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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

#541

Post by seanabrahams »

seanabrahams wrote: post #473
alkonaut wrote: post #434

Did PWA's take off? What are some famous/big PWA's now? I can't remember ever "installing" anything in a browser as an app, or even being asked if I wanted to do it. Am I misunderstanding what they are?

PWAs haven't taken off because Apple won't implement full Push API support in Safari thus forcing you to go through the App Store if your web site or application needs push notifications. The App Store then complains if you try to publish an app that just wraps your web site so that you can have push notifications. It's... infuriating.

Further, if Apple were truly concerned with the quality of the apps in their store they would free developers from having to submit apps just to support push notifications. Less time reviewing and rejecting apps, less "low quality" apps in the store, happier developers, happier users.

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

#542

Post by Fauntleroy »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #524
beering wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read the article, that's the issue the author was talking about: it's basically impossible to make an app that can store its data locally, instead of on some web server. All apps that you download from App Store can live offline, where they're usable without Internet or trusting some faraway web server. You can't make a web app that can do that, and to some people it smells like Apple trying to force developer…

> it's basically impossible to make an app that can store its data locally, instead of on some web server. No, that is trivial to do: just make an actual damn application. What the author is complaining about is that it’s impossible to make a text document that pretends to be an application that stores data in ways they were never intended to be stored.

"just write an iOS app" versus "my web application can be used on Apple devices" is a bit much, don't you think?

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

#543

Post by burtonator »

I ported Polar (https://getpolarized.io/) over to a PWA about a year ago.

It's kind of a nightmare due to both Google and Apple messing things up.

PWAs could be an amazing platform but both companies are really messing it up.

Apple is trying to kill them by giving plausible explanations as to why they can't have PWAs. Security this, blah blah blah. There's no reason they can't have PWAs work well in Safari other than they want you to port your app to the App Store and get locked into their native APIs.

Google's problem is, well, they're Google. Meaning things are somewhat incoherent, docs are all over the place, they start new initiatives then abandon them half way, etc.

Consumers are another problem. They have no understanding of PWAs and they go to the app store, don't find us, and then complain we don't have an app..

The plan now is to use Google TWAs and port our PWA to Android.

We're going to do the same thing to Apple after we do the Android release BUT I think there's a 50% chance that apple will just flat out block us.

I think we might have a chance of getting around it if we use mobile gestures properly, use platform specific APIs like the camera, audio, and GPS that aren't on web and try to really integrate into the platform properly.

For example, they have an API to detect dark mode now. IF that's on we're just going to magically enable our dark mode in our app.

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

#544

Post by rstupek »

judah wrote: post #505
jfb wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I promise you that Apple does not give a shit about the revenue from the developer program.

It's not just about the revenues of $100/year. It's also the revenue from 30% sharing of profits. And most importantly, it's the bigger revenue generated from having apps that work only on iOS, which drives users to buy iPhones and iPads.

A PWA app isn't going to generate any 30% revenue share for Apple since no one is paying for it in the PWA case and thus likely won't be paying for it in the pure app case either.

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

#545

Post by untog »

wubin wrote: post #483

The source clarifies that this only applies to websites run within the Safari browser.[1] PWAs added to the home screen aren't affected. > As mentioned, the seven-day cap on script-writable storage is gated on "after seven days of Safari use without user interaction on the site." That is the case in Safari. Web applications added to the home screen are not part of Safari and thus have their own counter of days of use…

I don't think that's actually what it clarifies. Or at the very least it's very confusing.

> have their own counter of days of use. Their days of use will match actual use of the web application which resets the timer.

This makes it sound very much like homescreen apps will have their data wiped after 7 days of non-use.

> We do not expect the first-party in such a web application to have its website data deleted.

And this does not. It's a very confusing word salad.

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

#546

Post by bengale »

veeti wrote: post #518
snazz wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Users want to be able to log in and see their data from any device. If the whole idea is that there is no server that the data is stored on, then you can't have a sync function, can you? Do any of you have an example of a good offline-only PWA that will be affected by this?

It's no less of an issue for an online-based PWA. Where do you store login credentials or session tokens? In local storage. What happens to them when Apple decides to arbitrarily throw it away? The user has to log in again and again. This sounds like a seriously poorly thought out idea. Want to clear tracking data from random websites I've been to? That's great. But you don't mess with the data stored by apps I have…

But only if they don’t interact with it for a week. I wouldn’t be surprised if a web app I hadn’t used for a week required me to login.

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

#547

Post by gridlockd »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #524
beering wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read the article, that's the issue the author was talking about: it's basically impossible to make an app that can store its data locally, instead of on some web server. All apps that you download from App Store can live offline, where they're usable without Internet or trusting some faraway web server. You can't make a web app that can do that, and to some people it smells like Apple trying to force developer…

> it's basically impossible to make an app that can store its data locally, instead of on some web server. No, that is trivial to do: just make an actual damn application. What the author is complaining about is that it’s impossible to make a text document that pretends to be an application that stores data in ways they were never intended to be stored.

> What the author is complaining about is that it’s impossible to make a text document that pretends to be an application that stores data in ways they were never intended to be stored.

You must've been not following things. The web platform is an application platform and has developed to that end, for many years.

Progressive Web Apps are applications based on standard Web APIs that are designed with the intent to enable offline-capable applications with persistent offline storage of significant amounts of data.

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

#548

Post by saagarjha »

anchpop wrote: post #355
saagarjha wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They have always favoured closed systems even if didn't provide privacy advantages Yes. > or as in this case was counter-intuitive for privacy I fail to see how this is counter-intuitive for privacy. > iCloud hack Targeted spearphising? > Apple's response to iOS vulnerabilities targeted by state actors https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20897368 > Newer Safari being incompatible with privacy extensions such as uB…

> I fail to see how this is counter-intuitive for privacy. It makes it impossible to have an app that stores data in localstorage reliably, instead requiring it to be backed up on the app's servers.

In the browser, sure. But it prevents a number of issues with advertisements tracking people around the web.

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

#549

Post by dang »

saagarjha wrote: post #390

Related discussion from earlier today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22683535 WebKit blog post from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22677605

I think we'll merge today's threads. Any reason not to? Edit: merged.

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

#550

Post by icedchai »

untog wrote: post #539
icedchai wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I would never expect a web app to be available offline on a permanent basis.

Okay?

I basically assume my phone is nearly useless without connectivity. And if I want something to work in that sort of environment, it better be a native app.
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