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Apple’s refusal to support Progressive Web Apps is a detriment to the web

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Re: Apple’s refusal to support Progressive Web Apps is a detriment to the web

#411

Post by fredsir »

interpol_p wrote: post #104
SirHound wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have yet to find a "web app" that I delight in using, though I love many web sites and native apps. I wonder how much of that is an intrinsic problem with web apps conceptually, or a result of the various limitations and design fuck-ups of the browser vendors.

The best web app I use daily is Slack (wrapped in its native app "shell" on macOS). But it still feels pretty poor. On iPad it's worse. On iPhone strangely, it's not too bad.

If slack is the best, it really goes to show why nobody should be making non-native apps. Slacks Mac client (and their iOS client) is really, really bad.

Re: Apple’s refusal to support Progressive Web Apps is a detriment to the web

#412

Post by fredsir »

euyyn wrote: post #324
interpol_p wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that web apps still fail to do drag-and-drop (and copy and paste) as nicely as native apps — and these things have been a staple of Mac interaction since forever — I do not hold out much hope.

Well yeah, it's "if they wanted". Apple has the same incentive to not turn Safari into a viable app platform that Microsoft had with IE in the 90's.

Maybe because they don't believe it's the best route to go for them and their users? I'm inclined to agree, although I'd like to see the open web succeed, but I will weep if I have to use web apps instead of native apps for anything that couldn't be a website.

Re: Apple’s refusal to support Progressive Web Apps is a detriment to the web

#413

Post by Sacho »

falcolas wrote: post #216
dccoolgai wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The best product that can be made will never be made with cross-platform tooling." You're making a circular argument to the original point. If you pointlessly cripple the best "cross-platform toolset" (the web) then of course the products made with it won't be as good. Native mobile apps belong in the same category as desktop apps - they are good when you need close-to-the-metal graphics but there's no reason you sh…

> the best "cross-platform toolset" I've used Electron apps where no such restrictions have been put in place; it has lead me to believe HTML/CSS/JavaScript is nowhere near the best "cross-platform" toolset. It's more accurate to say that it's the lowest common denominator. Electron desktop apps today look and act like Java apps from ten years ago. I'd say that the onus is on web developers to prove that it is capabl…

> Due to how much latency affects typing

How much latency are we talking about here? I can't imagine how latency would affect typing..

> and interaction with an editor

Agreed, but again, how much latency are we talking about here? The projects I've used VSCode on have never had latency issues.

Re: Apple’s refusal to support Progressive Web Apps is a detriment to the web

#414

Post by Sacho »

fredsir wrote: post #410
emsy wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but one platform at a time. We served updates to Android and iOS users almost simultaneously. Again, I usually prefer native, non GCed apps. But I also don't try to fix problems where there are none. If Android and iOS made it easier to share middleware libraries (C++ is a second class citizen for both), I think there would be a smaller incentive for HTML5 apps.

But the fact is that they would probably still be happier if you have served them native apps at the same rate because the native apps probably had been better in some way. I get that sometimes it's not feasible to built native apps because you have to do the work twice in the same time and so on, but that is completely irrelevant to how good the product is. Is it good enough? That is a different thing entirely.

But to circle back to the original topic - if users would be much happier with 100/100 instead of 80/100, then Apple's refusal to allow developers to achieve 90/100 with the same effort is crippling user happiness.

Re: Apple’s refusal to support Progressive Web Apps is a detriment to the web

#415

Post by ryandrake »

falcolas wrote: post #142
drusepth wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But as an iOS user I expect you to use the technology stack provided by my preferred operating system. I don't want to use your app if you're targeting a lowest-common-denominator feature set. I would wager that the average quality of an iOS app written by someone like OP that "has a web experience and _has_ to learn iOS just to work on that platform" will probably be lower than if that person (with web experience)…

> iOS app written by someone like OP That's a business choice that they made, and will suffer for. If a developer and business choose to half-ass the native iOS application, there's no reason to believe it would behave any better on iOS when written as a webapp. > the tools they need to write the best product they can The best product that can be made will never be made with cross-platform tooling. It will always be…

The best I've worked with has been platform independent business logic in C++, with a thin platform-dependent UI layer. This works across mobile and desktop. C++ has the benefit of being callable on all major mobile and desktop platforms.

