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

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

#311

Post by smoldesu »

troupo wrote: post #310
smoldesu wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This thread isn't about the one-sidedness of Apple's criticism. It's about criticizing Apple, and you're deciding to derail it with an unrelated strawman arguement. If you want to circle back around to the point, I'm glad to keep discussing it.

This is the comment I was replying to in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39408640 Where the person quite literally said "I don't care if it only works in Chrome, since its market share is high enough".

And then the second sentence following that is: "I don’t think Apple can tell alternative browser engines what features it will allow and which not."

The core problem is not Chrome's adoption of random features. It's Apple's neglect of the native platform, which in turn creates demand for absurd workarounds. As I said way further up in the thread, they're not pushing proprietary browser extensions; so how is it anticompetitive?

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

#312

Post by fifafu »

troupo wrote: post #310
smoldesu wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This thread isn't about the one-sidedness of Apple's criticism. It's about criticizing Apple, and you're deciding to derail it with an unrelated strawman arguement. If you want to circle back around to the point, I'm glad to keep discussing it.

This is the comment I was replying to in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39408640 Where the person quite literally said "I don't care if it only works in Chrome, since its market share is high enough".

I replied to a post asking „And if PWA were such a threat to Apple's business then why are they allowed in US.“

Whether Web Bluetooth, Web HID etc should be implemented in a browser engine is really irrelevant in this context - but the thing is they CAN be implemented in a browser engine. So can pretty much any native functionality currently guarded by the App Store.

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

#313

Post by troupo »

troupo wrote: post #272
szasamasa wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

try hover.com it is a responsive website, they do not have native apps, you can still use it on a phone I just checked you can use it standalone if you want to, I myself choose to use this website from the browser on linux... but I actually "installed" it on android and if I used my mobile more, I might just want to use this "app" this way every website is a potential web app if written responding to screen sizes cor…

> try hover.com > it is a responsive website, they do not have native apps, you can still use it on a phone I see a largely static site with very little functionality. During search the site jumps when the progress bar disappears, so you can easily misclick on items in the list (I did at least once). During checkout it takes a second or so to add additional items to the order (could be long network connectivity, but…

So, a day and a half later still no answer why "nothing is inherently bloated" is illustrated with an example of a few lines of text rendered with 2.5 megabytes of Javascript

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

#314

Post by BrandoElFollito »

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?

Can you expand on how you code on an iPad? (the IDE, the languages and the kind of compilation you do (or lack of))

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

#315

Post by szasamasa »

drdaeman wrote: post #155
pembrook wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 co…

why is a browser more overbloated than windows?

it was meant to run applications, that is why V8 is developed and optimized like hell, that is why we have webassembly to port c++ programs (try stockfish on lichess, it is webassembly)

originally, the browser was not meant to run applications, modern browsers are... strong indicator for this is chromium V8 performance and webassembly and the evolving js language with modules and node.js on server side

jvm introduced a competition to c++ and java is still top language, a browser is a kind of a jvm... you can use kotlin and other languages to compile to jvm and you can use js and webassembly to write apps on browsers

my point is, this is the best platform to introduce competition to native apps on walled gardens

the walled garden is not the os or browser but the company behind a closed os platform or closed single browser

on iOS, you had both: closed OS and closed single webkit browser engine

on every other os platforms you have true browser choice... since chromium is open source, you can create not just your toy browser but one of the most powerful ones... you can download the source code and if it goes in a restrictive direction, everybody can fork the web standard friendly versions

it is open and powerful, that is why most companies give a shit about browsers but it is not difficult for the EU for example to hire great browser engineers and create a beautiful stron free browser from an appropriate chromium version if things turned bad

whereas there are only 2 mobile operating systems that really work, from 2 giant US companies

where it is much more difficult to introduce competition is creating alternative mobile OSs... and then what, developers should create apps for this additional one two with another codebase?

browsers are the perfect level to introduce competition, in a way blink, webkit and gecko are all open source and chromium has a stron focus on improving web capabilities, pushed by 2 giants too (Google, Microsoft)

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

#316

Post by szasamasa »

drdaeman wrote: post #287
szasamasa wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, there are sooo many OS out there linux and windows, then 3x linux derivatives (android, mac, ios) so we have the linux kernel and windows, we still exist (1% open source) browsers have the open source chromium kernel plus safari and firefox and some small others it seems to me browser choice is good enough I dont mind if google and microsoft engineers all work on chromium together...

