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PWAs wont replace native iOS apps

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Re: PWAs wont replace native iOS apps

#111

Post by palata »

addicted wrote: post #77
mrcwinn wrote: post #25

PWAs will never be as good as native, definitionally. There is always API drift. There is always runtime cost. Nothing inside a system can ever have parity with its parent container. If it could, it would be the system itself. People's experience with hardware and physical objects matters. If you accept that, you should always want to be closer to the metal at the cost of convenience or portability.

Strong disagree. Sure, theoretically, any PWA could possibly be developed as a better native app. But in the real world people develop apps. If the iOS app developer and designer market declines, then even if theoretically a native app would be better, the best developers and designers will have little to no experience with native and so the best apps will likely be PWAs where the best developers and designers are. N…

> If the iOS app developer and designer market declines

That's a pretty huge "if". If the web developer market declines, then native will be better, too.

> In reality, the developer/designer market, money available to develop apps, money and resources available to maintain apps, etc are all additional constraints for real apps, and native apps have significant disadvantages in those other constraints.

In my experience, the reality is much more nuanced than that. There are plenty of mobile devs, and many will tell you that they are not slower writing two apps (iOS/Android) than writing one cross-platform one. I don't know a single mobile dev who likes a cross-platform framework better than the native experience, too.

No really, I think cross-platform seems cheaper if you are a manager (and don't really have experience with any of those frameworks) or if you are a web dev (and don't really have experience with mobile frameworks).

Re: PWAs wont replace native iOS apps

#112

Post by palata »

bowsamic wrote: post #50
mrcwinn wrote: post #25

PWAs will never be as good as native, definitionally. There is always API drift. There is always runtime cost. Nothing inside a system can ever have parity with its parent container. If it could, it would be the system itself. People's experience with hardware and physical objects matters. If you accept that, you should always want to be closer to the metal at the cost of convenience or portability.

> Nothing inside a system can ever have parity with its parent container. If it could, it would be the system itself. I have no idea what you mean by this, can you give some justification? It sounds kind of nonsensical > you should always want to be closer to the metal at the cost of convenience or portability. Right but that isn't really a thing anymore. Even machine code is very abstract compared to the actual phys…

> Right but that isn't really a thing anymore.

"Wanting to be closer" does not mean "needing to be at the lowest theoretical level". In this case it just means that native mobile frameworks are one layer of abstraction lower than web frameworks, and it is better (not cheaper, not easier, but better).

Re: PWAs wont replace native iOS apps

#114

Post by robertoandred »

rpdillon wrote: post #20
psnehanshu wrote: post #8

And what is the state of PWAs on Android? Is it any better?

Yes. Google Chrome has support and documentation on Android: https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/9658361?hl=en&co=GE... Mozilla has documentation about PWAs across many platforms, including Android: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Progressive_web... Mozilla's docs are very clear in defining what makes a PWA special: > One of the defining aspects of a PWA is that it can be promoted by the browser for…

Mozilla's docs are also out of date. Safari on desktop can install PWAs.

Re: PWAs wont replace native iOS apps

#115

Post by gwill »

PaulHoule wrote: post #37
BandButcher wrote: post #6

Understandable... PWAs are ultimately an alternative path from traditional mobile apps which will take away money from apple/google. But as a web dev community we need to stand firm and build PWAs regardless. If we treat pwas on iOS like we did Internet explorer (i.e. giving it special attention and hack solutions as opposed to just not developing for it) we will lose the fight. I suggest you call out the issues with…

Can't we just give up on the "Progressive" branding and just say we are making Web Apps? There are just so many things that make "PWA" a bad smell. I mean, have you ever asked a user if they need more spam spamifications in their life? (Yeah, your app does and 95% say "hell no") Personally I find it much easier to find web sites with Safari (until last week I would hit "1" and Safari would automatically show me my RS…

fyi if you pull down in the middle of any home screen a global search shows up. i just keep one screen of my most used apps then search for all the others

Re: PWAs wont replace native iOS apps

#116

Post by sccxy »

jmull wrote: post #107
hmottestad wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like Apple is going to fix dark mode in iOS 18 by dropping support for PWAs altogether in my part of the world. https://www.macrumors.com/2024/02/08/ios-17-4-nerfs-web-apps...

It’s just a beta, though, right now… We don’t know if this is getting released or not yet.

Apple confirmed that there are no more full screen web apps. Just bookmarks.

> EU users will be able to continue accessing websites directly from their Home Screen through a bookmark with minimal impact to their functionality.

Re: PWAs wont replace native iOS apps

#117

Post by bowsamic »

palata wrote: post #112
bowsamic wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nothing inside a system can ever have parity with its parent container. If it could, it would be the system itself. I have no idea what you mean by this, can you give some justification? It sounds kind of nonsensical > you should always want to be closer to the metal at the cost of convenience or portability. Right but that isn't really a thing anymore. Even machine code is very abstract compared to the actual phys…

> Right but that isn't really a thing anymore. "Wanting to be closer" does not mean "needing to be at the lowest theoretical level". In this case it just means that native mobile frameworks are one layer of abstraction lower than web frameworks, and it is better (not cheaper, not easier, but better).

Native libraries are already an huge abstraction. Anyone can write a GUI framework, even on iPhone. I don’t understand where the line is being drawn here

Re: PWAs wont replace native iOS apps

#118

Post by sccxy »

shams93 wrote: post #113

In the EU they are getting full chrome on ios, thus I imagine this means that Apple is allowing a chrome browser to handle PWAs.

No, this is exactly the reason to disable web apps.

They do not allow Chrome to build too powerful apps outside of App Store.

Re: PWAs wont replace native iOS apps

#119

Post by chrisandchris »

moooo99 wrote: post #99
fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I for one would much rather have native mobile apps that use platform-appropriate controls rather than web apps that use whatever some designer came up with. We’ve already lost this battle on computers because of electron, but iOS is nice precisely because there isn’t an easy way to just ship web technology “apps”.

Is it though? A large portion of apps on the mobile app stores are already built using cross-platform technologies like React Native, Ionic or Flutter. In some instances it is very easy to tell, in other it's not. You can create quality experiences using cross-platform, you can create awful experiences using native tooling. In many instances, I'd rather have the not totally native app that exists than the absolutely…

I understand your point, but it somewhat says that making awesome native apps is not even an option anymore.

I use Things (a todo app) daily. It was #1 of Design in the AppStore maybe already 5 years ago. I think it's a perfect example for a beautifully made native app. I really feel how the native behaviour workes so much smoother.

I would love for creators to somehow strive more for beautifully made apps instead of the fast profit.

Re: PWAs wont replace native iOS apps

#120

Post by smoldesu »

palata wrote: post #58
smoldesu wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If PWAs win, it will just mean that the users got worse apps If PWAs win, it will be because native apps failed. Android and MacOS both have an enormous community of open source native apps that are more private, functional and accountable than their commercial alternatives. So far, Apple hasn't opened the floodgate for that on iOS. As a result, the interest in sideloading things has been relegated to the most-open…

> If PWAs win, it will be because native apps failed. Or because the vast majority of people who "write code that runs on mobile phones" know web technologies and not the mobile ones. Web programming is simply more accessible. The thing is, "more" is not always "better".

None of that really disagrees with what I said. Apple failed to lower the on-ramp for native development to the people that wanted it. Now we're seeing desperate porting attempts to the browser, and Apple's desperate attempt at plugging the gap.

> The thing is, "more" is not always "better".

In the free market, competition is king. "Better" is decided by pitting it against "more".

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