Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

open-web-advocacy.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 329 posts

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

#151

Post by manuelabeledo »

kibwen wrote: post #130
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.

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. Ins…

This is an odd take. Native apps are usually just better looking and more performant.

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

#152

Post by palata »

wiseowise wrote: post #150
palata wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You want me to make other developers make their apps less than 100MBs?

My point is that if you write a native app and can't make it smaller than 100s of MB, then you're maybe not a really good mobile dev.

Are you implying that web developers are better than mobile developers? Because let me tell you that there are plenty of bad apps on both sides. It's not like PWAs are solving the problem that most software is extremely bad.

On the contrary, cross-platform frameworks often lower the bar.

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

#153

Post by debugnik »

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…

Because if you click down there where it says Guidelines you'll see that your title went against them.

> Please don't do things to make titles stand out [...]

> [...] please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize.

Also:

> my original title that was actually funny and to the point

Clearly HN is not the audience for your humour, and "iPissed" isn't "to the point".

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

#154

Post by szasamasa »

rubymamis wrote: post #144
wiseowise wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only reason why I would install native application is if it's the only way of distribution and I absolutely NEED to use it (banking, government, etc.), for everything else if it's not in a browser - it doesn't exist to me. Native applications might offer marginal performance boost, but given how optimized modern web is and how powerful are devices that I use - that's not an argument to me unless I do something co…

I highly disagree. Web apps are notoriously slow. I'm developing a Notion alternative in Qt C++ that load large text files on my 2017 MacBook Air while on my friend's 2021 M1 Pro, the fastest web based block editor (MarkText) takes around 11x longer to load the same file. So, essentialy, my 2017 MacBook Air is FASTER just due to more efficient software. Why are we allowing this degradation of software? Each time I th…

you should not generalize

cherry picking examples does not mean the web MUST be slow, maybe the web apps were programmed badly... I can write even worse native apps than these web apps and it will not prove anything

did you ever try compile c++ code to webassembly and check out the performance "degradation"?

it still can be true that for this special task, a native app is the better choice and people would buy it from the App Store even if 30% more expensive

I mean nobody will and wants to take away the choice of using native tech. The degradation is on sooo many levels is not a necessity or consequense.

Web apps are not replacements, they are a choice, an addition. I really do not understan these kinds of comments that frame web apps as a compulsory security nightmare or replacing superior native with inferior web...

Safari stays, native stays, you and every developer can choose.

It may move better developers towards the web stack but then faster and better web apps follow. They will make use of web capabilities and technologies (like better js, multi core, web assemly, optimizations etc).

Chill! No self respecting company will publish inferior web apps if native is so much better in their special use case!

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

#155

Post by drdaeman »

pembrook wrote: post #98
meepmorp wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The solution is to improve web app capabilities and security, not to devolve back to platform-specific fiefdoms just because there’s kinks to work out. Disentangling apps from OS-specific environments is how we introduce competition back into computing. Apple and Microsoft are the most valuable companies in the history of earth due to these fiefdoms and it’s about time we got some reversion to the mean.

“Web” as an OS is overbloated, with decades of legacy junk. It was never meant to run applications, and yet it does.

The strong indicator for this is that there are only, what, 3 (two sharing common ancestor, so more like 2.5?) non-dead rendering engines, and it’s practically impossible to implement a new one? (Yes, a toy engine is possible, but anything practical is out of reach.)

My point is, you can’t introduce competition over this platform - it’s the same sort of a walled garden, just with different owners.

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

#156

Post by wiseowise »

rubymamis wrote: post #144
wiseowise wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only reason why I would install native application is if it's the only way of distribution and I absolutely NEED to use it (banking, government, etc.), for everything else if it's not in a browser - it doesn't exist to me. Native applications might offer marginal performance boost, but given how optimized modern web is and how powerful are devices that I use - that's not an argument to me unless I do something co…

I highly disagree. Web apps are notoriously slow. I'm developing a Notion alternative in Qt C++ that load large text files on my 2017 MacBook Air while on my friend's 2021 M1 Pro, the fastest web based block editor (MarkText) takes around 11x longer to load the same file. So, essentialy, my 2017 MacBook Air is FASTER just due to more efficient software. Why are we allowing this degradation of software? Each time I th…

> I'm developing a Notion alternative in Qt C++

...which is not native to the platform, so you're in a way proving my point.