I'm sorry, but your comment has a lot of simple facts stated plain wrong, and then it entirely misses the point (which could be my fault for not making it clear what it was about). macOS and iOS are based on Darwin, which is a BSD-derivative, IIRC there's nothing from Linux in there at all (although IIRC macOS used to ship some GNU programs). Chromium is not the engine, Blink and WebKit are. Android has almost no rel…

thanks for the details, you are probably right, then change linux to unix and chromium to blink in my comment, however, browser engines are all open source and they are the exact pitch perfect level to introduce competition

I am not so sure that chromium "kernel" or linux "kernel" ever become irrelevant... gecko or webkit maybe

even if only chromium engine stays, it is open source, if something goes wrong, you can fork or get back to gecko, webkit... we are all carbon based lifeforms, still there is great diversity I guess

why would we need to make so much effort to compete on browser engine level if it is so great that you cannot differentiate native to browser run programs?

I really do not understand what the point of your comments actually are... it is simply not true the browsers are not good for competition and I do not see what alternatives you suggest instead?

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

#317

Post by szasamasa »

troupo wrote: post #272
szasamasa wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

try hover.com it is a responsive website, they do not have native apps, you can still use it on a phone I just checked you can use it standalone if you want to, I myself choose to use this website from the browser on linux... but I actually "installed" it on android and if I used my mobile more, I might just want to use this "app" this way every website is a potential web app if written responding to screen sizes cor…

> try hover.com > it is a responsive website, they do not have native apps, you can still use it on a phone I see a largely static site with very little functionality. During search the site jumps when the progress bar disappears, so you can easily misclick on items in the list (I did at least once). During checkout it takes a second or so to add additional items to the order (could be long network connectivity, but…

thanks for the analysis :)

I do not use and know good web apps in the application sense, in plenty of comments I argued it is the tech of the future because web designers are mainly not real programmers and hence bad in app programming.

I mentioned hover (I did not write it) as an example that was in my mind that they asked us years back whether we needed a mobile app or is it enough to have responsive website.

I am the opposite of power user of mobiles, I do everything on linux desktop, I hate 99% of websites. So now I "installed" hover again on my phone because I already de-installed it. It was 5 sec, I got a button, I pressed it, and signed in with my pass manager, having an authenticator app activated it was still a breeze. Most websites would have already lost me...

There I have a feeling of a website but I see everything clearly and I can use it effectively, change things, pay things etc. One thing that was annoying in the 2 minute test of mine is that a seemingly button like thing did not work, you had to click on the text which I smiled at.

For usability it was 8/10 for me which is great because most sites are 0-4...

This site demonstrates not that it is a web app in the greatness sense but that there are so many things you do not need a native mobile app for, thanks to the web which can deliver usable standalone UX even from traditional web designers (hover engineers seem to be clever minimalistic web designers, not really modern web app programmers).

What I can tell you, that good web programming is totally possible, it is a question of modern js, modern web api (so that you do not have to write things in js just call c++ or rust code that is implemented by very capable native app engineers), V8 optimization, most importantly good future web programmers vs. bad current web designers.

