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Home Screen Advantage

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Re: Home Screen Advantage

#121

Post by rambambram »

fuzzy2 wrote: post #116
rambambram wrote: post #100

Although I agree with the article and the obvious sh!t move Apple is making, one needs to keep making a distinction between PWAs and web apps in general. Not every 'web app' needs local storage or push notifications. Besides, I heard the 'simple' web apps still can have a place on the homescreen. Can anybody with an iPhone tell me if that works like the video from the article? Is it just with an address bar?

The video in the article ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AST12aDGf0Q ) shows that PWAs are completely gone. They are degraded to pinned bookmarks that open in your default browser. Yes, you can still pin bookmarks, as you always(?) could, but those are not PWAs. Only PWAs can offer a true app-like experience.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but these "pinned bookmarks" can be on the homescreen like a link that opens in your default browser, right?

> Only PWAs can offer a true app-like experience.

If one's definition of an app requires push notifications and local storage.

I get the d!ck move from Apple, but web apps can be way simpler without push notifications and storage on a server under your control. To me personally, push notifications and local storage are overrated.

Re: Home Screen Advantage

#122

Post by boxed »

the_gipsy wrote: post #43
boxed wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Creating your own app is actually pretty easy on iOS. I run an app on my phone right now that I built myself and that is not on the app store.

It's not easy, you need a multithousand dollar apple machine, and you can't share this app with anybody else.

You can get a cheap used mac. You're just being silly now.

Re: Home Screen Advantage

#123

Post by coldtea »

joemelonyeah wrote: post #99
coldtea wrote: post #56

Thank god for Apple's lacklustre support for PWAs. Else iOS would be like macOS, with every second app from a major vendor people need to run (for work, school, banking, etc) would be the equivalent of an Electron monstrocity. Apparently that's the dream of the author.

Funny that the reverse has already happened due to Apple's lackluster support of PWAs. PWAs run with the system's browser engine, unlike Electron apps that ship with their own customized Chromium engine. Each app is only a few megabytes tops, unlike the hundreds of megabytes of bloat native apps tend to take up nowadays.

The static megabytes on disk are not a problem [1], the runtime, battery, and memory overhead from them being written in JS+DOM is.

[1] never got anywhere near close to run out of space on iOS because of apps (at 50+ apps installed). Besides the big offenders space-wise are not general apps and their code dependencies, but games with huge asset libraries.

Re: Home Screen Advantage

#124

Post by boxed »

colonwqbang wrote: post #41
boxed wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well.. Yea. Sure. But saying "you cannot" is very different from "you need a mac".

But this is exactly the kind of behaviour targeted by the DMA. Artificial restrictions in the functionality of iphone are inserted to drive sales of an unrelated product. It's page one of the Monopolist Playbook.

I noticed that you moved the goalpost. Quite a bit. "Cannot" to "need a mac" is an enormous move.

If you think sales of macs are affected in a measurable way by the fact that xcode runs on it you are delusional.

Re: Home Screen Advantage

#125

Post by boxed »

JimDabell wrote: post #60
ThatMedicIsASpy wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the $100 developer fee not required for own - non app store - apps?

No, you can deploy to your own device with a free Apple developer account. However there is a fairly short time line (I think a week?), after which you have to reinstall it. It’s designed for running apps on your device as you are developing them, not as a long-term deployment method.

Months. I have one on my phone that I haven't reinstalled for months. And I do this on my wife's phone, and let me tell you the wife acceptance factor of the app breaking after a week would be absolutely zero.

I don't know where you get these rumors from honestly.

Re: Home Screen Advantage

#126

Post by fuzzy2 »

timwaagh wrote: post #81

There's fortunately no need to use any apple products. The ones most hurt by this will probably be Apple. Especially if functionality breaks as stated here. It will mean the 'luxury phone brand' is now a broken phone brand at least in the EU. Apple users might switch and I think Samsung is most likely to get them.

