlessly on his Android phone. Cross platform support is a big pro in my opinion.<p>Maybe Apple will fix dark mode with iOS 18, let’s hope they also fix it when using guided access (which was buggy in iOS 16).
In my opinion, it is always the same "cross-platform" discussion. If you hire an iOS/Android mobile dev to write a native iOS/Android app, it means that you hire someone specialized in <i>apps for mobiles</i>. The whole point of a cross-platform framework is the hope that it won't need the specialization: "any web dev can now write a mobile app".<p>But every cross-platform framework has the same problem: platforms are different, and require work specific to them. As a result, cross-platform is "write once, debug everywhere".<p>If you don't know better, cross-platform frameworks <i>systematically</i> seem to "get to the same result faster". So many companies go for cross-platform frameworks. But in reality, the different platforms are so different that the only way to make a truly great app is to go native everywhere.<p>Not that there is not a place for PWAs: "cheaper but not as good" is clearly the trend everywhere. But I don't see PWAs replace "great native apps" anytime soon. If PWAs win, it will just mean that the users got worse apps because the companies spent less money on them.
PWAs will only replace native apps when the operating systems support them properly. Let's see how the European Union moves forward with the Digital Markets Act.<p>Let's see if a regulation like that can tame Apple, or if Apple keeps finding loop holes to not fully comply in the intended way (to liberate the European market from oligopolist gate keeping companies). If it works there might be a further revision that forces Apple to support PWAs. And on the long run I don't think they will limit those features just to the European market.<p>Once alternative browser engines and alternative app stores arrive, it might be possible to provide an app store that just wraps any known PWA into a native iOS app and runs them inside a Chromium browser. With full PWA support. Like the Microsoft store does. You can just register your PWA there and it will show up in the store, they even had the plan to scan the web for PWAs and put them in the store even if the author didn't register it. I don't know if they ever followed though with that plan.<p>One positive mention: I recently switched my PWAs on Windows to Edge, and it's the best PWA experience I've ever had on any platform. A good PWA feels 98% like a native application.
I think developers need to clearly put blame on Apple for PWA not working. In apps you're not allowed to mention apple's shady behaviour when it comes to fees, but on the web you can.<p>Since 2016 I've had the option for users to enable push notifications, with a big red disclaimer if the user is using iOS that it does not work on an iPhone. Still, I got so so many requests from user saying they had tried with Chrome(or whatever other browser) instead, and it's still not working, not understanding that all browsers on iOS is limited in the same way because of apple.<p>If there are any more problems with web push on iOS I'll clearly tell the user that Apple doesn't allow the user to use it, and that they will have to ask apple to enable it, and give them contact information. If the user bought the phone expecting web push to work then they can probably return it and buy an Android phone instead if the seller can't fix web push.
PWAs will never be as good as native, definitionally. There is always API drift. There is always runtime cost. Nothing inside a system can ever have parity with its parent container. If it could, it would be the system itself.<p>People's experience with hardware and physical objects matters. If you accept that, you should always want to be closer to the metal at the cost of convenience or portability.
Found the article they linked[0] much more interesting / problematic:<p>> Now, when a user in Europe taps a web app icon, they will see a system message asking if they wish to open it in Safari or cancel. The message adds that the web app "will open in your default browser from now on." When opened in Safari, the web app opens like a bookmark, with no dedicated windowing, notifications, or long-term local storage. Users have seen issues with existing web apps such as data loss, since the Safari version can no longer access local data, as well as broken notifications.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.macrumors.com/2024/02/08/ios-17-4-nerfs-web-apps-in-the-eu/" rel="nofollow">https://www.macrumors.com/2024/02/08/ios-17-4-nerfs-web-apps...</a>
I think this is more an illustration of how Apple are intentionally trying to hobble web apps so they can continue to tax all transactions on the app store, than any kind of issue with web technology itself. If Apple implemented the necessary features and fixed the bugs, it could well be a strong alternative to a native app. But they make money from preventing that and are doing everything they can to prevent other browsers from implementing quality PWA support.
“There are no silent pushes, so we can only update the app icon badge with a displayed push. Ideally, if you clear your notifications elsewhere, we automatically remove the badge on your phone. This isn’t possible with PWAs via push.”<p>Damn, is Apple doing these slight annoyances on purpose to degrade the user experience?
Maybe we should be pushing for fewer PWAs overall. I personally will not use any web-based app when I can use a native app (with a few exceptions). PWAs just add unnecessary bloat, and the current HTML/CSS/JS stack that the web uses was designed for delivering text documents, not apps, so that inherently limits the experience.
