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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

#171

Post by crazygringo »

This subject was already discussed here 2 days ago (819 points, 778 comments) [1] and the top comment highlighted that Apple gives its reasoning in a way that is at least worth considering. From Apple [2]:

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The iOS system has traditionally provided support for Home Screen web apps by building directly on WebKit and its security architecture. That integration means Home Screen web apps are managed to align with the security and privacy model for native apps on iOS, including isolation of storage and enforcement of system prompts to access privacy impacting capabilities on a per-site basis.

Without this type of isolation and enforcement, malicious web apps could read data from other web apps and recapture their permissions to gain access to a user’s camera, microphone or location without a user’s consent. Browsers also could install web apps on the system without a user’s awareness and consent. Addressing the complex security and privacy concerns associated with web apps using alternative browser engines would require building an entirely new integration architecture that does not currently exist in iOS and was not practical to undertake given the other demands of the DMA and the very low user adoption of Home Screen web apps. And so, to comply with the DMA’s requirements, we had to remove the Home Screen web apps feature in the EU.

EU users will be able to continue accessing websites directly from their Home Screen through a bookmark with minimal impact to their functionality. We expect this change to affect a small number of users. Still, we regret any impact this change — that was made as part of the work to comply with the DMA — may have on developers of Home Screen web apps and our users.

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There were 451 comments responding just to that [3].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39388218

[2] https://developer.apple.com/support/dma-and-apps-in-the-eu/#...

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39388652

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

#172

Post by scarface_74 »

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…

Everyone thinks that Apple really cares if you use PWAs?

It came out in the Epic trial that 90% of the App Store revenue comes from pay to win games and in app purchases of loot boxes and coins.

Those apps aren’t going to be PWAs.

If it’s only mean old Apple keeping the great world of cross platform apps using web technologies, why aren’t PWAs more popular on Android?

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

#173

Post by scarface_74 »

TheFuzzball wrote: post #135
patrickaljord wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

Really? You think the casino style games are going to move to PWAs without direct access to users wallets via in app purchases?

If that’s the case, why aren’t all of the same games moving to the web for Android?

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

#174

Post by kibwen »

manuelabeledo wrote: post #151
kibwen wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

To me, the odd take is thinking that the point of an app is to look good.

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

#175

Post by szasamasa »

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?

I agree that the main difference is developer skill, not whether an app is native or website.

One little advantage for web apps: the app (js code) can be downloaded just in time (not that 99,9999% ever make use of this).

If you have a game with 100 levels where a map of one level is 1mb, and 50% of visitors do not like your app and leave at the first level, they may have downloaded some fix code and 1mb, but 99mb stay on server...

Js has modules and dynamic imports for quite some time. Even app logic can be built with dynamic loading in mind.

Again, not that a news site like cnn will not make 300 request and 20mb download on first visit, showing one image and less than 1kb text :) Just checked.

A web app, in theory, is perfect for dynamically loading things but not inherently more lightweight. As always, it depends. On the task, on the programmer.

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

#176

Post by scarface_74 »

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.

This is also not true.

Adobe claimed that they could have gotten flash running on the first iPhone in 2007. The first iPhone had 128MB of RAM and a 400Mhz processor.

Safari barely ran on the first iPhone. It had to draw a checker box on the screen when you scrolled fast and then slowly render the image.

When flash finally did come to Android. It required a 1Ghz CPU and 1 GB of RAM in 2011. It still ran slow and ate up users batteries. That’s about the time the first iPhone came out with those specs

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

#177

Post by scarface_74 »

wiseowise wrote: post #156
rubymamis wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Millio…

So that’s the argument for PWAs? They suck just like Electron apps but they are good enough?

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

#178

Post by emsy »

monkin wrote: post #101
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…

You can code on it, design, edit photos, write books, sketch, edit videos... and a lot more with ease. For 3 years, I used only an iPad for work. Can you expand on your problems? Or was that a "it works differently on my beloved OS" kind of thing?

You can’t compile on it. You can’t run software in the background (for example a terminal, where you don’t have to bring the app to the foreground every few minutes). You can’t install software on it that Apple doesn’t want you to (regardless of whether or not they’re malicious). And the software you can run is more likely than not a subscription, because the only place you can buy it is the App Store, which pushes the subscription model unto users and devs.

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

#179

Post by deergomoo »

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.

> but it prioritizes being "grandma proof" over a serious work machine from the get go

Which is kind of absurd considering they sell a device called "iPad Pro" which costs as much as their entry-level laptops, which are—by and large—enormously more capable, despite sharing the same internals.

I appreciate the iPad as a computer for people who aren't interested in computers (my mum has been happily iPad-only for years now), and I recognise that I have a degree of saltiness because I'm a software developer and the "Pro" in "iPad Pro" seems far more geared to artists and other creative professions, but it's a terrible shame there's no way to take the training wheels off what is otherwise a fantastic ultraportable computer.

My MacBook Pro is a great computer that I like a lot, but the only reason I even need it is because my iPad is incapable of doing anything I need for development, and the ~15% of dev I do away from my desk is still important to me. If I could do some casual noodling or prototyping work on my iPad with a keyboard, I could have just bought a desktop Mac instead.

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