Apple confirms it's breaking iPhone web apps in the EU on purpose

Depends on the laws and advertising. Sony got dinged for removing the "Other OS" option on the PS3. A feature you can definitely argued "nobody used" (and as someone who tried, the experience for anything but basically headless Linux was atrocious. You had access to almost none of the hardware for this). Still lost the case.

I wouldn't bet on Apple losing on that specifically. But it sounds like this is all adding up towards another big slap in a future Case.

Google in theory has a financial motivation to make their competitor Apple look like the bad actor.

That’s not true, nor what I posited. PWAs have almost all the native features, if not all, depending on the platform. Plenty of “pro-PWA” people go out of their way to demonstrate this[0].

I’m talking about install rates and usage by end users in a way similar to using a native app.

Whether you agree on parity or not, you seem to concede that PWAs aren’t wildly adopted the way native apps are.

As such, it makes sense that Apple wouldn’t want to waste engineering resources on it by rewriting the underlying architecture, which is the topic at hand.

That in and of itself ends the debate.

You then go on, OT, about whether Apple should or shouldn’t position websites and PWAs as legitimate alternatives.

Saying:

> but Apple's platforms are the only ones where it is being positioned as a legitimate alternative

Specifically, Apple states[1]:

> If the App Store model and guidelines are not best for your app or business idea that’s okay, we provide Safari for a great web experience too.

An alternative isn’t, as you seem to imply, an identical option; instead, it is simply understood to mean a different choice, usually a choice different from what is usual.

One might say, "In the absence of a better alternative, we’ll have to proceed with our original plan.” This use in and of itself implies that one option is better than another, thus not identical.

Whether something is “legitimate” or, more specifically, a “legitimate alternative” entirely depends on the person making the consideration and the value judgment they make based on their needs and wants.

I might consider soda a “legitimate alternative” to coffee because I’m just looking for a beverage, whereas a different person might not deem it a legitimate alternative. After all, they are solely interested in a warm beverage.

With that in mind, I consider web pages, particularly PWAs, a legitimate alternative to native apps because most native functions are available to PWAs on iOS. You might not because your need might be one of the few things PWAs can’t provide.

That doesn’t make it a bad-faith argument on Apple’s part; they never claimed that PWAs are an identical option to native apps via their App Store. They offered up an alternative that can provide some, if not most, of what a native app can provide.

You continue with your OT by presenting a false equivalence

> Android has "sideloading", Windows has REGULAR loading.

It’s a false equivalence because neither Google nor OEMs present sideloading as a legitimate alternative; it simply exists, but it’s not promoted as an alternative option.

Google specifically likes to write copious amounts of words in blog posts[1] and whatnot, talking about how great PWAs are while wearing their Chrome hat. Meanwhile, the PWA experience on Android is marginally better than that on iOS, provided you use Google’s browser. Where is your indignation for that? They’re promoting PWAs harder than Apple will ever do.

For that matter, Microsoft also doesn’t call “regular loading” a legitimate alternative, so again, your equivalence makes no sense.

> It doesn't matter who joined Apple when and did what

Of course it does; if you don’t go OT, that is. Whether Safari is or isn’t suitable for PWAs is essential to assess if PWAs are used in meaningful quantities.

If someone posits that Safari doesn’t properly support PWAs when that isn’t true, like GP did, then it’s important to point that out and provide context on when that changed.

It doesn’t matter to you because you’re having an entirely separate discussion.

> PWAs on iPhone are not like native apps

Yes, they are.

As stated above, they’re not identical, but they are similar to, or if you prefer, “like” native apps.

> it's not even really close

This is a value judgment because it requires that you and I agree on the definition of “close.” I argue that they’re pretty close because they can do about 90% of what native apps can do.

> It's good that this pathetic line of argument wasn't much of a deterrence for the EU.

Let’s keep it classy and within HN guidelines.

> What people want isn't PWAs

Hence, the low install rate of PWAs and why it’s not weird that Apple didn’t decide to spend engineering resources on rewriting the underlying architecture for PWA installs.

Again, that, in and of itself, ends the debate.

> they just want the kind of capabilities that computers have had for decades, including many of Apple's current computers for sale today. To be able to install an application and run it.

I’m not sure what you base this on.

From here, it looks like you’re projecting your own wants onto the average iPhone user base at large. Do you have anything that expands on how many iPhone users share your vision?

The commercial success of iPhones suggests that not many seem to care for this.

I suppose alternatively, you could argue that the fact that Android dominates globally indicates there is a demand for this in the smartphone market[2]. Still, the obvious question then becomes why those iPhone users wouldn’t just join in Android’s dominance and switch over, particularly those who feel so strongly about this that they’d spend their time online lamenting its absence.

0: https://whatpwacando.today

1: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#int...

2: This is simplified, of course; one feature wouldn’t be the sole driver of Android’s dominance