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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

#731

Post by dazbradbury »

burtonator wrote: post #543

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 th…

Regarding your point on consumers, we put our PWA/TWA into the app store (for the reason you outlined) - and now get a raft of negative reviews that the TWA is the same as the mobile site... Which is frustrating, because that's the point.

Making it clear why a TWA is in the app store is hard in itself. Trying to explain why it's better for consumers over a native app + mobile site is even harder.

See these reviews for yourself here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.openrent

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

#732

Post by om2 »

untog wrote: post #545
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…

Home screen web app data will be deleted onlY be deleted after 7 days of active use of that web app without any user interaction, which is nearly impossible. So the whole premise of the OP is false.

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

#733

Post by gtsop »

People complaining about how PWAs haven't taken off yet are extremely ignorant. Go open up your dev tools and see how many websites you've visited make use of at least some PWA features (most likely cache) without you even noticing. PWA features have a lot to offer to the web experience even without installing the app. You've been enjoying these features and you don't even know it.

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

#734

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

Karunamon wrote: post #728
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #725

The issue would be not that problematic if I could just run a real Firefox browser on iOS, not a skin over Safari, which leads me to a question that puzzles me for a long time. Why Apple is not facing antitrust charges for not allowing competing browsers on their platform? Microsoft didn't SHIP competing browsers, but allowed them to run just fine on windows, and was fined nonetheless, but Apple somehow gets away wit…

This is a common misconception. 1. Apple is not a monopoly player in the app market. 2. Microsoft's antitrust fine was for forcing OEMs to not include any competing browsers (Netscape) on threat of losing special pricing.

> 1. Apple is not a monopoly player in the app market.

Apple has a 100% monopoly in the app market by running the only AppStore available for iOS devices, and that store review guidelines specifically prohibits use of any other web rendering engine but WebKit [1]

> 2. Microsoft's antitrust fine was for forcing OEMs to not include any competing browsers (Netscape) on threat of losing special pricing.

That's not the only lawsuit they faced. There was EU case that forced MS to make a special installer [2] for alternative browsers.

I really can't perceive the meaningful difference between these cases. And I believe it's about time to force Apple to allow installation of alternative app stores, from where users would be able to install all the apps they want, without being handcuffed by device manufacturer.

[1] https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/

[2] https://cutt.ly/ztn4kxr

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

#735

Post by Touche »

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.

What if you visit a link within the home screen app that takes you to another domain? Presumably if you kept using it with ever returning to the original domain the clock would be ticking.

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

#736

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

roywashere wrote: post #88
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 s…

How do you use the iOS Keyring from within a PWA or website in Safari?

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

#737

Post by Macha »

OzzyB wrote: post #111
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a native app developer, I can live with this.

As long as you start refering to the "i" in "iPhone" as Intranet and not ~Internet~ then we're cool.

The Internet Phone was the Cisco iPhone, not the Apple iPhone

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

#738

Post by edmundsauto »

jamiesonbecker wrote: post #678
vosper wrote: post #577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Is it possible they also want you to port your app to the App Store to prevent an explosion of garbage and malware that could happen if PWAs really took off?

> to prevent an explosion of garbage and malware that could happen if PWAs really took off? You mean, like the Internet. The App Store is a nice, safe walled garden, like AOL.

This is one of the primary value props of the platform.

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

#739

Post by Razengan »

PudgePacket wrote: post #720
Razengan wrote: post #692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... Consumers are another problem. ... You blame Apple, Google and your consumers, instead of just making native apps. Why?

So, make 3 apps instead of 1? This was the whole idea behind PWA.

Yes, that's the whole idea behind having different devices and operating systems with different capabilities.

Why should users suffer the lowest common denominator because of lazy developers?

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

#740

Post by millstone »

jamiesonbecker wrote: post #694
soapdog wrote: post #690

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the OP and I am a Mozilla volunteer. I prefer a web with many engines, I want it to have WebKit, Blink, Gecko and more.

Agreed. There is no choice with IOS: you choose the same WebKit that they've chosen, or Safari. One engine and version, or one browser using that one engine.

Android is a web monoculture too. Non-Blink browsers on Android are at <1%.
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