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

andregarzia.com

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

#241

Post by zimpenfish »

Spivak wrote: post #220
cageface wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it's not about what's best for the user but what's best for Apple? I wouldn't call that "understandable". All this is doing is contributing to webkit monoculture.

There's some irony that Apple forcing the use of Safari on iOS is creating a monoculture when, were the restriction lifted, everyone would be using Chrome.

> everyone would be using Chrome.

I'd be amazed if there were more than a tiny fraction of iOS/iPadOS users (of which there are hundreds of millions) who weren't perfectly ok with Mobile Safari for their everyday usage.

[I'm probably the "target market" for Chrome (backend, occasionally frontend developer) and there's no way I'd have it on my phone. I only suffer the GMail app because they've made IMAP usage of gmail unreliable.]

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

#242

Post by [deleted] »

lstamour wrote: post #235
gridlockd wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about metadata or "web games". It's about apps/games that can be used offline. For that to work, all the data needs to be stored client-side. > My browser storage is not a game developers long term storage, its a cache. IndexedDB is explicitly not a cache, it's long-term data storage for significant amounts of data.

Cookies can be used for storage for up to a year, but it’s commonly accepted that browsers vary in implementation of this based on user settings. So why wouldn’t user settings exist for other kinds of permanent or session storage? Google Chrome is so dominant in both browser-making and standards-making that we’ve forgotten the browser — and user — is always king when it comes to the web. If users want permanent stora…

[deleted]

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

#244

Post by ocdtrekkie »

I find localStorage a bad crutch, when storage accessible to any browser or computer would be better. I'm totally cool with this because magical storage in your browser is just a bad idea, especially when it requires developer tools to find and see what it is doing.

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

#245

Post by fredsted »

Feels like Apple is just continually making the Safari browser worse.

I think they just want to push people towards native apps so they have full control. Apple always wants control.

First they prevented plugins like uBlock, made it very expensive to create your own plugins, and now they're messing up LocalStorage.

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

#246

Post by Arnt »

Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #164

I think looking at Apple as saviour of Privacy, is for lack of better term just wrong. They have always favoured closed systems even if didn't provide privacy advantages or as in this case was counter-intuitive for privacy. I feel the comparison of Apple with data companies such as Google, Facebook is by itself at fault. Apple like any computer company of 70's was not into data, just because Internet itself didn't ex…

This is webkit, which is open source. Apple took an existing HTML/CSS/DOM engine, rewrote it, renamed it, and opensourced its version, too.

It's compiled using LLVM, which also contains thousands of lines of open source code by Apple.

Of course you might argue that these examples don't prove your sweeping statement false, but please read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman before arguing.

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

#247

Post by pwinnski »

So Apple can't really care about privacy because:

- They have a News app

- They haven't rejected apps from Google and Facebook

Can you imagine what would happen if Apple rejected apps from Google and Facebook? Can you even fathom the outcry?

Apple News uses differential privacy and doesn't track user history, but yes, they do provide personalized News I guess? They must not care about privacy at all then!

If you're upset about a seven-day limit on local storage, okay. I get it. It sucks. But to claim Apple's reasons for this are invalid because they allow Facebook apps to exist, that's... weird.

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

#248

Post by oefrha »

pier25 wrote: post #230
oefrha wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being logged out after 7 days of inactivity could be a little bit annoying but I can live with that, as long as I can log in again. I could be misinterpreting your comment but are you saying your keys are simply destroyed upon this “log out”? Then I’m not really sure why your platform was considered working in the first place, if it’s tied to a specific browser of a specific device and won’t survive a clearing of sto…

What if you don't have connectivity when localstorage is deleted and can't log in? Eg: in a classroom.

What if someone accidentally erases everything because that’s what they’re told when something doesn’t work right? Answer: it’s volatile storage in the first place, and a tiny one at that. Heck some browsers can be configured to erase everything when closed (when operating in non-incognito/private mode).

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

#249

Post by the_gipsy »

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).

> If you want more access, make a native app

...and give apple their cut. Why not add permissions to webapps? Like location, or push notification... oh that's another feature that happens to be missing only in safari.

Just accepting these moves from apple as "in the interest of users" is naïve. Apple has a huge vesting in their appstore, and every webapp is a potential appstore-app that is some lost revenue.

I mean, maybe apple is right, and the web should go back to a readonly document-like format, like in the old days. Articles and links. Apps for everything else. But let's not kid ourselves that they do it purely in the user's interest.

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

#250

Post by davweb »

I think the original post is oversimplifying the new behaviour a little. If you look at the other blog post on ITP 2.3 [1] it says:

> ITP 2.3 caps the lifetime of all script-writeable website data after a navigation with link decoration from a classified domain.

i.e. the 7 day timeout for local storage only kicks in if you've been redirected from a domain that ITP has classified as one that tracks users. So, for example, web apps that users navigate to directly will be unaffected.

[1]: https://webkit.org/blog/9521/intelligent-tracking-prevention...

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