It’s not that easy. I switched to iPhone mainly because of Android phone makers’ abysmal update policies. Heck, I had a Nexus 5 and it was “killed” merely 1.5 years after I bought it. Because newer Android required newer graphics drivers and Qualcomm said “no”. Supposedly things are better now, but are they really?

My iPhone 7 was my daily driver for 5 years and was only retired because I got an offer that was too good to pass up.

And then there’s also the degrading storage on many Android phones. They just become sooooo slow. My iPhone 7 is slow now, too. After 7 years, not after 3.

Re: Home Screen Advantage

#127

Post by rezonant »

kevingadd wrote: post #10
eksu wrote: post #6

I don’t use any PWA’s and I am not so sympathetic from claims of harm from removing/deprecating PWA’s without some data on the size and impact of this change. Xbox Gamepass presumably would be the largest one/best example, is that how they ask people on iOS to stream games?

I can't speak to whether this is still true, but there was a time period where Apple would reject certain categories of iOS app store submissions and tell people to just make a website - 'simple webview' type stuff, like apps for a small business etc. The natural response to that is to make a PWA if Apple says you're not good enough for the store. Now that option is going away, so I can understand if people who previ…

That is for actual websites. A PWA is typically something app-like.

Think about it a little harder. If Apple says "only bikes are allowed in their bike store, and if you want to build something else, go put your product in a different store", then you said OK fine and proceeded to build a bike and put it in another store, does that make sense?

Apple would've accepted your bike. Websites and web apps are treated differently in Apple's rules.

Understand that Apple has used this rule to keep web based apps out of the app store, but they got burned on that and there's no such restriction today.

Re: Home Screen Advantage

#128

Post by rezonant »

th4tg41 wrote: post #2

Off topic: This site is next to unreadable on my phone. Zigzagscrolling is an insult to the audience.

It looks completely fine on my phone, what browser are you using? Did you perhaps leave Desktop Mode on?

Since Alex is here in the comments, I'm sure he'd reply if he had fixed something between each of us reading it.

Re: Home Screen Advantage

#129

Post by fuzzy2 »

rambambram wrote: post #121
fuzzy2 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The video in the article ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AST12aDGf0Q ) shows that PWAs are completely gone. They are degraded to pinned bookmarks that open in your default browser. Yes, you can still pin bookmarks, as you always(?) could, but those are not PWAs. Only PWAs can offer a true app-like experience.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but these "pinned bookmarks" can be on the homescreen like a link that opens in your default browser, right? > Only PWAs can offer a true app-like experience. If one's definition of an app requires push notifications and local storage. I get the d!ck move from Apple, but web apps can be way simpler without push notifications and storage on a server under your control. To me personally, push n…

? My definition of an app-like experience is that it’s not a browser. No address bar, no tabs, no GUI elements whatsoever but the web view. That’s a PWA. Local storage is merely a supporting technology. Push notifications are not required at all.

Re: Home Screen Advantage

#130

Post by rezonant »

fuzzy2 wrote: post #126
timwaagh wrote: post #81

There's fortunately no need to use any apple products. The ones most hurt by this will probably be Apple. Especially if functionality breaks as stated here. It will mean the 'luxury phone brand' is now a broken phone brand at least in the EU. Apple users might switch and I think Samsung is most likely to get them.

It’s not that easy. I switched to iPhone mainly because of Android phone makers’ abysmal update policies. Heck, I had a Nexus 5 and it was “killed” merely 1.5 years after I bought it. Because newer Android required newer graphics drivers and Qualcomm said “no”. Supposedly things are better now, but are they really? My iPhone 7 was my daily driver for 5 years and was only retired because I got an offer that was too go…

Both Samsung and Google now offer 7 years of software support (security and features) on their latest phones, and Samsung is increasing that from 5 years.

> And then there’s also the degrading storage on many Android phones

Citation needed.

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