Yes, hover makes 70 requests, 5 mb on first load, it is an old school website but still works for me, even on mobile. It is not a bombastic app but capable to become a standalone UX on mobile (aka app) where I can easily use it for the use cases there are in the web domain management domain of services :)

Sorry but I do not really know actually what your point is. In a year or so you can take a look at my site, it will be the best web app you have ever seen. It is totally possible. If you wish I write you a c++ app that you want to die after using it and it will so bloated importing 10 million libraries that I actually never use that the compiler needs over a minute :) Still great performant c++ apps are possible.

Tell me your angle. Are you a native app developer for mobile and you fear learning new things? Even if you invested a lot in coding in a language, I think 95% what your actual market value or knowledge is not the concrete language skill but years of programming experience.

In addition, you can use webassembly for c++ code, on the backend you can use normal strongly typed native languages, the web is beautiful, complex but beautiful. What you see on current websites is a horror. In a way on hover.com too but usability is ok.

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

#318

Post by szasamasa »

troupo wrote: post #313
troupo wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> try hover.com > it is a responsive website, they do not have native apps, you can still use it on a phone I see a largely static site with very little functionality. During search the site jumps when the progress bar disappears, so you can easily misclick on items in the list (I did at least once). During checkout it takes a second or so to add additional items to the order (could be long network connectivity, but…

So, a day and a half later still no answer why "nothing is inherently bloated" is illustrated with an example of a few lines of text rendered with 2.5 megabytes of Javascript

I rarely use mobile and social networking and I actually rarely come back to my comments, so much time

but here I am, the reply is: hover is a minimalistic usability example, I will not show my website yet, but I know it is totally possible for good or very-good programmers to write in application style, using web tech

try this one: https://web.telegram.org/k/

the writers are mathematicians I guess, russian minimalists... I remember I checked their site and it did not seem to use bloated stuff

compiled native UX code may be less kb than minimized js but actually I have never seen comparisons and I do not know much about UX programming in java, c++, android-java or swift or the like

however, a website can dynamically load (can, 99% do not make use of it) just in time what you need (or as a compromise, preload the next possible steps)... UX code, app code anything

you can make the client download always the very necessary code on its user journey... even UX code, app code...

what I find better in native is the built in bot protection :)

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

#319

Post by szasamasa »

dang wrote: post #245
szasamasa wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

your comment is terrible and a big tell you have no idea of web technology :) there are plenty of web capabilities that have web standards, PWA is not even a thing officially... no such thing as PWA actually, no such thing explicitly as web app, either... "installing" web apps is also non-existent officially, it is a very misleading buzzword if you could call something web app it is a website that was switched to a "…

> your comment is terrible and a big tell you have no idea of web technology You can't attack another user like that on this site, and we ban accounts that do, so please don't do it again. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.

accepting the moderation, in my defense: I just saw I added a smiley at the end of the problematic sentence, which I actually probably did to remove sharpness but still being able to formulate myy strong conclusion/opinion

of course it is also possible to just argue against somebody with less emotions and being more polite, without saying such things which I will 100% try in the future! my personal style is also harsh but I never intend to be offensive and surely have zero joy in attacking, insulting or making other people small

harsh honesty is difficult to separate from attacks so it is legit to ban this style altogether

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

#320

Post by philistine »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #295
acdha wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s really weird because Flash existed on Android, and it sucked. Even the hardcore anti-Apple fanboys were unwilling to defend it much at the time because everyone knew how much battery and RAM it used, and how poorly Flash content designed for desktop screens and controls worked on phones. I don’t love how other things were locked down, but losing Flash for the open web was an unabashed win.

It sucked but a lot of things on early android sucked. Browsers were a moving target in general for the first few years. I don't miss it (well, outside of my childhood web games. But much of that has been preserved or ported), but I sure don't hail Apple as a hero for accelerating the downfall. I think the biggest issue here is that even a decade out there haven't been true flash replacements in some sectors of tech.…

Yeah, the blame for Flash ending up dead rests squarely at the feet of Adobe. It wasn't invented in-house, so you can tell they clearly never cared enough, and were uninterested in solving the security issues permanently.
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