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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

#631

Post by SahAssar »

alkonaut wrote: post #606
SahAssar wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A normal app requires a separate build process, users to install it, manual review for each update, perhaps the platform owner will just deny it without reason, and for Mac/iOS it also requires actually owning or "borrowing" (using another persons/companies) build machine and software. I don't understand why an installed PWA should not be able to keep their storage just as a "normal" app can. It would clearly be bett…

Those sound like problems for the developer, and not the end user.

I don't think you understand what "users to install it" means for actual users.

Most users are asked to install multiple apps for the normal sites they visit (like news sites, social media, imagehosting and more). They usually don't, and that's good. Those apps should not be apps, they should be websites. Most of those apps can be a simple website. If the users want/need more functionality that can be within a installed PWA.

I think this is more people and developers fetishizing what it means to be in the app store or to be "native". If we can run it all in probably the best sandbox we have available without having vendor specific builds or vendor specific prompts why would we as users or developers want anything else?

Some apps should be native. But the majority of them would be better as webapps rather than android/iOS apps.

EDIT: Also I'd argue a lot of those problems are artificially created by the platforms, not the developers.

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

#632

Post by EvanAnderson »

npunt wrote: post #622
EvanAnderson wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should research the original plan for "apps" on the iOS platform. There was no "native app" story originally, and Javascript-based applications were expected to be the only 3rd party platform on the OS.

As should you. It’s not that an app ecosystem was never planned, it’s that it was not an early priority. Remember they were literally defining everything at the beginning - OS, UX, APIs, core features, hardware, first party apps, market positioning, etc etc. Needs of third party developers weren’t nearly as important as nailing the basics and ensuring a risky project was a success. The html5 app bit was a way to test…

How do you square that against all the reported accounts (including the Isaacson biography) of Steve Jobs saying that he was opposed to third-party native applications on the platform?

Yes, they changed direction in 2008. That's just it, though. They changed direction.

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

#633

Post by icedchai »

vxNsr wrote: post #623
icedchai wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure it is still the case if they have connectivity...

Its not, at least not based on how the OG article is written. If you open your bank app it automatically tries to log you in if you saved your credentials in the past. This seems to say that if you don't use the app for a week it'll wipe that out. No one expects that.

That's not how I read it. Odds are my bank isn't using local storage for that.

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

#634

Post by jwr »

gok wrote: post #329
jwr wrote: post #7

I have an app which isn't offline, but I wanted to make use of IndexedDB and LocalStorage to make things faster for users. Now I wonder if it's worth the effort to even try. I think this pretty much kills the utility of all local storage initiatives. My app is an inventory control system used by businesses that build electronics ( https://partsbox.com/ ). Deleting client-side data after 7 days is ridiculous. You can'…

Your demo page is 3.23 MB. ~500KB is javascript, ~500KB is CSS and another ~400KB is web fonts. The parts database is 24 KB. That's certainly not the first place I would look for an optimization target, even for customers with very large parts databases.

With respect, I believe you are mistaken about what my important use cases are like.

Not going to go into details, but that JavaScript, CSS and fonts are all immutable assets, never to be requested again, while the database is significantly larger for clients who run their businesses using this software.

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

#635

Post by xingyzt »

soapdog wrote: post #455
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?

I'm the OP, I use a lot of PWAs. My main machine is a Surface Pro X and I don't have native apps (as in native aarch64 binaries) for many of the things I'd like to use. So, I'm using PWAs for Instagram, Twitter, Kindle, Pinafore (mastodon client), Spotify, and some of my own. I was developing a feed reader that was supposed to be a client-side-only PWA but that's tricky.

Do you know a PWA for Kindle? Their browser-based reader hasn't been updated for quite a while.

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

#636

Post by jariel »

mulmen wrote: post #449
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…

I don't really understand this. If you want to make something local, make an app and distribute through the app store, that's what it is for. A web app on the other hand is connected by definition, no? Apple forcing local apps to distribute through the app store is a feature .

"Apple forcing local apps to distribute through the app store is a feature."

Forcing companies to give Apple 30% is not a feature.

If companies feel they can deliver a net experience in webapp that's better than an app, then so be it, it's their choice.

App makers are smart enough to know what makes sense for them.

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

#637

Post by barrkel »

icedchai wrote: post #534
untog wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A web app on the other hand is connected by definition, no? No, not in the era of "progressive web apps", which is really just a little bit of branding around interconnected APIs. The Cache API in particular means that a webapp can be downloaded and made available offline on a permanent basis. Unless it isn't actually permanent at all, which is what Apple are doing here. The web and the App Store are just delivery…

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

That's just a failure of your imagination, though. The world was not always as it is today, and it is not bound to be so in the future.

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

#638

Post by emmelaich »

gridlockd wrote: post #564
untog wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yes, it's confusing. It's not 7 days of non-use , it's seven days of application use without visiting the site. Safari is one application, the homescreen app is a separate application. Presumably, all the alt browsers or WebView apps are separate applications as well. Since you can't use a homescreen app without visiting the site, the 7 days of not visiting the site can't happen.

But .. if you don't use Safari for seven days, what happens?

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

#639

Post by joshspankit »

joshspankit wrote: post #223
donatj wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might technically work, but is an absurdly user-unfriendly. Name a modern game that required you to manually manage game state files, let alone didn’t have autosave. It’s a feature users expect, and they’re going to have a bad time. I don’t want to play a quick game on my phone and have to remember to save and where I am keeping my save files. I’d argue a far better options would be just to treat local storage a…

While I agree that it’s ideal to treat localstorage as a permission, as someone who has played a lot of games over the years I can tell you that I wish I could manually manage game state files. The current way iOS does it (either keep the game installed forever or erase all your progress when deleting it) is a huge barrier to me getting invested in iOS games at all . With “save progress to file” (and loading), I woul…

Downvote?

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

#640

Post by frenchy »

oblio wrote: post #492
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple apparently dislikes this because they don't get to force people to use their store This is part of the motivation. The other is advertisers using persistent local storage to track users [1]. [1] https://clearcode.cc/blog/alternatives-to-cookie-tracking/

Do they block native apps that track users?

Only if you fail to use the Apple advertising ID. Tracking users is fine as long as Apple holds the keys.
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