Since iOS 17.4 for EU users<p>1. Apple will DELETE user's data without notice
2. Lot of apps will stop working and there will be no way to access them without update
3. Web Push will stop working; users expecting notifications will never get them
4. Apple breaks the Web platform<p>This was published in the document "Update on apps distributed in the European Union"
<a href="https://developer.apple.com/support/dma-and-apps-in-the-eu/" rel="nofollow">https://developer.apple.com/support/dma-and-apps-in-the-eu/</a>
Side note but, man, I hate it when write ups like this refer to events in relative terms without including a published date...<p>> Last month [...]<p>> At the same time [...]<p>> That was over 6 months ago [...]<p>From when?!? What good is a relative timeline of events and your "current" thinking without a timestamp?<p>Digging though the source, it looks like this is from a few days ago.. "created_at":"2024-02-14T01:45:45.254Z"<p>/rant
Apple has confirmed that PWAs will be just a browser bookmarks from now on.<p>Other browsers won't also have access to add (actual, not bookmark) PWAs. That is the main reason to not allow them.<p>If other browsers can add powerful PWAs then it competes with App Store.
I expect PWA to remain noticeably limited relative to native, and probably with a noticeable gradient between Google and Apple. But I also expect PWA to steamroll all conventional app development nonetheless: PWA optionally bundled with some native components for filing the gaps, as in Tauri. Progressive will just grow another stage beyond manifest and serviceworker: manifest and serviceworker running in a customized variant of the browser installed through the app store.
Despite my best efforts and I still have no idea what a Progressive Web App is and why I need to use one. Seems like it's just a website that fits a certain accessibility criteria. It also seems like a hassle to get working correctly offline based on what I have read.
I understand the benefits of PWAs for developers. Can someone explain to me the benefits for <i>users</i>? From a UX perspective how is a PWA superior to a native app?
> That means that if you’re viewing a chat thread on your PWA and you get a new message, you can’t suppress the new-message push. This is incredibly annoying for users.<p>Am I confused, or can't you just have the client tell the server you are viewing the thread, and suppress the push at the server side? If everything is encrypted maybe it reveals a bit of extra metadata about what you are looking at at the time though.<p>They went with a 10 second delay or something, but just keeping track of the user's state could be easier (you might have connectivity gaps, requiring some keepalive logic too and then something like the delay to avoid spamming them with notifications they didn't need).
(Repeating a previous comment on another post)<p>Browsers should only display documents, not apps. That's what operating systems are for.<p>Just give native apps what made the web popular in the first place:<p>• Ability to instantly launch any app just by typing its "name"<p>• No need to download or install anything<p>• Ability to revisit any part of an app just by copy/pasting some text and sharing it with anyone.<p>That's what ultimately matters to end users.
For those of us who want to know,
From Wikipedia:<p>A progressive web application (PWA), or progressive web app, is a type of application software delivered through the web, built using common web technologies including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and WebAssembly. It is intended to work on any platform with a standards-compliant browser, including desktop and mobile devices.
Anyone have experience with/opinions on Apache Cordova? [1]<p>It seems like it would solve most of the PWA issues. Although I vaguely recall reading that Apple is not too fond of apps that are basically just wrapped web views.<p>[1] <a href="https://cordova.apache.org/" rel="nofollow">https://cordova.apache.org/</a>
Even tough my disdain for devs using Electron instead of developing native apps feels a like challenged with PWA's, I think that ultimately devs/users should have the option.
Apple just confirmed PWA functionality is being cut in the EU, because they would otherwise "favor Safari". This is so clearly bullshit malicious pettyness at the cost of their users to get back at EU regulators, I'd like to return my iPhone now, please. This is like being out with your friends while they're having the beginnings of a breakup.
You know it's not PWA or pure native app, right? There are many other options, including Capacitor which will let you use most of your web code but get native platform access.
A better title would've been, "PWAs aren't a replacement for native iOS apps <i>right now</i>"<p>The drawbacks in the article are good to know, but in my circles it's common knowledge that Apple is putting less than 0 effort into supporting them. Right now, they are absolutely not a drop-in replacement for a native app<p>But that says nothing about the future. In 10 years, why should we still be building separate apps per platform when we have an amazing and open web? The losers are the app stores, because it gets harder to take their cut. As PWAs get closer to feature parity, and once apple gives up their horrendous pushback, it will only make more and more sense to ditch the native app