Apple’s refusal to support Progressive Web Apps is a detriment to the web • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple’s refusal to support Progressive Web Apps is a detriment to the web

#101

Post by SquareWheel » Thu, Jul 27, 2017, 1:15 PM UTC

egeozcan wrote: post #76

rimliu wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most web developers are comfortable in many languages. Citation needed. Especially the "most" part. I've been web developer for 10 years when iPhone came out. I liked what I saw, so when SDK came out I've learned Objective-C. Then I learned Swift. And because I know both sides all this feature parity talk really makes me sad about ignorant people not even willing to learn. "Walled-garden" has long ago became though…

You know that the need for citation goes both ways and anecdotal evidence isn't a real reference, right? Web developers know at least JS, HTML & CSS. Too many know Ruby, Python and/or PHP. Significant amount of them know C#/Java/Go or something similar. Then there is Typescript, all those compile-to-js languages and so on. I've never ever seen a web developer who could only program in JS. That would be very ridiculou…

I'd also add SQL to your language list, and often SASS, gulp/grunt configuration, JSON, ASP.NET, and so on.

And come on, JS is a C-style language. If you know one you know them all.

It's also not a difficult jump to OOP languages; especially now that Java 8 supported lambdas and C# supports async/await. It's hard to learn concepts, not syntax.

Re: Apple’s refusal to support Progressive Web Apps is a detriment to the web

#102

Post by dhimes » Thu, Jul 27, 2017, 1:15 PM UTC

tallanvor wrote: post #55

pluma wrote: post #4

I think push notifications and offline support are the real killer features that Apple currently doesn't support. It's kind of funny as a web developer because for the longest time Apple seemed to be the one pushing the mobile web forward but now that web apps are reaching for feature parity with native, Apple's initial momentum seems to be ancient history. It seems Apple still thinks of the mobile web as a content d…

A lot of people are already sick and tired of websites asking to be able to send push notifications in the browser. Annoying people isn't a "killer feature", it's an aggravation. If a normal website can't do the job, and the developer isn't willing to develop a native app, then maybe the product simply isn't necessary.

I've never, ever allowed a website to send me push notifications. I honestly didn't even know it was a "thing" until I started getting requests. Also, location-sharing requests are baffling to me on my desktop for anything other than something like a weather site (I still disallow- I have my favorites set).

Re: Apple’s refusal to support Progressive Web Apps is a detriment to the web

#103

Post by tazjin » Thu, Jul 27, 2017, 1:16 PM UTC

SirHound wrote: post #99

interpol_p wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But as an iOS user I expect you to use the technology stack provided by my preferred operating system. I don't want to use your app if you're targeting a lowest-common-denominator feature set. When I change my preferred text size through accessibility settings, good native apps respond correctly. If I need voice over support, the operating system knows how to read the view hierarchy to me in a logical way. When drag-…

> I have yet to find a "web app" that I delight in using, though I love many web sites and native apps. I wonder how much of that is an intrinsic problem with web apps conceptually, or a result of the various limitations and design fuck-ups of the browser vendors.

The fuck-ups aren't just on the browser vendor site.

The entire front-end ecosystem is currently worse than enterprise Java at its peak and the quality issues stem from all sides.

Re: Apple’s refusal to support Progressive Web Apps is a detriment to the web

#104

Post by interpol_p » Thu, Jul 27, 2017, 1:17 PM UTC

SirHound wrote: post #99

interpol_p wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But as an iOS user I expect you to use the technology stack provided by my preferred operating system. I don't want to use your app if you're targeting a lowest-common-denominator feature set. When I change my preferred text size through accessibility settings, good native apps respond correctly. If I need voice over support, the operating system knows how to read the view hierarchy to me in a logical way. When drag-…

> I have yet to find a "web app" that I delight in using, though I love many web sites and native apps. I wonder how much of that is an intrinsic problem with web apps conceptually, or a result of the various limitations and design fuck-ups of the browser vendors.

The best web app I use daily is Slack (wrapped in its native app "shell" on macOS). But it still feels pretty poor.

On iPad it's worse. On iPhone strangely, it's not too bad.

Re: Apple’s refusal to support Progressive Web Apps is a detriment to the web

#105

Post by SquareWheel » Thu, Jul 27, 2017, 1:20 PM UTC

interpol_p wrote: post #95

SquareWheel wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That exact argument can be applied to native apps. Should native apps have push notifications removed? Why not? Because they can actually be extremely useful. Such as for receiving emails, Facebook messages, Slack pings, or news updates you've subscribed to. Maybe somebody tweeted you. Any of these apps could work as progressive webapps. Regardless if the platform is native or web-based, the feature remains opt-in. I…

Yes but supporting the feature encourages developers to make web apps. Why would you want to encourage that?

