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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

#131

Post by mobilemidget »

chii wrote: post #111
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…

> 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.

Which was about same time or just after adobe, the author of flash recommended everybody to stop using it.

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

#132

Post by palata »

wiseowise wrote: post #110
palata wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> temporary apps Can you not install a native app one day, and uninstall it the next day? Or does it not count as "temporary"? Or are PWAs uninstalling automatically somehow?

> Can you not install a native app one day, and uninstall it the next day? Or does it not count as "temporary"? "Don't you guys have phones?" > Or are PWAs uninstalling automatically somehow? They don't weigh 100MBs. I feel extremely privileged to have access to super fast networks, but it doesn't mean that lazy developers get right to hog it all.

If you can't make a native app that doesn't weigh 100MBs, then you may need to question your work.

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

#133

Post by kibwen »

andy_ppp wrote: post #64
pretext-1 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re working on cars for sure

Will the Apple Car get slower over time and have the battery become unusable after 2 years?

When turning the steering wheel to the left causes the car to veer right, will the official response be "you're holding it wrong"?

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

#134

Post by nickthegreek »

szasamasa wrote: post #108
firtoz wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The title does need to match the one within the website

apparently my former title was too much for this site: "iPissed: Apple is after web capabilities to protect close-to-100B App Store Tax" which was relating to the article (and you can read the title of the original article after clicking) but I did not like "kills web apps" because it is not true in my opinion, tries to kill web apps or fights against them or cripples them in the next iOS release... it sounded too et…

Your creativity is against the rules. You must submit with original title if it fits the character length.

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

#135

Post by TheFuzzball »

patrickaljord wrote: post #128
lesuorac wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think we can tell that the App Store wasn't planned that early because if it was the earlier Apple apps would have been using the APIs that needed to be implemented and documented for the first App Store, and they didn't.

Apple today is very different from the Apple that launched the iPhone and the original App Store - they started off thinking all apps could be PWAs, but the Web Platform wasn't mature enough at the time and they pivoted to native, that's the actual truth.

Now they're addicted to in-app-purchase money from casino games and don't want that money moving out of their 30% taxable grasp. It's a sad story, truly.

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

#136

Post by mwest217 »

szasamasa wrote: post #84
tremarley wrote: post #38

Since iOS 17.4 for EU users 1. Apple will DELETE user's data without notice 2. Lot of apps will stop working and there will be no way to access them without update 3. Web Push will stop working; users expecting notifications will never get them 4. Apple breaks the Web platform This was published in the document "Update on apps distributed in the European Union" https://developer.apple.com/support/dma-and-apps-in-the-…

is this true? I mean they cannot delete Chrome data which web capabilities will actually not work any more? I mean service workers will not, and it is a big one... all they do is caching and you can create an offline working website with them web push another big one (not for me, but many use them) which other web capabilities does Apple target?

The biggest one is that Apple allows local storage to last longer than 7 days for webpages installed as apps on the home screen, but deletes local storage for ordinary websites 7 days after they are last opened.

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

#137

Post by TheFuzzball »

mobilemidget wrote: post #131
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.

Which was about same time or just after adobe, the author of flash recommended everybody to stop using it.

Bear in mind that Apple and Adobe have a very long and close history - Apple did not kill Flash to spite Adobe, they did it because 1. Flash was plagued with security problems, and 2. Flash was plagued with performance problems and the iPhone was a very low performance device.

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

#139

Post by szasamasa »

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…

but web apps can usually offer the same experiences if programmed well

it may be a current situation that some web apps seem inferior, but it is not a necessity

plenty of web developers cannot even use js as a programming language or companies do not heavily invest in web apps since 1. they already invested in a native app 2. apple crippled the web via webkit and now tries to flat out crash web capabilities on iPhones

I mean who will invest in a country with a dictator? Would you build something if the dictator can demolish it any time? Like Apple actually does this with businesses that had a web app strategy?

once companies see all platforms supporting web app technology, wait 5-10 years and then judge

if 90% of the best app programmers migrate to the web stack and flickering html-sites and css stylests are history, I would be surprised if anybody could say whether an app is native or not...

and again, you do not really see native AND web app from the same company on the same platform

but actually commanding pixels on a screen is just as possible with js as with other languages, in the end you instruct c++ or rust coded browsers with js to perform tasks and there is webassembly too

and of course, backend with supercomputers but actually it is possible from native too

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

#140

Post by troupo »

agust wrote: post #65
troupo wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny how the vast majority of web apps are not snappy, or polished, or rival native apps. The whole discourse around PWAs is frankly schizophrenic. Web apps (esp. Electron-based) on desktop: universally regarded as bloated, slow, resource-intensive for the simplest tasks, breaking platform conventions etc. You add a P in front, and talk about mobile? Oh, PWAs are the bee's knees, just as good or better than native e…

Electron-based apps are not PWAs. PWAs do not need to be wrapped in a browser engine of their own, they use the installed browser engine. They are not inherently bloated or resource-intensive in any way. There are not many good example of great PWAs precisely because Apple has been crippling web capabilities on iOS by banning other engines and degrading the experience in Safari for a decade.

Just as I said: you add a P in front of web apps, suddenly as if by magic all the issues disappear.

> PWAs do not need to be wrapped in a browser engine of their own, they use the installed browser engine.

Ah yes, they don't need a browser engine, they just need a browser engine

> They are not inherently bloated or resource-intensive in any way.

So, let me get it straight. A web app running inside a web browser engine is bloated, slow, and non-performant when it's on desktop. But the moment you put it on mobile it's not?

> There are not many good example of great PWAs precisely because Apple has been crippling web capabilities on iOS by banning other engines

Two notes:

- Which of the features that Apple "crippled" will help web apps not be bloated, non-performant, slow, with bad UI etc.?

Is it the lack of an install banner that makes a web app struggle to display even a static text with any semblance of performance?

Is it the lack of push of notifications that make Google say: okay, we give up, most sites load in over 2.5 seconds now, so we assume anything faster than that is a win [1]?

Is it ...

- Android has been a dominant mobile OS for over a decade with "non-crippled" PWA support. Where are the not inherently bloated non-resource-intensive web apps we've been hearing about? Please say Twitter :))

[1] https://blog.chromium.org/2020/05/the-science-behind-web-vit...

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