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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

#271

Post by drusepth »

kitsunesoba wrote: post #257
dccoolgai wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The best product that can be made will never be made with cross-platform tooling." You're making a circular argument to the original point. If you pointlessly cripple the best "cross-platform toolset" (the web) then of course the products made with it won't be as good. Native mobile apps belong in the same category as desktop apps - they are good when you need close-to-the-metal graphics but there's no reason you sh…

Even if web browsers were on the same page across all platforms and did everything front end dev's dreamed of, web apps are still not going to be as good as native for the fact that they do nothing to leverage what makes any particular platform good, and worse, will be developed around the least capable platform's feature set. In a world where web apps dominate and are the overwhelming majority, why should OS vendors…

>web apps are still not going to be as good as native for the fact that they do nothing to leverage what makes any particular platform good, and worse, will be developed around the least capable platform's feature set

We already see this (and solve for this) on desktop and platforms with a lot of variance in capability like Android. Just because people out there run 2.3 Android doesn't mean my 7.1 apps are going to be any less quality, even if they still work on the least-capable platform's featureset.

The obvious solution to this is to exclude or disable features from devices that can't handle them, which is also possible and encouraged on the web (with some decent precision through identification and fingerprinting provided by a myriad of things like service workers). Your banking site probably works in IE8 (barely), but that doesn't mean your up-to-date Chrome/Safari/whatever is going to be a worse experience.

>If web apps were being approached from the angle of resource consciousness and taking advantage of platform strengths, I might have a different opinion, but that's not what anybody developing web apps wants.

Web apps are focused on optimizing _different_ resources than native apps, that's all. Google Drive, for example, offers me an experience with no local installation cost in storage, virtually unlimited storage space for files, ancillary services like backups/authentication/sharing/etc handled for "free", native-like responsiveness while working offline, a low barrier-to-entry (unlike downloading/installing an app), a smoother experience across multiple devices, etc etc. These are all qualities that a web experience does better, and I think these are all qualities that people (myself included) value over the separate benefits of traditional native apps.

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

#272

Post by interpol_p »

ChristianBundy wrote: post #219
ino wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine if you could press a button on the page to save that article you're reading for later, and have it available offline next time you need it. This is available on Safari, the same browser the author is bashing and comparing to IE. And it's synced across macOS and iOS. It's called "reading list". It works with airplane mode and everything.

> And it's synced across macOS and iOS. It's called "reading list". It works with airplane mode and everything. If only we had a standard way to do this...

> If only we had a standard way to do this...

Well it seems like either each and every website could build offline support and background sync into their site, or you could use a browser that does it for you.

In the former case, if you rely on sites integrating it, you could be frustrated when some sites do not implement background sync and offline support (or do it badly).

Having the browser do it seems simpler. Especially given the real world use cases for this feature.

(I'm not against having these technologies on the web. Just seems more sensible for a browser to do your reading list — just like it manages your tabs.)

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

#273

Post by euyyn »

rsynnott wrote: post #232
yellowapple wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure it boils down to "we're fancy iOS users who want nothing to do with those peasants over in the Android world". It seems like the majority of the comments opposing web apps oppose them because they're cross-platform and not written specifically for their chosen platform, which is a very silly stance to have. There are some more coherent arguments in play, don't get me wrong (in particular, the argument…

Remember how Java applets and Java desktop applications took over the world? A big part of the reason they didn't is the reason that people dislike these fake-native web-apps; they just don't feel right.

Web apps (as in what we used to call websites that did stuff instead of just displaying content, not PWAs) did take over the world, enabling the (slow) downfall of Windows. They didn't feel like native Windows apps either, and the web stack was far worse back then.

There's two big differences:

- There was an unsatisfied need back then to move your apps and data with you as you moved to another PC. The phone moves with you.

- Microsoft couldn't prohibit Mozilla and Google from writing non-crippled Windows web browsers. Apple learned from that "mistake" and won't let it happen on iOS.

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

#274

Post by dccoolgai »

mysterydip wrote: post #218
dccoolgai wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes I, too, pine for the days of "hyperlinks, text and images"-only web. So I turn off Javascript. You can too, if that's how you want to consume the web. That's the beauty of it - it allows for that by design. What I don't like is the position you are taking that "because I only want to consume the web that way, the Web itself should be hamstrung to my limited view of how it should work." There is no good reas…

Look at it from the opposite perspective though: "because I only want to develop webapps, the web itself should be bloated to contain everything I need to create apps already possible elsewhere." "Because that's not the way I want to develop" is not a good enough reason to increase complexity, security footprint, and unintended side effects.

That's cheeky. "because I only want to develop webapps, the web itself should be bloated to contain everything I need to create apps already possible elsewhere."

I think the point is rather that single-codebase "productivity apps" that satisfy basic modern experience expectations (like "I could run it offline") are not possible elsewhere - but they should be. And they would be, if some browser vendors cared about the web more than their walled garden.

Also, the thing about expanding the Open Web Platform is that the new features that are available to me don't take anything away from you if you don't want to use them. Keep making static sites if that's what suits your purpose and don't register any ServiceWorkers or any other things you consider "bloat". (As an aside - As fashionable as it has become to moan about Web "bloat" let's strive to remember that the Web standards are debated and governed by committees of consummate experts mostly in the open.) If we expand the Web platform we can both develop "the way we want" (assuming you want to keep doing things the way you have and I want to use new features).

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

#275

Post by [deleted] »

euyyn wrote: post #208
scarface74 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how do you do playlists when you just drag files to folders? What if you wanted the same song in multiple playlists? How do you do smart playlist? All of this is not as popular now as it was during the iPods heyday but it was popular then.

iTunes' UI for creating playlists and letting me add and remove songs from the device by dragging and dropping the files could be perfectly compatible.

[deleted]

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

#276

Post by euyyn »

icebraining wrote: post #67
illuminati1911 wrote: post #35

"all sorts of great features that you’d normally associate with native apps, like push notifications, offline support, and app loading screens — but on the web! Awesome." I didn't know app loading screens were "a great feature". Anyway I really don't see the point of PWAs or much future for them anyway. Even if Apple started supporting these with Safari, the web apps still could not interact with different hardware c…

the web apps still could not interact with different hardware components/sensors Why not? WebUSB already shows otherwise.

Web Bluetooth too.

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

#277

Post by sidlls »

dccoolgai wrote: post #196
jaffathecake wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use the Facebook site added to my homescreen rather than a native app. Uses way less space & does everything I want Facebook to be able to do. I don't want push notifications from every site, but in this case it's valuable. I wish it worked offline-first, but I know it's something they're looking at.

Native apps are the new desktop apps. OK for gaming, overkill and gaping privacy hole for everything else.

Because web apps are certainly very good at protecting privacy.

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

#278

Post by kitsunesoba »

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…

I never quite understood the complaint about having to learn a new tech stack to write native apps. As a native app dev, it feels kind of like getting angry that your skills in motorcycle mechanics don't transfer to building rockets.

And this complaint practically always comes from the front end web crew... every other type of developer I've met has zero issues with learning the technologies relevant to a particular platform.

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

#279

Post by Spivak »

jdauriemma wrote: post #234
Spivak wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cant imagine a service that you frequent enough to want push notifications but not enough that you would be willing to install a native app for a smoother experience.

One where the developer does not have enough resources to develop for and support multiple platforms?

Right, but the parent's argument is that web notifications are a way to avoid installing a native app.

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

#280

Post by dkonofalski »

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…

Push notifications are the new pop-up window. When every app has and uses push notifications, it makes any app having them almost pointless unless you deny half of the push notification requests you get.
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