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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

#371

Post by greenhatman »

judah wrote: post #194
al2o3cr wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lemme get this straight: you're mad that a company you don't want to pay $99/yr to won't build APIs so you can make money on their platform. So sad, lemme find my tiny violin.

Author here. I'm not making any money on their platform. I'm a non-profit, building a free app; this isn't about money. I mentioned money in the post as a list of all barriers to moving a PWA to app store. $99/year + 33% in-app purchases (plus a $1000+ Mac to build, and probably one or more Mac minis for CI) is a barrier. The bigger concern is Apple is lagging behind on web standards. I suspect the reason for that is…

The fact that they won't let you build apps for the app store on Linux makes me want to boycott them.

I hope they lose their dominant market position soon so everyone doesn't have to play by their rules.

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

#372

Post by judah »

wiseleo wrote: post #277

I just love this part about D&B. Problem: "I go to D&B to update my business profile. Surprise! They have a JavaScript bug in their validation logic that prevents me from updating my profile." Solution: "Thankfully, I’m a proficient developer. I click put a breakpoint in their JavaScript, click submit, change the isValid flag to true, and voila! I’ve updated my D&B profile."

I "loved" that too. Excepting having to find out that the problem really was a JS validation bug. To have to discover this in 3rd party obfuscated JS was not fun. :-) But hooray, I got it working.

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

#373

Post by greenhatman »

FridgeSeal wrote: post #315
Grae wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If the difference between $99 and $25 is make-or-break, you're probably trying to publish a hobby/low quality app anyways. Or maybe you live in a situation where $74 USD is a meaningful barrier to accessing a market. >The only people who like webapps and their encroachment on good, native apps are webapp developers because it allows them to use their skillset to build something they don't know how to build. You're e…

> You're excluding people and organizations who want to maintain a single codebase. Isn't one of the long held up tenants of software development that you should "pick the right tool for the job"? Because if, as a user the choice is between another shitty JS/web-app masquerading as a real app, and an app that's built properly with native API's and native code, I'm 100% going to choose the latter.

I bet you don't even know half the time when you're using a hybrid app.

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

#374

Post by artimaeis »

sydd wrote: post #361
rvanmil wrote: post #153

As a user I am glad Apple is the "loser" in this article and it's the reason I love iOS and hope Apple doesn't change anything in their attitude towards the "free and open" web. I do not trust the web, at all. Access the camera? Nope. The microphone? Are you kidding me. Notifications, GPS, background processing? Fuck no. I am very happy to have Apple as a quality, security and privacy gatekeeper, because I do not hav…

Why would you trust someone on the app store more? Just because they invested $99 to spy on you?

Their app also passed the review process.

Of course, that doesn't stop all bad actors [0]. But it's much more process-based security than the web permits.

[0]https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/24/uber-brok...

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

#375

Post by HillaryBriss »

jakobegger wrote: post #325
rimliu wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing web apps undermine is user experience. And if it is PWA, why would you want app store anyway?

He doesn't want app store. The whole article is about how the author is forced to submit an app to the store just to allow playing audio in the background. The author would prefer to just have a web app / website that plays audio, but it is not possible. On iOS, apparently you need to use Cordova and submit an app to the store if you want to play the next song while the app is in the background. And it is not possibl…

Also: the author makes the point that mobile users have been conditioned to look in the app stores for stuff to use on their devices.

In other words, having a presence in app stores is important to marketing. And indeed, his new users per month rate went up after he listed in the actual app stores.

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

#376

Post by asciimo »

schrodinger wrote: post #358
amelius wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I think the point is that web sites could also be vetted.

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

#377

Post by judah »

gkya wrote: post #343
judah wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed that apps (web or native) shouldn't have free access to e.g. your contacts without permission. But Apple goes beyond security and actually makes it impossible to build first-class experiences for iOS without paying $99/year + 33% in-app purchases. I think that's unfortunate. The free and opened web presents a challenge to Apple's app business. They have a perverse incentive to keep web apps second-class citize…

> The free and opened web presents a challenge to Apple's app business. The free and opened [sic] web is BS. The "web" was always free and open, if you had worthy and user-respecting stuff to publish. Autoplaying video and other similar features are just plain evil. And if web apps are second class citizens on iOS, that's really a nice thing to hear, IMnsHO, because they are second class citizens on the WWW itself. T…

The free and open web is BS? Well, I disagree. That any person with the will and the skill can publish something for all the world to see, without the need for gatekeepers? That's incredible freedom the world has never before seen.

>> "Autoplaying video and other similar features are just plain evil."

I'm not even asking for that. My app is a music player in the vein of Pandora. iOS Safari doesn't let me play the next song if I'm not in the fore. Apple has acknowledged this is an issue; maybe they will fix it in a future version.

iOS Safari: As someone who has supported a web app (now PWA) for 7 years on iOS Safari, I say with knowledge and experience that yes, iOS Safari is the modern IE6. I say that because it is the slowest to adopt standard web features, and the reason for doing so is a business one. Both reflect 1990s IE and Microsoft.

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

#378

Post by judah »

Zanni wrote: post #292
judah wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here. I'm not making any money on their platform. I'm a non-profit, building a free app; this isn't about money. I mentioned money in the post as a list of all barriers to moving a PWA to app store. $99/year + 33% in-app purchases (plus a $1000+ Mac to build, and probably one or more Mac minis for CI) is a barrier. The bigger concern is Apple is lagging behind on web standards. I suspect the reason for that is…

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.…

>> your post reads as a complaint

Thanks for letting me know. I'll change my tone in future posts.

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

#379

Post by judah »

schrodinger wrote: post #359
imiric wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

Author here. That's my opinion based on experience. I have no axe to grind against Apple; I love their hardware and currently own a beautiful iPhone.

Their developer story needs work, especially around web apps.

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

#380

Post by HillaryBriss »

judah wrote: post #111
al2o3cr wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they will win in the long run, and will eventually (~5 years) become the dominant type of app in mobile and desktop app stores. Am I the only one who remembers people saying this EXACT thing about Java Swing apps? Not saying it's impossible, but "Write Once Run Anywhere" has been a mirage "just over the horizon" for a long time.

Author here. Maybe Java fans, or Sun/Oracle employees and fanboys said that. That doesn't really mean much. I did predict years ago that open web technologies will destroy native (desktop) apps, Flash, and Silverlight. In hindsight, I was correct. I am predicting the same thing with regards to native mobile apps: they will largely disappear, and web apps will again win.

> I am predicting the same thing with regards to native mobile apps: they will largely disappear, and web apps will again win.

But, how do you reconcile this belief with the ample evidence you offer that Apple/iOS are dragging their feet and are resistant (for whatever internal reasons) to letting PWAs offer a first class experience?

In other words, what forces, in your view, will eventually bring Apple over to full support for PWAs?

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