Unless I become professional writer, or develop an OCD about typing latency - standard browser and Electron apps (looking at you VSCode and Logseq) are good enough for my use cases.

And don't misunderstand me, there's absolutely a place for native applications - when performance matters. Millions of CRUDs on app store are not one them.

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

#157

Post by troupo »

szasamasa wrote: post #104
troupo wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One example: a while ago I worked on a bluetooth le based companion app for industrial sensors. The client would absolutely have built this as a web app if iOS had offered web bluetooth. With alternative engines Do you know that the only "alternative egnine" that implements hardware APIs is Chrome? Because it's a Chrome-only non-standard that Firefox opposes, too ?

is it not chromium, because Chromium browser, Edge, Brave, Opera, Vivaldi, Yandex, Samsung etc... (and Google Chrome) all use the open source chromium engine only safari and firefox did not implement it according to: https://caniuse.com/?search=web%20bluetooth which might be great because you have the choice... and you can use open source chromium or brave (like the jvm to run cross platform java) to run web apps see…

> because Chromium browser, Edge, Brave, Opera, Vivaldi, Yandex, Samsung etc... (and Google Chrome) all use the open source chromium engine

Ah yes. Browsers with near-zero market share (aside from Edge which hovers around 4% market share) that have literally no say in how the engine they are using is developed, and what features go into it.

You know how I know that? Because Google themselves admit it's a problem: https://twitter.com/RickByers/status/1715568535731155100 The largest contributor to Chrome that is not Google is none of those browsers and is barely above 1% of all Google contributions.

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

#158

Post by idle_zealot »

beezlebroxxxxxx wrote: post #106
bambax wrote: post #76

I made the mistake of only carrying an iPad during my most recent holidays. What a useless piece of junk this is. iPads work well enough at home to watch movies or play a couple of games, but trying to do any kind of serious work on them, either editing photos, writing something, sending files, even trying to use a sequencer is an exercise in frustration. We are sooo lucky there (still) exist alternative computing so…

iPads aren't setup for "serious work" out of the box. There's a whole community who have developed workarounds and apps for serious work on it, but it prioritizes being "grandma proof" over a serious work machine from the get go.

My Grandma has an iPad. Every time I visit we end up sitting down for hours reviewing how to do things in various apps and switch between them. The system constantly hide navigation control, moves things around in response to scrolling, and requires precise swipes or taps on flat or near-invisible controls to reveal information or get around. Watching her try to use iPadOS is always useful in keeping myself grounded in terms of UI design. Suffice to say that the thing is not at all Grandma-proof.

And sure, at least there aren't tens of sketchy toolbars doing god-knows-what each time she opens Safari, but there are tens of sketchy-looking games and apps installed on the 4th home screen that she doesn't want or use, and opening any immediately throws up full-screen autoplaying ads with audio before letting her into some cheap sudoku implementation. I don't want to hear this "walled garden keeps you safe" nonsense; there are plenty of scams on the App Store.

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

#159

Post by andy_ppp »

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?

Impossible to service, imagine the cost of Apple Care, my guess would be $300 per month plus the cost of the car which will be $100k?

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

#160

Post by anon373839 »

szasamasa wrote: post #3
szasamasa wrote: post #2

Apps are standalone user experiences. Native apps play by the operating system's security rules, while web domains operate within the sandbox of the browser. Web apps are just websites in standalone mode. If you misunderstand web apps as some wicked things coming out of your trusted browser to party on your device, you might not see clearly in the Apple vs. EU debate. Apple just made their true target crystal clear:…

I would like this thread to be a somewhat deeper discussion about DMA and web apps. I would welcome true tech or legal arguments. But please if you are an apple-bot or rather less familiar with web tech, read more before commenting. I don't really want spam arguments like you claim I must be protected from myself using web apps via Gecko or Chromium. I am fully capable to make my decision and you can make yours: just…

> what is this ”new integration architecture” that would make web apps more secure

I think this "new integration architecture" is a very flimsy excuse. To host PWAs, a browser needs the ability to (1) ask iOS for permission to place an icon on the Home Screen, (2) launch certain "tabs" (Home Screen apps) in a separate window. Safari can already do this; they just need let others do the same. Since the PWA is hosted by a specific browser, I suppose you also need a dialog telling the user that XYZ app will also be deleted if they try to delete the browser.

What else am I not thinking of?

Post reply on HN