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Home Screen Advantage

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Re: Home Screen Advantage

#201

Post by throwitaway1123 »

lo0dot0 wrote: post #90
JimDabell wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Removing persistent storage They aren’t making any policy changes relating to storage. Apple have been progressively locking down methods websites use to persistently track people for privacy reasons. All forms of permanent storage (e.g. cookies, local storage) are limited to a seven day lifetime unless the user interacts with that website / web app. If the user keeps visiting the website / web app at least once a…

They could just make cookies a user choice, but it's Apple we are talking about here, it's all about hard coding and hand holding.

Agreed. I'm actually receptive to the idea that persistent storage is a privacy issue, but the solution is to ask the user, not delete their data after a week of inactivity. This policy actually creates a perverse incentive for PWAs to store user data on the server where privacy is even more of an issue rather than store it locally in IndexedDB/localStorage, since the local data is ephemeral. It would be akin to native mobile apps having their data removed after a week of inactivity, and them responding by storing all user data in the cloud behind a login wall.

Re: Home Screen Advantage

#202

Post by kyriakos »

shrx wrote: post #14
randomdev3 wrote: post #13

It's just nonsensical to use a device that dictates what you can install on it. Well, Androids don't come with root permissions either ( you should be able to get it easily if you want imo ) but at least you can install any app, even just create your own.

It's not that easy on Android either. Rooting usually requires a factory reset and several apps (e.g. banking) will not work if they detect the system is rooted. edit: Also, in some cases you lose warranty.

There's no need to root. Installing any app outside play store is a matter of clicking 2 buttons.

Re: Home Screen Advantage

#203

Post by Affric »

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.

I am actually a moderately happy Apple user. The old phone I have is good. The smart watch works well for my needs. The laptop is light, quiet, cool, and I spend most of my productive time in a terminal.

I don’t really care about my phone as a general purpose computer.

Where the rubber hits the road for this one is what developers do. IMO the answer is to go all in on web apps. Make it obvious to the user that it’s Apple degrading the experience.

At this point of the game, all Apple will understand is churn. And it is churn. They are rent seekers.

Re: Home Screen Advantage

#204

Post by Affric »

remram wrote: post #190
joshstrange wrote: post #165

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 wri…

Do I want apps that install instantly from the page, can't reach into my photos or contacts, and that even I can develop for all platforms without learning OS-specific APIs? Yes. I use some already, though a lot of apps today are mobile-friendly versions of websites, so I just use the website (e.g. Twitter, YouTube, FreshRSS, ...)

> that even I can develop

This gives away that you are not a regular consumer.

Re: Home Screen Advantage

#205

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

JimDabell wrote: post #175
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. You are definitely correct in that Apple are a hardware company. However (and I think this is the point of disagreement) much of their revenue growth (and presumably profits, but that's harder to assess) comes from services, and fro…

> I think this is the point of disagreement I appreciate you trying to steel-man their argument, but you’ve gone far enough that it doesn’t reflect what they were actually saying. The thing I’m disagreeing with is: > Apple's no longer a hardware company There’s no way to spin that into anything resembling reality. If they had said what you are saying, I wouldn’t have objected. > my favourite was destroying the busine…

Because it's grossly unfair and mendacious to argue that nobody except them should be able to link identities on iOS.

Re: Home Screen Advantage

#206

Post by fuzzy2 »

aragilar wrote: post #152
fuzzy2 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d like to quickly address the second paragraph. From my experience, iPhones last until their software support runs out, barring any accidents. Furthermore, PWAs need not be offline applications (so TFA overblows the data loss potential ever so slightly) but often work exactly like you want them to. I use the Outlook PWA. It’s great because I don’t have to let my company manage (part of) my phone.

Sure, caches make sense, and are where PWAs are a legitimate solution. But PWAs also are sold as a replacement for native apps (hint: they're not, but a whole bunch of native apps should be PWAs, or just static sites...), and the author of TFA does subscribe to that view.

But they can replace a lot of native apps. Calendar, Notes, Weather, Maps (to an extent), Reminders, Calculator, $CellProviderApp, Stocks, Cloud Drive (Apple, Google, Microsoft, …, to an extent), Translator, Mail, various Messengers, Youtube, Amazon, various public transport ticket apps, EV status apps, parcel tracking apps, …

I’m only on home screen 2 of 5 and oh my, it’s almost all of the apps. Granted, some would perform worse in some ways. Some could not realize all features (like automatic photo upload). More integration (like sharing to PWAs) would be needed. But some others? Yeah. Why even develop an app?

Re: Home Screen Advantage

#207

Post by pornel »

joshstrange wrote: post #165

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 wri…

People have been trained to look for apps in the app stores. PWAs aren't there, and have a different installation method, for technical reasons that shouldn't matter in most cases.

If you ask differently: do you want apps that install almost instantly, and take almost no space on your phone? A lot of people would be interested.

Renting a scooter or charging an EV tends to require native apps for no good reason. These apps can be 100MB+ large, and it's infuriating to install them when paying for roaming, or being somewhere in the middle-of-nowhere where it takes ages to download. The QR-code-linked page that merely redirects to an app store could have been the app itself!

Re: Home Screen Advantage

#209

Post by nuancebydefault »

JimDabell wrote: post #78
the_gipsy wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Apple's no longer a hardware company, they're a platform rent extraction company. Apple still make the vast majority of their revenue from hardware. All of their service revenue combined is only about 20% of their revenue.

You cannot simply state where the revenue comes from. Apple sells hardware and services. The services promote the hardware. The hardware promotes the services. It is an eco system into which many people and companies, including companies that create software for that system, are bought.

Of course Apple tries to squeeze out of this system as possible at different fronts.

That's where government laws come in, to make the playing field more even.

Re: Home Screen Advantage

#210

Post by throwawa14223 »

the_gipsy wrote: post #83
Sander_Marechal wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about browsers. It's about OS APIs that browsers need to support PWAs. Apple is killing those APIs so that other browsers cannot offer PWAs.

That's what I meant: they could continue offering safari as a "basic web browser" but allow actual web browsers in the appstore, that can fully implement any web APIs.

This is probably not accurate given I was mistaken above but I thought that's what Apple was doing. You can load any browser but some OS APIs are going away.
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