Why wouldn't you want that? PWAs are seamless (no downloading/installing), allow native features, can be saved offline for later, run in a secure sandbox, and are completely open and cross-platform.

Re: Apple’s refusal to support Progressive Web Apps is a detriment to the web

#106

Post by jorvi » Thu, Jul 27, 2017, 1:20 PM UTC

cryptica wrote: post #90

jaffathecake wrote: post #30

Safari engineers have attended all service worker working group meetings, and they do contribute. However, I do share the frustrations over transparency. It's tough to get developers to care about things like offline-first, because it's tough for them to convince managers to allow them to spend time on a feature that won't work on iOS (since it won't work in Safari, and Apple has banned other browser engines on their…

This is not surprising of Apple. They've always been a walled garden, that's why I don't buy their products. I like to own products that give me full control as a user. When the iPod came out, I never understood why I couldn't just drag the music files directly onto the device and I had to get iTunes and use iTune's tedious interface. Now they have the app store; another unnecessary restriction. As a developer, it's…

It's especially ironic once you remember that iOS 1 didn't even have apps: Steve said everything would be done on websites that would give a native experience...

Re: Apple’s refusal to support Progressive Web Apps is a detriment to the web

#107

Post by ClassyJacket » Thu, Jul 27, 2017, 1:20 PM UTC

detaro wrote: post #60

kartan wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems Apple still thinks of the mobile web as a content delivery platform rather than an application platform. Apple wants in-app purchases. Why deliver full flexed apps in the web were people pays using PayPal or VISA if you can force people to use your store? This is the reason Apple killed Flash and is the reason why they may kill any other web technology.

Conversely, Apple is in a perfect position to spearhead a web micropayment API standard, and has total control over the browser and thus the way users' use it.

They have already released Apple Pay for the Web.

Re: Apple’s refusal to support Progressive Web Apps is a detriment to the web

#108

Post by maxsilver » Thu, Jul 27, 2017, 1:21 PM UTC

andreashansen wrote: post #13

IBM wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a reason for users to care about this at all? Because it seems to me that this just solves problems for developers while making the user experience worse or not as good as it could be. The same goes for Electron-based apps.

Watch the State of the Web talk from Google IO 2017. Certain native apps (Twitter, OLA) are 70-100MB in size when downloaded from the app stores. Their progressive web app version are 0.2-0.6MB. Extremely important in countries with very limited and/or expensive mobile data.

That doesn't have anything to do with native vs web though.

Twitter's native app is heavier than their web app because Twitter has historically filled the native app with junk (like a fullscreen video just for the login screen, "moments", "highlights", hijacking browser URLs, a bunch of ads and ad tracking, etc). Facebook does the same, to an almost silly degree - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8162342

The Twitter client could easily be ~3MB on Android, for instance, if they just stripped the garbage out. And similarly, if you take a web app, and embed all that same junk into it, it will suddenly be a heavy download too.

Re: Apple’s refusal to support Progressive Web Apps is a detriment to the web

#109

Post by the_common_man » Thu, Jul 27, 2017, 1:22 PM UTC

jorvi wrote: post #106

cryptica wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not surprising of Apple. They've always been a walled garden, that's why I don't buy their products. I like to own products that give me full control as a user. When the iPod came out, I never understood why I couldn't just drag the music files directly onto the device and I had to get iTunes and use iTune's tedious interface. Now they have the app store; another unnecessary restriction. As a developer, it's…

It's especially ironic once you remember that iOS 1 didn't even have apps: Steve said everything would be done on websites that would give a native experience...

That's only because he didn't see the opportunity and the ux. Not because he cared about freedom.

Re: Apple’s refusal to support Progressive Web Apps is a detriment to the web

#110

Post by egeozcan » Thu, Jul 27, 2017, 1:23 PM UTC

SquareWheel wrote: post #101

egeozcan wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know that the need for citation goes both ways and anecdotal evidence isn't a real reference, right? Web developers know at least JS, HTML & CSS. Too many know Ruby, Python and/or PHP. Significant amount of them know C#/Java/Go or something similar. Then there is Typescript, all those compile-to-js languages and so on. I've never ever seen a web developer who could only program in JS. That would be very ridiculou…

I'd also add SQL to your language list, and often SASS, gulp/grunt configuration, JSON, ASP.NET, and so on. And come on, JS is a C-style language. If you know one you know them all. It's also not a difficult jump to OOP languages; especially now that Java 8 supported lambdas and C# supports async/await. It's hard to learn concepts, not syntax.

Don't you agree, though, thinking that web developers don't write iOS apps because they don't want to learn Swift, is a bit ridiculous at this point? Yet another language isn't even significant for a typical web developer. For me, tooling (XCode) took more time to learn than being able to write acceptable Swift...