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

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

#121

Post by linopolus »

As an iOS user, one thing I surely don't want are more web apps. The web is for content (including APIs Robbe used by native apps) not for apps, if on desktop or mobile. Here's why:

- lower performance. It can't be as fast as native as long as there's still the browser underneath - non-native experience. I use iOS because I like it better than android. I like the UI and UX, how it looks and feels. I don't want an web app, with an UI feeling different, looking different and behaving different. - multi-platform. All platforms will never have the same capabilities and features. You will always have to use the least common denominator or hack your things around.

Apple provides ObjC and Swift, the latter being a terrific way to develop apps, in my humble opinion a far better language and environment than JS (or JS). Just use it, your users will thank you.

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

#122

Post by interpol_p »

fredley wrote: post #117
interpol_p wrote: post #72

I hate using web apps. On desktop, mobile, wherever. The author's list of things they want supported by Mobile Safari is just aggravating: > Here are a list of things you still can’t do with mobile safari due to Apple’s refusal to support them: > > Create an app loading screen > Use push notifications > Add offline support > Create an initial app UI to load instantly > Prompt installation to the home screen through b…

Push notifications and home-screen icons are strictly opt-in. If you don't want them, don't opt, simple as. I use webapps for several things because I can much better protect myself from tracking and data-harvesting with a well-configured browser than I can using a native app.

As I said, desktop Safari allows websites to prompt me for push notifications.

I can't stand it: that a web site has the ability to display a modal prompt sheet that I have to cancel.

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

#123

Post by amelius »

christiangenco wrote: post #65

I think a lot of commenters here are missing the point and getting distracted by push notifications (who wants a website spamming them with notifications?) and loading screens (hardly a feature). Apple supporting PWA (Progressive Web Apps) is hugely important because it enables a future where web apps can natively support browser, Mac/Windows/Linux desktop, and mobile iPhone/Android/Windows native mobile with a singl…

> Apple supporting PWA is hugely important because it enables a future where web apps can natively support (...)

But it is not in Apple's interest to support these kinds of apps. They make money on the app store, and like to keep developers within the walls of their ecosystem.

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

#124

Post by dungle6 »

GordonS wrote: post #98
rsynnott wrote: post #15

As an iOS user, I'm actually quite glad that websites can't send me push notifications on it. And app loading screens are a feature? If people _insist_ on making phone apps as websites, there's Cordova and all that. Such apps are never very good, of course. I still haven't seen a website-based desktop/phone app that wasn't a clunky non-native-looking resource-hogging mess.

> If people _insist_ on making phone apps as websites, there's Cordova and all that. Such apps are never very good, of course I strongly disagree. We use Ionic (which is based on Cordova) for line of business apps, and the results are as good as native apps, but with the benefit (amongst others) of having a single codebase for both Android and iOS. Hybrid apps aren't a good match for all types of app - games in parti…

Yes, all you're saying is it is possible to make shitty native apps too. So that would explain your results. Native isn't a magic wand, but except for the simplest of things web will not be as good. The cracks still show in things like Google docs and sheets and overall those are pretty good as far as web goes.

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

#125

Post by marpstar »

interpol_p wrote: post #122
fredley wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Push notifications and home-screen icons are strictly opt-in. If you don't want them, don't opt, simple as. I use webapps for several things because I can much better protect myself from tracking and data-harvesting with a well-configured browser than I can using a native app.

As I said, desktop Safari allows websites to prompt me for push notifications. I can't stand it: that a web site has the ability to display a modal prompt sheet that I have to cancel.

This isn't new. Desktop browsers have been showing modal prompts via the javascript `prompt()` method for quite some time.

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

#126

Post by velcro »

MBCook wrote: post #47
velcro wrote: post #23

Officially Apple's reasoning for barring Flash was that web should be pushed forward. Now, almost 8 years later when web is "almost there" - its still hindering real web-app experiences in the iOS browser. Its pretty clear what this was always about. -- (Please lets not do the fanboy "Flash is garbage" here - even if you do feel that it was heating up your CPU with ads - it would have taken a lot less than 8 years to…

> even if you do feel that it was heating up your CPU with ads - it would have taken a lot less than 8 years to fix that They had more than 8 years to fix it on the desktop and didn't. They had more than 8 years to make the Mac version perform at rough parity with the Windows version and didn't. Either way... "it's fine, we'll make it work well within a decade" is NOT a good message to your users.

Again - not really trying to discuss Flash, was just drawing parallels.

Even though my Mac never had significant problems with Flash. I mean - fix what? I don't have Flash installed any more but my fans still spin-up with multiple tabs and overactive pages trying to open a bunch of animated or video tabs.

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

#127

Post by amelius »

ino wrote: post #32

All browsers still suck at basic functionality. Here's a quick short list of things that developers still have to write because the current implementations are broken, buggy, inconsistent or absent: - Date pickers. - Image upload [1]. - Autocomplete and datalist. - Range pickers. - Upload time remaining without javascript. - Number min/max/step, use up/down keys to increment/decrement. - Form elements that are unable…

Nope, they are not more important because you can easily fix those by installing an appropriate javascript library. We are talking here about functionality that a developer can't possibly fix if it's broken.

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

#128

Post by santaclaus »

marpstar wrote: post #125
interpol_p wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said, desktop Safari allows websites to prompt me for push notifications. I can't stand it: that a web site has the ability to display a modal prompt sheet that I have to cancel.

This isn't new. Desktop browsers have been showing modal prompts via the javascript `prompt()` method for quite some time.

> This isn't new.

Just because it is old doesn't make it a good user experience.

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

#129

Post by falcolas »

marpstar wrote: post #125
interpol_p wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said, desktop Safari allows websites to prompt me for push notifications. I can't stand it: that a web site has the ability to display a modal prompt sheet that I have to cancel.

This isn't new. Desktop browsers have been showing modal prompts via the javascript `prompt()` method for quite some time.

It's not coincidental that the ability to do so has been actively limited by so many browsers (with opt-out forever options in some cases).

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

#130

Post by fredley »

interpol_p wrote: post #122
fredley wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Push notifications and home-screen icons are strictly opt-in. If you don't want them, don't opt, simple as. I use webapps for several things because I can much better protect myself from tracking and data-harvesting with a well-configured browser than I can using a native app.

As I said, desktop Safari allows websites to prompt me for push notifications. I can't stand it: that a web site has the ability to display a modal prompt sheet that I have to cancel.

It's not modal (like `alert`), it doesn't steal focus, at least not on any browser I've used.
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