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What PWA Can Do Today

whatpwacando.today

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Re: What PWA Can Do Today

#221

Post by ryan29 »

hoten wrote: post #205

Why does the HN crowd love to leave comments of mean criticism as if it was certain the creator of the submitted site wasn't going to see it? You can levy critique without being rude. Not many are doing this, but it doesn't take much. Maybe letting harsher-than-necessary criticism wash over you is necessary for putting any creation out into the world, but it still feels bad to see. This is why people outside this com…

A lot of the criticism seems to be about the UI and the site is about functionality that's available. It doesn't make sense to criticize the implementation details in my opinion.

It's disappointing because this site was one of the rare occasions I emailed the link to myself so I can add it to my list of things I want to look at. Having a concise demo of PWA functionality that exists is very useful.

Re: What PWA Can Do Today

#222

Post by Andrex »

wg0 wrote: post #187

Just wondering why mobile platform gate keepers, even Google would allow PWAs which will erode the value of their platform.

Google makes more money from the Web platform than the Android platform.

Re: What PWA Can Do Today

#223

Post by davidy123 »

palata wrote: post #204
davidy123 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Cool" is not a great reason. Only having to develop something once that serves all users is great, though. Personally, I cannot stand apps, I only use them when absolutely required, using a PWA gets you all the security of the browser (relatively speaking, but it's a lot more secure than a from scratch black box, and look at goon moves like Facebook embedding a browser that retains third party site interactions) and…

> Only having to develop something once that serves all users is great, though. Cross-platform usually sucks in some way. If the app is not worse, the development is: "write once, debug everywhere". Web is solving that by forcing everybody to use the same (Google-controlled) renderer, so that there is no need for cross-platform anymore: just use the Google thing. I don't want that.

Debug everywhere or google controlled, those things seem diametrically opposed. Aside from the murky area of cookies, chrome isn't straying much from web standards.

There's really not much reason to not use a browser, the compatibility issues are pretty much a thing of the past on any browser, unless you're doing something esoteric. Installing a special app should be unusual.

Re: What PWA Can Do Today

#224

Post by tacone »

wbharding wrote: post #173

Sure would be nice if Firefox desktop would join the browsers that support PWAs. We build an app that has been PWA-first, but it is unfortunate that this generally requires users to have a Chrome instance running. Would much rather point people to Firefox, and it seems like it would be to their advantage to give apps a reason to recommend FF, if they built a smoother PWA integration than Chrome.

I really wish they would do that.

Re: What PWA Can Do Today

#225

Post by donmcronald »

wbharding wrote: post #173

Sure would be nice if Firefox desktop would join the browsers that support PWAs. We build an app that has been PWA-first, but it is unfortunate that this generally requires users to have a Chrome instance running. Would much rather point people to Firefox, and it seems like it would be to their advantage to give apps a reason to recommend FF, if they built a smoother PWA integration than Chrome.

Firefox on Android is worse experience than Chrome too, at least for this app. The app is harder to install (no prompt), the icon looks worse, and the icon has a Firefox badge on it.

I wonder if that's down to config for the PWA or a Firefox shortcoming. Anyone know?

Re: What PWA Can Do Today

#226

Post by palata »

davidy123 wrote: post #223
palata wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only having to develop something once that serves all users is great, though. Cross-platform usually sucks in some way. If the app is not worse, the development is: "write once, debug everywhere". Web is solving that by forcing everybody to use the same (Google-controlled) renderer, so that there is no need for cross-platform anymore: just use the Google thing. I don't want that.

Debug everywhere or google controlled, those things seem diametrically opposed. Aside from the murky area of cookies, chrome isn't straying much from web standards. There's really not much reason to not use a browser, the compatibility issues are pretty much a thing of the past on any browser, unless you're doing something esoteric. Installing a special app should be unusual.

> Debug everywhere or google controlled, those things seem diametrically opposed.

That's what I said.

