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I built a progressive web app and published it in three app stores

debuggerdotbreak.judahgabriel.com

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Re: I built a progressive web app and published it in three app stores

#351

Post by mceoin »

Angostura wrote: post #341
addicted wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as a user, I would find it too "buried" behind Safari How is this any different than music playing on say Google Play Music on my iPhone? I listen to music from YouTube, iTunes, iHeartRadio, Google Play Music, Pandora, and other apps occasionally. Why don't I feel it's buried in those situations? Because of the simple reason that Apple allows only one source of audio on iOS at any point of time (including Safari),…

I can have 30 tabs open in Safari on iOS. It would drive me absolutely potty trying to find the one that had decided to start playing advert audio.

Surely we can improve the Safari UI to overcome this. (Thinking of how effective chrome tabs on desktop that show which tab is playing audio)

Re: I built a progressive web app and published it in three app stores

#352

Post by micheljansen »

rolha-capoeira wrote: post #47

> From minor things like “iOS Safari won’t let you play audio without first interacting with the page” to major, show-stopping things like, “iOS Safari won’t let you play the next song if your app is in the background or if your screen is off.” I disagree that these things are purely because Apple wants your $99/year. Maybe that's part of the story, but not all. I am glad that websites cannot play audio without the u…

> I am glad that websites cannot play audio without the user first interacting with the page. I am also glad that websites can't play audio in the background...

Websites yes, but if you choose to "install" a webapp to your home screen, it still cannot ask for or get these permissions. Not that users ever do install apps without app stores, but that's another story.

Re: I built a progressive web app and published it in three app stores

#354

Post by strangegecko »

fnordsensei wrote: post #344
strangegecko wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can be just as user-friendly by giving the user a button "never let web pages ask me again for this / all permissions (you can undo this in settings)" when the first page asks for permissions.

I disagree that this is usable enough. Every webpage and their dog has now started to ask for permissions to popup notifications. I find this really annoying. Sure, I can disable it for one site, but then the next one I visit pops up the same question if it's OK to spam me. I've turned it off browser-wide as a result. If asking for permissions is to be an option in the future, I hope it is a completely manual opt-in,…

That's what I said though, you are given the option to opt out entirely, or it could be the default as you said. This can be as fine grained as necessary so it is not intrusive but still allows you to use features if you choose so.

What I object to is the Apple approach to simply take away the option whether you want it or not. It's not user friendly at all, it's patronizing and stifling.

Re: I built a progressive web app and published it in three app stores

#355

Post by amelius »

rolha-capoeira wrote: post #47

> From minor things like “iOS Safari won’t let you play audio without first interacting with the page” to major, show-stopping things like, “iOS Safari won’t let you play the next song if your app is in the background or if your screen is off.” I disagree that these things are purely because Apple wants your $99/year. Maybe that's part of the story, but not all. I am glad that websites cannot play audio without the u…

> I am glad that websites cannot play audio without the user first interacting with the page.

And what makes an app different from a website, really?

In my opinion, web browsers need to add privilege controls to websites just like the OS does to apps.

Re: I built a progressive web app and published it in three app stores

#356

Post by mschuster91 »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #156
mschuster91 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many HN users (myself included) dislike Electron-type apps because they feel slow and bloated. How much of this is the fault of the Electron runtime and how much is fault of the developers? When one looks at the sheer amount of code that popular frameworks (or, as I call them, crapworks) like Angular require the browser to load, compile and run, plus the resources that these apps end up gulping down... it's madness…

Sure, using only jQuery requires lots of thinking about your code structure and it will undoubtedly be more complex. But also: orders of magnitude faster. It’s really, really not. You might be able to pull together some specific targeted DOM manipulation that is faster in jQuery than in React, for example, but the difference is going to be minimal and the development impact substantial.

> You might be able to pull together some specific targeted DOM manipulation that is faster in jQuery than in React, for example, but the difference is going to be minimal and the development impact substantial.

The usage difference in RAM and CPU usage will always be massive, because with jQuery (or if you're in for really high performance code, plain JS) you cut all the framework cruft and black magic away.

In addition, I would not be so sure about the development impact. JS frameworks come up every two or three years and vanish in about the same timeframe, yet the good old KISS-based dog jQuery happily barks along. jQuery devs are a dime a dozen, good luck finding someone today who does emberjs (if you want to maintain a legacy project) or knows the innards of the latest compatibility-breaking version of Webpack (if you ditch your legacy project and "relaunch" it).

Re: I built a progressive web app and published it in three app stores

#357

Post by Can_Not »

JimDabell wrote: post #175
jacquesm wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't care about the $99, I absolutely loathe native apps (because I don't have nor want a smartphone) and there is no way I'll ever buy a Mac to do iOS development. I do have some Apple hardware here but it runs Linux. Developers should be free to make their choices without being forced into some kind of eco-system, especially not with Apple itself focusing more on their gadgets and fashion items revenue streams t…

> I absolutely loathe native apps (because I don't have nor want a smartphone) Why does not having a smartphone make you loathe native apps?

They excluded themselves from a market and as a result, feel like the market is excluding them.

Re: I built a progressive web app and published it in three app stores

#358

Post by schrodinger »

amelius wrote: post #355
rolha-capoeira wrote: post #47

> From minor things like “iOS Safari won’t let you play audio without first interacting with the page” to major, show-stopping things like, “iOS Safari won’t let you play the next song if your app is in the background or if your screen is off.” I disagree that these things are purely because Apple wants your $99/year. Maybe that's part of the story, but not all. I am glad that websites cannot play audio without the u…

> I am glad that websites cannot play audio without the user first interacting with the page. And what makes an app different from a website, really? In my opinion, web browsers need to add privilege controls to websites just like the OS does to apps.

>permissions are reserved for apps that Apple has vetted

That apps have been vetted is the difference.

Re: I built a progressive web app and published it in three app stores

#359

Post by schrodinger »

imiric wrote: post #340
Zanni wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a note on style--your post reads as a complaint, whether you intended it that way or not. The strong editorial slant actually undermines the meat of the article for me, which is, as you mentioned, documenting the hurdles in publishing a PWA. You could make this a better resource by stripping out the overt anti-Apple editorializing. Let the facts speak for themselves--for those who agree with you. Which I don't.…

> Apple is choosing a deliberate strategy here that privileges users over developers. What is stopping them from doing both? There's no reason developers should jump through arbitrary hoops to make their applications available to users. Yes, quality control, security, etc. is very important, but the publishing process should and can be as user friendly as their platform claims to be for end users, and that is what th…

Lines like this feel like bias to me:

> Web app restrictions by ~Apple~ hostile mobile platforms

Re: I built a progressive web app and published it in three app stores

#360

Post by sydd »

millstone wrote: post #36

> Mobile platform vendors, like Apple, are totally cool with apps that use your phone to its fullest. Access your location, play background audio, get your GPS coordinates, read all your contacts, play videos or audio without app interaction, read your email, intercept your typing, play more than one thing at a time, use your microphone and camera, access your pictures, and more. Apple’s totally cool with that. Apple…

On the downside abusive apps can do much much more damage than a website, see the Facebook fiasco
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