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Private client-side-only PWAs are hard, but now Apple made them impossible

andregarzia.com

41–50 of 927 posts

Re: Private client-side-only PWAs are hard, but now Apple made them impossible

#42
post #5

I really appreciate this link. I would have never seen this otherwise. It's kind of a disappointment for us on the enterprise side. Our main offering is an offline app where people are disconnected from the internet for weeks and we use localStorage to validate who they are. It's a bit vague about how this affects apps that don't use safari. Nevertheless, we might have to start to really think about the user experien…

Webkit's website says: "[..] deleting all of a website’s script-writable storage after seven days of Safari use without user interaction on the site." It is not clear that a user coming to your website before the 7 days, even offline, is exempt of it.

User not coming to website 7 days can't be invalid use-case. Losing important data simply because someone went on vacation is unacceptable.

Re: Private client-side-only PWAs are hard, but now Apple made them impossible

#43
post #4

Better title: Apple restricts tracking by limiting browser storage, which hurts my particular app. Browsers need to be severely limited due to them running arbitrary code from the web. Doesn't matter if it's an offline web app. If you want more access, make a native app (with or without web technologies).

I know this is ad hominem, but your comment just sounds like "I make big money with native apps and don't want web apps to catch up!"

Re: Private client-side-only PWAs are hard, but now Apple made them impossible

#45
post #24

I think it is worth noting that you can really say "Apple" is doing this or "Apple" is doing that with decisions at this level. The company is just too big and not working in unison. The Apple Safari Team is killing/hurting offline apps. The author asks why they don't take the same approach in Apple News - as if it is the same team that is in charge. Different team with different priorities and likely not talking to…

As Apple is one of the most closed companies, it's hard to put blame on anything Apple-related as you don't really know who the teams are. Sure, WebKit contributors are visible as it's an open source project, but who is the "Apple Safari Team" really? And who is the "Apple News" teams?

Easiest is just to put blame on the top-level entity, which is Apple. They have control over their teams so they can redirect the blame if they feel it's needed.

And if this change is to be able to force more developers to build native apps on their platform, then it's for sure a cohesive cross-company strategy. But we don't know if that's the case.

Re: Private client-side-only PWAs are hard, but now Apple made them impossible

#46
post #4

Better title: Apple restricts tracking by limiting browser storage, which hurts my particular app. Browsers need to be severely limited due to them running arbitrary code from the web. Doesn't matter if it's an offline web app. If you want more access, make a native app (with or without web technologies).

But browsers are severely sandboxed already. What the article is talking about is: > deleting all local storage (including Indexed DB, etc.) after 7 days which I can see how it might help privacy (since you could be tracked via local storage too) but also how it might break any potential web app that might need data to last more than 7 days. > If you want more access, make a native app But then, everybody will compla…

Native app != Electron app (fortunately!) The less of that bloated slow crap the better.

Re: Private client-side-only PWAs are hard, but now Apple made them impossible

#47
post #11

As the article explains, Offline Web App is being used to mean Progressive Web Application (the standard terminology). ( edit Turns out that's not quite right, see diggan's reply.) From the article: > You’d almost think they had an App Store to promote or something. There's certainly a tension here. I'm still not sure why more vendors don't make iOS PWAs to get around the App Store payment rules. Perhaps related: Ver…

offline web apps are different than PWA. A PWA doesn't necessarily work offline, but more is independent from the connection / loading of it. I do think most PWAs do work offline, but doesn't mean it's a requirement to call it a PWA. Similarly, an offline capable web app is not necessarily a PWA, as PWA carries a lot of features to it besides being offline capable.

What is an "off-line web app"? If an app never goes online and is sandboxed from other apps, then it never has any data at risk of exfiltration.

Re: Private client-side-only PWAs are hard, but now Apple made them impossible

#48

It is related only to WebKit (Safari). So I think people will just switch to other browsers.

Except for iPhones/iPads where you don't really have a choice. Also most people don't give a shit which browser they use, they just use whatever browser is available when they get their device, which makes sense. But those users might soon have their data removed without really understanding why.

Re: Private client-side-only PWAs are hard, but now Apple made them impossible

#49
post #4

Better title: Apple restricts tracking by limiting browser storage, which hurts my particular app. Browsers need to be severely limited due to them running arbitrary code from the web. Doesn't matter if it's an offline web app. If you want more access, make a native app (with or without web technologies).

> If you want more access, make a native app (with or without web technologies).

Browsers usually ask for an additional permission in this case which would be a good approach. Your post sounds like "browsers need to be severely limited, so if you want to watch video, just launch VLC". It does not work this way.

Re: Private client-side-only PWAs are hard, but now Apple made them impossible

#50
post #4

Better title: Apple restricts tracking by limiting browser storage, which hurts my particular app. Browsers need to be severely limited due to them running arbitrary code from the web. Doesn't matter if it's an offline web app. If you want more access, make a native app (with or without web technologies).

> Browsers need to be severely limited due to them running arbitrary code from the web. Doesn't matter if it's an offline web app. If you want more access, make a native app (with or without web technologies).

Native apps have the same problems too and such "severe" limiting of apps in web browsers still doesn't solve it. The only more or less privacy preserving model I can think of for native apps today is open source repositories with app distribution not controlled by app developers, like f-droid or repositories in various linux distros.

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