I'm pretty late to this party, so it probably has already been asked but what specific things need to be supported by mobile Safari to run a PWA?
Apple’s refusal to support Progressive Web Apps is a detriment to the web
351–360 of 451 posts
Re: Apple’s refusal to support Progressive Web Apps is a detriment to the web
#352I 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…
You can make a a native app, which will always be better than a webapp. As an iOS user, I have no intention of ever using webapps (including things like Cordova apps). If you can’t be bothered to make a iOS-native app with iOS native look, feel and features then just don’t bother.
A native app will never have instant install, or update without download. A native app will never be available on all platforms.
Sometimes a native app is better, sometimes it is worse. It's certainly better if all you care about is fancy animations.
Re: Apple’s refusal to support Progressive Web Apps is a detriment to the web
#353Re: Apple’s refusal to support Progressive Web Apps is a detriment to the web
#354Earlier quoted context omitted.
I get your point and do have a strong preference towards native apps too. But there are other important factors to consider. I was working on a B2B app where users could see graphs and maps of a construction site in real time. The users were extremely happy how fast we could implement and release change requests and bug fixes. It was an ionic app. As far as I know, performance or lack of OS integration was never a pr…
They were happy because 80/100 is better than 0/100. But how much happier would they be with 100/100. Just because you feed your guests chicken and they like it doesn’t mean that they would not like lobster more. A good MacOS or Windows Dev can move just as fast as a web developer trying to make fake-native apps.
Yes, but one platform at a time. We served updates to Android and iOS users almost simultaneously. Again, I usually prefer native, non GCed apps. But I also don't try to fix problems where there are none.
If Android and iOS made it easier to share middleware libraries (C++ is a second class citizen for both), I think there would be a smaller incentive for HTML5 apps.
Re: Apple’s refusal to support Progressive Web Apps is a detriment to the web
#355I'm pretty late to this party, so it probably has already been asked but what specific things need to be supported by mobile Safari to run a PWA?
My reading of the thread, as well as watching the general discussion of PWAs over the last 6 months, is not "what does Safari need to support", but really are PWAs the right answer?
If the comments were limited to "Safari needs X and Y", and there was no discussion about the an inherent need for PWAs it would be a pretty short thread.
Safari's support for PWA features is a proxy referendum of PWAs themselves.[1]
[1] And Google's desire to not being dis-intermediated as an arbiter of access to information/functionality via web properties.
Re: Apple’s refusal to support Progressive Web Apps is a detriment to the web
#356Can someone explain the difference between progressive web apps and webRTC? Are they related, or completely separate technologies? I just heard about them around the same time, and it seems like they have some things in common.
PWA's use Web Technologies to build Apps. Remember jQuery Mobile? It's more like that than React Native or Xamarin.
WebRTC is an API/Protocol that enables Real Time Communication between browsers.
Re: Apple’s refusal to support Progressive Web Apps is a detriment to the web
#357Earlier quoted context omitted.
FAT32 is a terribly outdated filesystem and should just not be used today, period. The filesize and name restrictions are awful. Mrkrabo does have a point.
The question about FAT32 was honest; thanks for the explanation. The rest of the comment (presenting storage in a normal, non-surprising way) is separate, and still stands.
Yeah, that's what irks me the most about iOS. Their whole idea of "the filesystem is an outdated concept" just never worked out and they refuse to give up on it. The greatest lie is that your iPad Pro can replace a PC, but you can't easily copy files from and to a flash drive. In the meantime, my wife's Surface accepts USB hardware just fine and she doesn't have to rely on awkward workarounds to get things done.
Re: Apple’s refusal to support Progressive Web Apps is a detriment to the web
#358Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
> Yes, all you're saying is it is possible to make shitty native apps too
No, that's not what I said at all. I guess you're only going to read what you want to hear...
Re: Apple’s refusal to support Progressive Web Apps is a detriment to the web
#359Since the article did not go into details, and many of the points seem nonsensical, can someone elaborate? Why can I not "Create an app loading screen" without service workers? Why can I not "Create an initial app UI to load instantly"? Seems these are trivially possible with regular Javascript, but maybe I'm misunderstanding? Similarly, "Use push notifications", "Add offline support" and "Prompt installation to the…
I'm aware of fastclick.js, and I've been using it. I was just excited to remove an extra dependency when they removed the delay from mobile Safari. Checked it into git, deployed...then realized it was still there in fullscreen mode. My point is that they develop stuff for mobile Safari, but then leave fullscreen mode in the dust.
Re: Apple’s refusal to support Progressive Web Apps is a detriment to the web
#360Since the article did not go into details, and many of the points seem nonsensical, can someone elaborate? Why can I not "Create an app loading screen" without service workers? Why can I not "Create an initial app UI to load instantly"? Seems these are trivially possible with regular Javascript, but maybe I'm misunderstanding? Similarly, "Use push notifications", "Add offline support" and "Prompt installation to the…
Offline support and push notifications require service workers (or some other API that doesn't exist yet[1]) And for prompting installation, I think the author wants it to appear native. (Apple does have their own notification API but it requires an account).
Telling your users how to add your app to the home screen should not be a thing. It makes your product look unprofessional. Prompting a user who has used the web app a bunch of times should be a thing on iOS like it is on Android.