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

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

#81

Post by JustSomeNobody »

donohoe wrote: 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…

I love these types of comments. They contrast very well with the “the reason Apple makes great products is because their hardware and software teams work so closely together to bring a cohesiveness that other companies can’t” comments.

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

#82

Post by starbugs »

silon42 wrote: post #79
starbugs wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not saying that it is OK to delete all your files. I am saying it has always been like that in the case of a browser's local storage. As I said, that use case was out of the window long before. From the start, as far as I know. No browser has ever given you any definite promise on whether your local storage data will be kept. That's also true for IndexedDB. So you need a mechanism to restore that data, be it clo…

I'd love for browsers to have an opt-in mechanism to preserve that data (also snapshot/restore/import/export it).

I bet there's tickets in both Google's and Apple's bug trackers from 2012 asking for that.

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

#83

Post by fierarul »

DagAgren wrote: post #21
fierarul wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

They do not "change from one week to another". They have changed, what, twice ever?

Two counterpoints:

* AdoptOpenJDK releases that were notarized some months ago are no longer accepted by Apple since they made the rules even more stringent. I had releases accepted by Apple that are not accepted today using the same AdoptOpenJDK binaries.

* Apple's notarization rules are not global. There's whitelists for given companies/institutions/apps/files which means the same dylib might not have to be notarized by a bigger player but will have to be codesigned by you.

The above happened to me in the span of less than 3 months I think?

Indeed, the scripts I use per se to do the notarization are about the same as originally.

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

#84

Post by SkyBelow »

Aardwolf wrote: post #67
vanderZwan wrote: post #6

I would be OK with 7 days being the default with a permission model where I can grant a website longer storage time. Actually, I'd be even happier if any form of offline storage required explicit user permission anyway.

> Actually, I'd be even happier if any form of offline storage required explicit user permission anyway. Even offline storage that is only used locally? Say a game with savegames that has doesn't use online connection to play it. Another example: a password manager.

I would say yes. The reason being is that exceptions will be abused, so it is better to enforce rules that everyone has to follow than to depend upon good behavior which the people we are trying to stop won't (almost by definition, because we wouldn't be needing to try to stop them with rules if they were already respectful of the social contract).

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

#85

Post by themihai »

Offline Web Apps were already weak(i.e. CORS restrictions). Now they are even more useless with this storage limitation. You can't really blame Apple.. after all, Google claimed that offline web apps are nothing more than websites so that's what we have... I don't mind if Safari deletes offline data stored by websites every week so why would I complain about "offline apps" ?

My point is that Offline Web Apps (i.e. PWA) that are installed on user's desktop should have a bit more permissions than websites but people in charge(google, apple etc) seems to think otherwise.

https://discourse.wicg.io/t/proposal-full-network-access-in-...

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

#86

Post by IvanK_net »

starbugs wrote: post #57
IvanK_net wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have many useful files in my computer, which I don't want to be deleted. You are saying, that it is ok, if the OS deletes all files in my computer from time to time. A local storage is the only way webapps can store any data in your computer (other than asking you to manually load / save some configuration file). Not all webapps can afford cloud storage for all user.

I am not saying that it is OK to delete all your files. I am saying it has always been like that in the case of a browser's local storage. As I said, that use case was out of the window long before. From the start, as far as I know. No browser has ever given you any definite promise on whether your local storage data will be kept. That's also true for IndexedDB. So you need a mechanism to restore that data, be it clo…

I disagree. The IndexedDB was introduced as a permanent way to store data (which is not deleted after closing a website). As it is the only available standard for permanent storeage, I think it should be deleted only if the user asks to delete it (the same way you delete any other file in your computer).

Of course, browsers are free to do whatever they want. But the user can (and will) switch to the software, which does what he or she wants.

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

#87

Post by vbezhenar »

starbugs wrote: post #57
IvanK_net wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have many useful files in my computer, which I don't want to be deleted. You are saying, that it is ok, if the OS deletes all files in my computer from time to time. A local storage is the only way webapps can store any data in your computer (other than asking you to manually load / save some configuration file). Not all webapps can afford cloud storage for all user.

I am not saying that it is OK to delete all your files. I am saying it has always been like that in the case of a browser's local storage. As I said, that use case was out of the window long before. From the start, as far as I know. No browser has ever given you any definite promise on whether your local storage data will be kept. That's also true for IndexedDB. So you need a mechanism to restore that data, be it clo…

Browsers keep IndexedDB data indefinitely, they don't delete it.

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

#88

Post by roywashere »

bg0 wrote: 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…

To be honest, HTML5 LocalStorage was always different on iOS when compared to other platforms. The iOS browser localstorage is stored in /caches so it is cleaned when the device goes low on disk space. I found out the hard way, had a cordova app which ran on Android and iOS (and web) and saved an account token in LocalStorage. Some iOS users kept on getting logged out, mostly users with smaller size iPhones!

Now we store the account token in iOS keyring and that works.

ref: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/32927070/complete-data-l...

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

#89

Post by cageface »

robenkleene wrote: post #60

I’m guessing that Apple will start hindering web apps because the new mouse support in iPadOS is going to be such a boon to web apps. Because of sandboxing, web apps are the only cross-platform apps that can run in their full versions on iPadOS. I wrote a quick summary of the situation[0]. Therefore, since native apps are more of a platform differentiator than web apps, moving forward we can expect Apple to start sys…

moving forward we can expect Apple to start systemically hindering web apps

They have been doing this for quite some time now. Always ostensibly to protect users but always also conveniently putting webapps at a permanent disadvantage to native apps.

For my part I'm not interested in being a user of a platform so hostile to the web that it disallows any third party browsers.

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

#90

Post by Wowfunhappy »

arghwhat wrote: 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).

And, um, any other app which saves local data locally.
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