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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

#321

Post by szasamasa »

scarface_74 wrote: post #241
szasamasa wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if apple did not care, they would not have crippled web capabilities in the last 10+ years and they would just let chromium/gecko based browsers make use of web standards web apps are the future that may take as much as 90%+ of the 100B app store revenue web apps will succeed once good programmers and companies make strategic decisions to build good web apps crippling web apps on one important major platform like iOS…

Where are all of the great PWAs for Android and why are the same companies making apps for iOS also making native apps for Android?

maybe there are still no great web apps because Apple is still crippling web capabilities on a major platform and the status quo is still hiring mobile app developers because not technical managers copy each other to stay safe and users are used to native apps

nobody said that you have to allow possible great standalone UX on major platforms like iOS because tons of managers made the mistake to invest in web strategy because they trusted Apple to be nice and hence they have these great products already

first step is open all major platforms so that managers and developers see the web as a potential alternative to native app stores, then we will see much more great web apps in 1-2-3-5-10 years... I think microsoft made outlook a web app to have one code base, it is a very big step that capital strong companies make first because it is reimplementing same functionality first...

we want great web apps in the future, the web capabilities are already there, we need investment and good app programmers instead of web designers to see great web apps that build on the great web capabilities

the web capabilities are already there, you should study them... the great web apps not yet because Apple has been crippling them for over 10 years now and they have sole power over one of the major platforms

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

#322

Post by szasamasa »

rubymamis wrote: post #161
szasamasa wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fro…

> Chill! No self respecting company will publish inferior web apps if native is so much better in their special use case! Slack, Spotify, Teams, Notion... Why do I need to buy the top of the line M3 MacBook Pro to run these apps with a sane performance? What tells you that these same bloated apps won't be even more bloated in the future? There's something fundamentally broken with web apps. It's no wonder the Zed tea…

I do not use these but I find windows after linux bloated so it may have something to do with microsoft engineers? (teams)

spotify can choose its strategy, you can choose apple music native app (I guess there is something like this? I rarely listen to music but on youtube)

Idont know about teams but my partner has ipad and iphone and I hear often how teams and microsoft products behave bad on iHardware... it may have to do with the love these two big corps show towards each other :) maybe you have to buy a windows laptop for teams too, that is the walled garden philosophy you actually seem to protect :)

my partner now uses my laptop where I have a windows which I did not totally purged because I need this OS for testing :) hell there were chinese text the other day on the front page, you need to scan your finger twice (even if first was a success) sometimes, it cannot find the timezone from time to time :)

I am not linux fanboy, the first ubuntu I purged 20 years ago or so I tried, but in the last 5-10 years linux is just great and getting glimpses how windows works by free family IT care, pff... that is the world we live in :)

I added outlook as a web app for my partner and it has some apparent problems without testing it, but in the last 3 months I see it getting used and no problems I hear :)

I guess the web designers are not web app programmers and it takes time until a new breed of programmers takes over the web...

if I were spotify, I would keep the iOS app and you could choose 30% cheaper web or native... are they killing the native version?

and: maybe these companies are not self-respecting in the way I meant it :)

but every change is difficult... and again, it may turn out that the web just finds its use cases not totally taking over OR: Apple drops the fee to 3% and the change will not be so dramatic

check out this email :) https://twitter.com/OpenWebAdvocacy/status/17594904960226960... and this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3NASGb5m8s

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

#323

Post by szasamasa »

rubymamis wrote: post #195
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There's something fundamentally broken with web apps. While the web stack may be somewhat slower in the extreme, I think the reason why big bloated apps like Teams are slow is not down to technology at all. I think the causality works the other way around. Big corporations with large teams that are systemically incapable of paying attention to detail (including performance) choose web technologies because web tech a…

That's all very well known. The fact remains that it's just too easy to write slow and resource hog apps (even when you really don't intend to) using web technologies. There are just countless examples. I think everyone can tell the difference when they run an Electron app or a native app. The only exception of late seems to be Notion Calendar (used to be Cron). It's an Electron app but runs pretty smoothly.

I agree that web is currently 99% terrible

But I blame web "designers" not web tech because it has become so powerful on so many levels

my favourite examples are: - V8 performance (but gecko and webkit engineers are great too) - webassembly - modular modern js - offline websites with service worker caching (I mean I see practically 0 websites making use of it... you download an asset, you cache it, even offline available... how many news sites let you read offline?) - web crypto - 100s of others https://developer.chrome.com/docs/capabilities/fugu-showcase

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

#324

Post by troupo »

szasamasa wrote: post #317
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…

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…

> Yes, hover makes 70 requests, 5 mb on first load, it is an old school website

Literally nothing about this is old school. Not single thing. It's a simple page with text information on it. It needs exactly three requests: HTML, CSS, and a few kilobytes of Javascript for the minor interactive functionality it has.