> the compatibility issues are pretty much a thing of the past on any browser

Because there is only one meaningful browser left: Chromium. It is not a solution to cross-platform, it is just pushing for a monopoly. Just like a few years ago you could have been advocating for supporting exclusively Internet Explorer: that solves the compatibility issues too.

Now PWAs are not trying to kill other browsers (it's done already), but other platforms. That's just the next step.

Re: What PWA Can Do Today

#227

Post by palata »

kristiandupont wrote: post #207
palata wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still you count on the law to force iOS to accept PWAs, right? Isn't that a bit hypocritical?

First of all, no, even if I did, that would only be hypocritical if I was rooting for the law not to apply to the app store. But I am not expecting either.

So you don't count on the law to free you from the Apple Store (because that is the only major platform with a lock-in), but you hope that somehow magically PWAs will be distributed on iOS?

How does that work?

Re: What PWA Can Do Today

#228

Post by jampekka »

palata wrote: post #201
jampekka wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because in native even simple is complicated?

Are you not saying that because you know webtech and not native? I find native easier, webtech with new frameworks and bundlers and fashion every two days is much more annoying to me.

Probably not. I've coded more for webtech, but have done native for Android (and Linux and Windows. And J2ME and Symbian FFS). Luckily very little iOS and MacOS apart from some reverse engineering.

You don't need frameworks or bundlers for simple cases. For many you need just one .html file.

For e.g. Android you need quite a bunch of files and directory structures to do even get a Hello world [1]. You need to compile and bundle and package. And install. And god knows what if you want the application distributed. And then you have to fight with the inconsistent and very boilerplatey Android APIs. And figure out which API was deprecated yesterday and what's today's one that will be deprecated tomorrow.

From what I gather, iOS native is even worse. E.g. have to buy a Mac and use MacOS. And Xcode. And faff with signing keys.

[1] https://github.com/IanDarwin/AndroidTemplate

Re: What PWA Can Do Today

#229

Post by jauntywundrkind »

jauntywundrkind wrote: post #153
SigmundA wrote: post #24

The only thing holding me back from using PWA's right now is tabbed mode [1]. Browser tabs are so useful and having them open in new windows or in the system browser is a bad experience. Not sure why this is taking so long, there have been prototypes for years. Not like its even a security question just bringing over a UI that already exists in the browser. https://developer.chrome.com/docs/capabilities/tabbed-applic…

Tabbed isnt enough for me. I don't want an app. I want a website. I want my user-agent! My user agent is what I know, affords me URLs & extensions and a powerful UI with lots of options. The PWA thing seems sick to me. Henry Ford listens to market research and rebuilds his car as a mechanized horse. For me, the UX is strictly worse in every way. (And I already knew how to put links to webpages on my home screens). Th…

I assume I'm being down voted by pro-native people for calling their preferred tech descending losing old-guard technologies.

Does anyone actually have any comments or reactions to what I was actually arguing about?

PWAs being such brutal downgrade over what the web browser offers seems glaringly obvious to me; I'm shocked there's not more outcry. If people actually feel otherwise, please leave some arguments out in support of blowing away the user agent.

This feels like it always has been the nexus of power where the web gets consistent enriching capabilities and affordances. It's what has made the web powerful & better, rather than every user being cast naked &bat the mercies into whatever app a company decides to cook up.

There's a submission right now on The Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design & the browser alone satisfies 6 or 7 of these, by my judgement, whereas native & PWA apps require the app to carefully construct it's own paradigm that can fully meet these user needs. The user agent is a helpful baseline, and it seems mad that PWAs throw it away to me. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38916663 https://www.cs.umd.edu/~ben/goldenrules.html

If people think PWAs offer anything or make any sense versus the web browser, I'd love to hear why. Tabbed design was sooo late relatively to emerge in PWA space, and it feels like just one of a million affordances that are going to be half baked recreations of what we already had in the browser. How is being an app in an OS better than being a tab in a much more powerful & competent & featureful user-agent?

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