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It’s Official, Apple Kills Web Apps in the EU

open-web-advocacy.org

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Re: It’s Official, Apple Kills Web Apps in the EU

#121

Post by wiseowise »

meepmorp wrote: post #87
szasamasa wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

web apps are the future, not the present Apple was holding them back and just pulled the plug. Only if web programmers can count on future proof support will they produce web apps. In addition, most companies have already created native apps so again, web apps are the future, it is not an argument that there are few on iOS and yes, outlook or X are good examples

web apps are a lowest common denominator solution that result in shittier software with worse features, security, and privacy

> result in shittier software with worse features

Got any examples to prove that? The only reason why features might be "worse" is by vendors artificially limiting browser access to native APIs. And "blazing fast performance" over features is not argument.

> security, and privacy

I can block every invasion of my privacy in a browser. Can you say the same for native applications?

Re: It’s Official, Apple Kills Web Apps in the EU

#122

Post by stephenr »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #33
stephenr wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a bit of a stretch to call a web app "develop[ed] for iOS" The whole point of the web is that it is cross platform. That isn't a negative thing it's a positive, but calling it "develop for iOS" is arguably disingenuous.

Most people just want to make apps for themselves. If you use an iOS device but not a Mac, there was no way to do that before web apps (which still offered a terrible dev experience, without debugging) and now there's again no way to do it.

I’m not debating why someone wants to develop it.

I’m saying that making a web app is not “developing for iOS”. It’s developing for the web.

Re: It’s Official, Apple Kills Web Apps in the EU

#123

Post by pcdoodle »

oaiey wrote: post #72

The amount of money lost in corporations for internal or app store avoiding apps by this decision is mind blowing.

Perhaps they didn't want to give Apple the leverage over their companies right to run software freely without red tape in between them and their customers.

Having to worry about rejections, API deprecations, architecture changes, Appearance guidelines et al would defiantly make me want to avoid it as much as possible.

It's akin to avoiding a marriage to an aloof partner that will never love you.

Re: It’s Official, Apple Kills Web Apps in the EU

#124

Post by jsnell »

szasamasa wrote: post #92
jsnell wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dupes are not just for the exact same URL. This topic has gotten a lot of attention on the frontpage, and there's no significant new information in this article.

then why did it get so many comments? you seem to be protecting people from discussing what they want to discuss in addition, I wrote 2 first comments asking people to focus on a deeper conversation and my focus was both in my forcefully changed title and in my first article-like comment that what is actually happening is attacking web capabilities the first 2 comments were mine, an article and an ask towards the com…

A submission getting comments isn't automatically a sign that it should be on the frontpage. Anything controversial or outrageous is likely to get a lot of comments any time it makes the frontpage. The really insidious part is that unlike the really interesting submissions which are one offs, these topics are being fed by a news cycle and a content treadmill, with a steady stream of new articles mostly rehashing the same information. So they tend to crowd

To use this article as an example, you say you want to see a higher level discussion about the legal and technical aspects. A proper legal review of Apple's DMA position vs. the actual regulation text would definitely be fascinating to read and new information we haven't already seen multiple times. I'd totally upvote that. Maybe there's even a chance that such an article would lead to the higher level discussion you ask for. But it doesn't feel like that's at all what the article is? There's no analysis, just an assertion that this breaks the spirit and the letter of the law.

(I don't know anything about the various grivances you listed. I was just replying to agust since they were under the false impression that dupes were only for exact submissions of the same article.)

Re: It’s Official, Apple Kills Web Apps in the EU

#125

Post by jart »

ghusto wrote: post #117

Tip: To be taken more seriously, don't use such childish language. I was reading the first part and nearly switched off without checking the comments here. I'm glad I did, because I see now how serious (and maybe _illegal?_) this is. Don't turn your audience away with emotional wording, for something that can easily have impact if you communicate it purely for what it is.

It's not childish it's manipulative and it's the sort of rhetoric that only manipulates people at least a standard deviation to the left of the bell curve here. But even by that standard, gosh this piece lays it down so thick that it honestly made me cringe.

