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Home Screen Advantage

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Re: Home Screen Advantage

#161

Post by joshstrange »

meibo wrote: post #115
boomskats wrote: post #97

The number of apologists and distractors in this comments section honestly makes me feel like it's been brigaded. I'm amazed, given how well informed this crowd typically is. As for the topic being discussed - Apple have gone out of their way for the last _decade_ to avoid implementing things like ServiceWorkers properly. I remember having this same conversation back in 2015. It is a real shame, as things like the pr…

Most of the people on this site have either worked for Apple before or hold Apple stock. Regulation is directly reaching into their pockets. Also obvious by how this post is already on 14th place after 2 hours, with more than 200 votes. (Edit: now 31, 3 hours in)

> Most of the people on this site have either worked for Apple before or hold Apple stock

Is this supposed to be a joke? _Most_, so over 50% of the people on HN work/worked for Apple or hold Apple stock? That’s absurd.

Re: Home Screen Advantage

#162

Post by the_gipsy »

JimDabell wrote: post #142
the_gipsy wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again disingenuous, I never said "not allowed". Oh and up until 2019 apple was forbidding any virtualization of macOS in its EULA, there certainly were no free cloud build servers for iOS since relatively recently.

> there certainly were no free cloud build servers for iOS since relatively recently. There definitely were. Bitrise had a free plan back in 2014 and they weren’t the only ones. https://web.archive.org/web/20141103031325/http://www.bitris... Are you an iOS developer? Because you are repeatedly taking what is considered run of the mill by iOS developers as if it were some outlandish concept you’ve never heard of befor…

You're either being utterly blinded, or dishonest. I'll stop engaging with you. For the record, however:

NOBODY DEVELOPS iOS APPS BY ONLY BUILDING IN THE CLOUD. NEITHER PROFESSIONALS NOR HOBBYISTS. NOBODY ON EARTH. Every iOS developer has a mac, because it's impossible to develop when you can only build 200 times per month (per your link). Yes, professional developers run some CI in the cloud, nobody cares.

Re: Home Screen Advantage

#163

Post by joshstrange »

the_gipsy wrote: post #53
Karellen wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, the issue is, who do I distrust less - Google or Apple? Yes, they're both shitty in a number of ways. And while is is easier to root Android devices than it is to root iOS ones, last I checked you were still dependent on the vendor kernel and parts of the vendor display server on Android because not all of the necessary drivers and related config are upstreamed (and the lack of TIVO clauses in GPLv2 makes thi…

Apple's no longer a hardware company, they're a platform rent extraction company. They are directly misleading and harming their users with this move, and also with the existing dark patterns around iCloud storage.

What dark patterns are you talking about w.r.t. iCloud storage?

Re: Home Screen Advantage

#164

Post by the_gipsy »

JimDabell wrote: post #143
the_gipsy wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to not understand the difference between income and profit.

I do, but unless you think Apple’s hundreds of billions in hardware revenue is some kind of loss leader, it’s irrelevant. Apple are a hardware company. It’s bizarre that you are trying to argue otherwise. They make more money from selling consumer hardware than practically every other company in the world.

What makes you say that it's irrelevant unless it's a loss leader?

When BMW is gatekeeping features behind subscriptions, is that also irrelevant because they're a car company? We shouldn't just stop discussing it.

Re: Home Screen Advantage

#165

Post by joshstrange »

I feel like something that gets brushed off on HN all the time is:

Do people actually want PWAs?

In my experience the answer is a resounding “NO”.

Android supports PWAs but they aren’t taking the world by storm. My Android friends don’t use any that I’m aware of and if you ask them about it they just get a blank look on the faces.

Heck, businesses don’t care about PWAs or websites even. I work in this space, I’ve written well over 10 cross platform apps (web/iOS/Android) and not only do they not care about PWAs but they don’t care much about the web. It’s the same codebase and normally we get the web version up and running first so we tell them they can start playing with it on their phone in the browser. They literally do not even open it until we provide the app version to them. I know because only once there is an app do we hear _any_ feedback. No matter how many times we tell them it’s the same, that they can start doing user acceptance testing or QA early, or to just check the UI/colors to make sure it’s what they want. They don’t care until it’s an app.