Because yes "inherently nothing is bloated". An yet this website requires 2.5 megabytes of Javascript to display a few kilobytes of text, and you offer this as an example of "minimalist website that is not bloated" or something.

> What I can tell you, that good web programming is totally possible

Yes, it's possible. And yet everywhere you turn you see bloated websites.

> Sorry but I do not really know actually what your point is

I think I've stated it loud and clear, and didn't hide behind several pages of demagoguery about the state of the world and possibilities and what not.

> Tell me your angle. Are you a native app developer for mobile and you fear learning new things?

1. What does this have to do with my questions?

2. What exactly in my questions prompted you to stoop down to ad hominem?

> good web programming is totally possible

> modern js, modern web api, V8 optimization

> you can use webassembly for c++ code

> What you see on current websites is a horror

Left without comment

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

#325

Post by polynomial »

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…

> because Safari delivers a degraded experience with them.

Can you recommend any sources that go deeper into particulars of degraded experience?

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

#326

Post by polynomial »

wiseowise wrote: post #107
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.

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…

Based on your preference profile, it seems like a PWA in standalone mode would not be as good as if it used one of the other browser based modes?

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

#327

Post by a13o »

scarface_74 wrote: post #304
a13o wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get the point you're trying to make, nor do I understand your framing. Historically using the first-party app stores for distribution & payment processing has been more profitable than doing those things on your own. The second it isn't, people won't use app stores anymore. There's nothing intrinsically good or bad about any of these technologies. They're all a means to an end - profit. We are headed into the…

You still don’t get it. If you look at the vast majority of money made in the App Store - 90% of it is casino style games with in app purchases. The app stores are used by those developers because they have direct access to the users wallets. No accepting credit cards outside of the App Store is not the answer. There are plenty of ways to fund App Store purchases that don’t involve credit cards and parents aren’t goi…

What exactly don't I get? You're replying to a thread where I highlighted just one social casino company that makes over half a billion annually, doing exactly what you claim they won't do - hedging against walled gardens by investing in infrastructure to support direct relationships with customers. This space full of very big players absolutely will diversify away from app store payment processing if they find a more profitable path elsewhere. They don't care what technology they use.

I haven't talked about unjust fees I've talked about unjust contracts, which prevent forming a direct relationship with customers, aka export your business off the app stores. Once you build the business there they don't want you taking it anywhere else. And they'll wield their influence over smartphone hardware to keep developers complacent. There was just a big antitrust case about this, and the walled garden lost. The losses will continue. The big developers with big resources will use these new pathways to extract more revenue at Apple's expense. Nobody is talking about little guys except you.

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

#328

Post by t00 »

polynomial wrote: post #325
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…

> because Safari delivers a degraded experience with them. Can you recommend any sources that go deeper into particulars of degraded experience?

WebKit development is Apple oriented leading to several incompatibilities with other major browsers. Reasoning is usually either WebKit works according to standards, or that bug is accepted but it is basically abandoned. Possibly strategically, to keep Apple controlling some niche use cases. Ingenious but nasty strategy indeed.

https://bugs.webkit.org/buglist.cgi?order=changeddate%2Cbug_...

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

#329

Post by scarface_74 »

a13o wrote: post #327
scarface_74 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You still don’t get it. If you look at the vast majority of money made in the App Store - 90% of it is casino style games with in app purchases. The app stores are used by those developers because they have direct access to the users wallets. No accepting credit cards outside of the App Store is not the answer. There are plenty of ways to fund App Store purchases that don’t involve credit cards and parents aren’t goi…

What exactly don't I get? You're replying to a thread where I highlighted just one social casino company that makes over half a billion annually, doing exactly what you claim they won't do - hedging against walled gardens by investing in infrastructure to support direct relationships with customers. This space full of very big players absolutely will diversify away from app store payment processing if they find a mor…

They didn’t do anything to get away from the 30% App Store tax. They just chose another App Store - with same App Store tax.

They didn’t make a PWA.

And I don’t want a “direct relationship” with app makers for them to spam me. I use “Hide my email” for a reason.

And the “wall garden” didn’t lose the case.

Apple won on almost every account. The reason Google lost is that they changed the rules of the game after a consumer bought into their “open platform”

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