Re: It’s Official, Apple Kills Web Apps in the EU

#126

Post by wiseowise »

threeseed wrote: post #15
Aerbil313 wrote: post #11

This is criminal. After decades I finally had the ability to develop for iOS without a Mac and a yearly $99 fee - only for it to be crippled again?

> I finally had the ability to develop for iOS without a Mac Cordova, React Native, Xamarin, Flutter etc. Seems like the only thing criminal here is your inability to use Google.

You still need to deploy the application via Mac, genius.

Re: It’s Official, Apple Kills Web Apps in the EU

#127

Post by osrec »

For me, this shows fear and a sense of insecurity within Apple. They've built their walled garden and are doing whatever they can to protect it. They've probably even convinced users that it's in their interest. Yet, they know there is an inevitability that polished web apps will exist (and that time will come fairly soon, imo), and will match and replace their native counterparts. They also know, it's the correct and overwhelmingly more efficient way to deliver 99% of apps. Yet they want to stifle that future, all in the name of money.

Create all the titanium cased phones you like - eventually, the masses will be smart enough to prioritise openness and forward-thinking over almost anything else. If you start to hold people back with your decisions, questions will start to arise about your priorities and eventually your products. And people are fickle enough, that they won't be your fanboys/girls forever.

Re: It’s Official, Apple Kills Web Apps in the EU

#128

Post by patrickaljord »

lesuorac wrote: post #114
chii wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think Apple did not want to risk letting that happen. they've already shown a shadow of their true colors when they banned flash under the guise of security (which is also a problem, but for which apple conveniently uses as an excuse). This is their true intention. The app store and the easy revenue from those sales are just not something they'll willingly give up.

Loosen up that tinfoil hat. Apple banned flash when web apps were the _only_ apps on the iphone (besides the preloaded apps). The App Store [1] is ~18 months after the iPhone [2] was released. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App_Store_(Apple) [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone

This is true, but it's naive to believe that the App Store wasn't planned long before those 18 months and was written in just a couple of month before its release.

Re: It’s Official, Apple Kills Web Apps in the EU

#129

Post by anon373839 »

phartenfeller wrote: post #85
neximo64 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is quite often where people make the greatest mistake. It's all about distribution and customer usage. Most people hate and don't use PWAs. What stands in the way are Native iPhone apps are better. It also goes for android too. That's why PWAs fail. If they were successful Apple would find a way to monetise the hell out of them.

I agree that native apps can offer better experiences and often do because they get more development effort. I disagree that most people hate PWAs because they are just websites. I think many mix bad websites with "PWA is a bad technology". All the cookie banners, ads and prompts to install the native app are the reason the experience is worse. What could a native app for Wikipedia, Google or a basic news pages (with…

> I think many mix bad websites with "PWA is a bad technology".

Exactly. I put together a demo a few years ago that employed somewhat novel interaction design to showcase some machine learning tech. A number of people were gobsmacked by it and asked endless questions about what framework it was built with. I didn't use a framework. I dug into the deep recesses of CSS to make it do what I wanted. Really, you can accomplish almost anything with HTML/CSS/JS/SVG (though I'll admit it might be painful).

Re: It’s Official, Apple Kills Web Apps in the EU

#130

Post by kibwen »

neximo64 wrote: post #47
anon373839 wrote: post #14

> It’s telling that this is the feature that Apple refused to share. And it makes sense: the idea that users could install safe and secure apps that Apple can’t tax, block or control is terrifying to them. I think that’s what this decision is all about. When Safari was the only browser engine on iOS, PWAs didn’t threaten the App Store because Safari delivers a degraded experience with them. With alternative browser e…

This is quite often where people make the greatest mistake. It's all about distribution and customer usage. Most people hate and don't use PWAs. What stands in the way are Native iPhone apps are better. It also goes for android too. That's why PWAs fail. If they were successful Apple would find a way to monetise the hell out of them.

If PWAs are so bad, why is Apple utterly terrified at the idea of letting them compete with native apps? I avoid native apps at every turn. If an app is only available natively, I look for a competitor who offers a web version. Finding native apps is a mess compared to finding a website; it's truly impressive how app stores still manage to have worse search results than Google despite Google's quality plummeting. Installing native apps is a hassle. Managing permissions is a hassle. Dealing with their internal ads is a hassle.
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