Re: Home Screen Advantage

#166

Post by kevingadd »

rezonant wrote: post #127
kevingadd wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 diffe…

I sincerely don't understand your analogy or how it would apply to PWAs. But it sounds like you're saying they no longer enforce the policies that way? That's good.

Re: Home Screen Advantage

#167

Post by coldtea »

WA wrote: post #160
coldtea wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... Are you somehow under the impression that means companies won't go back to how it was before and simply package their website as an electron app for iOS? I'm not sure there that many doing "add to home screen PWAs" in the first place, for them to be "going back". "Add to home screen PWAs" were used by users (not many either) for convenient access to this or that website they've used, but weren't ever a major ap…

Many many apps are made with JS, HTML and CSS and run in a thin wrapper on top of WKWebView (Cordova, nowadays Capacitor). It is Electron sans a browser engine and has been around forever. Support for PWAs don't change a thing about how apps are developed at all. They only change how apps are deployed. Hence, your whole point about "better quality apps by banning PWAs" is completely wrong.

>Many many apps are made with JS, HTML and CSS and run in a thin wrapper on top of WKWebView (Cordova, nowadays Capacitor). It is Electron sans a browser engine and has been around forever.

I know, I already covered all that.

>They only change how apps are deployed. Hence, your whole point about "better quality apps by banning PWAs" is completely wrong.

I didn't say banning PWAs will result in better quality apps in general. I said:

(1) "Add to home screen PWAs" are not that used in the first place.

(2) "PWAs wrapped as native apps" are, but iOS encourages native apps more.

(3) Giving more parity to PWAs (going the opposite route of the current removal) will encourage them to be used more, which I don't particularly like, for the same reason I don't like Electron (including iOS wrapped-PWAs).

Re: Home Screen Advantage

#168

Post by mrmanner »

boomskats wrote: post #97

The number of apologists and distractors in this comments section honestly makes me feel like it's been brigaded. I'm amazed, given how well informed this crowd typically is. As for the topic being discussed - Apple have gone out of their way for the last _decade_ to avoid implementing things like ServiceWorkers properly. I remember having this same conversation back in 2015. It is a real shame, as things like the pr…

Some of these changes by Apple are clearly user hostile. There's a consumer protection debate to be had about removing software features after selling a hardware + software package like this.

I think at least some of the "apologism" and "distraction" comes from more honest ideological differences though - like what should the role of the state be, what is a free market, should business be fair, how much consumer protection is the right amount...

Re: Home Screen Advantage

#169

Post by SSLy »

WA wrote: post #157
meibo wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the people on this site have either worked for Apple before or hold Apple stock. Regulation is directly reaching into their pockets. Also obvious by how this post is already on 14th place after 2 hours, with more than 200 votes. (Edit: now 31, 3 hours in)

5 hours in, place 65. It doesn't even have the typical flamewar indicators such as # of comments > # of upvotes.

it's probably saged by people flagging it

Re: Home Screen Advantage

#170

Post by JimDabell »

the_gipsy wrote: post #164
JimDabell wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do, but unless you think Apple’s hundreds of billions in hardware revenue is some kind of loss leader, it’s irrelevant. Apple are a hardware company. It’s bizarre that you are trying to argue otherwise. They make more money from selling consumer hardware than practically every other company in the world.

What makes you say that it's irrelevant unless it's a loss leader? When BMW is gatekeeping features behind subscriptions, is that also irrelevant because they're a car company? We shouldn't just stop discussing it.

You’ve just switched out the argument for a different one.

I was saying that the difference between revenue and profit is irrelevant for the purpose of this argument. You’re now trying to draw an analogy with what I said and gatekeeping features behind subscriptions, which is not what I called irrelevant.

The analogous situation is if you said BMW were no longer a car company for doing so, and I’d disagree with that as well. Apple makes tonnes of money selling hardware, BMW makes tonnes of money selling cars. Apple is still a hardware company and BMW is still a car company.

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