That way, the bulk of your team maintains the business logic, and you can get away with much smaller teams for the platform-specific bits.

Re: Apple’s refusal to support Progressive Web Apps is a detriment to the web

#416

Post by ryandrake »

christiangenco wrote: post #65

I think a lot of commenters here are missing the point and getting distracted by push notifications (who wants a website spamming them with notifications?) and loading screens (hardly a feature). Apple supporting PWA (Progressive Web Apps) is hugely important because it enables a future where web apps can natively support browser, Mac/Windows/Linux desktop, and mobile iPhone/Android/Windows native mobile with a singl…

Reverse the discussion:

I'm a C and C++ programmer with a background in embedded systems. My idea of a development framework is a Makefile, a bunch of headers and .a files. I've got an investment in a lot of libraries I've already written over the years. I want to develop great web applications. Should I feel frustrated that it's not straightforward to use my preferred toolset to build this web app? Should I blame browsers for not accommodating my development preferences? No! I need to bite the bullet and learn JS and HTML.

You need to pick the appropriate tools for the platform you're targeting, get out of your comfort zone and take the time to learn them.

Re: Apple’s refusal to support Progressive Web Apps is a detriment to the web

#417

Post by fredsir »

Sacho wrote: post #414
fredsir wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the fact is that they would probably still be happier if you have served them native apps at the same rate because the native apps probably had been better in some way. I get that sometimes it's not feasible to built native apps because you have to do the work twice in the same time and so on, but that is completely irrelevant to how good the product is. Is it good enough? That is a different thing entirely.

But to circle back to the original topic - if users would be much happier with 100/100 instead of 80/100, then Apple's refusal to allow developers to achieve 90/100 with the same effort is crippling user happiness.

Are they not allowing it? Do you mean that because you have to use their platform specific tech instead of some cross-platform tech, they are not allowing it? Maybe they don't believe that you can ever reach 100/100 with "webapps", except if you lower the general perception of what 100 is to what is actually 80?

I certainly don't believe so.

I think part of the gap is that some folks believe features are everything, and others believe that features are one thing, and quality, support, accessibility and other stuff is just as important, the stuff that in my mind makes good products in general, both in software and hardware, but also in wood-working and clothing and so on.

If features are everything, I can see why cross-platform is what you want, but that is so far away from anything that is Apple.

Re: Apple’s refusal to support Progressive Web Apps is a detriment to the web

#418

Post by amazingman »

drusepth wrote: post #265
falcolas wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> iOS app written by someone like OP That's a business choice that they made, and will suffer for. If a developer and business choose to half-ass the native iOS application, there's no reason to believe it would behave any better on iOS when written as a webapp. > the tools they need to write the best product they can The best product that can be made will never be made with cross-platform tooling. It will always be…

>The best product that can be made will never be made with cross-platform tooling. It will always be lacking. My proof for this? Java programs. TCL programs. Electron programs. This is hard to argue for/against, because having one (native or cross-platform) generally precludes you from simultaneously having both (necessary for a proper comparison). Of note: I find Slack's Electron client as good as, if not better tha…

Slack for Mac: Want to right-click a word to look it up like nearly every other Mac application? Nope, you don't get to do that. Want to turn off smart quotes or something similar using the standard method of right-clicking the text entry field? Nope.

These things _used_ to work in the Slack app. What happened?

Re: Apple’s refusal to support Progressive Web Apps is a detriment to the web

#419

Post by pavlakoos »

LeoNatan25 wrote: post #404
pavlakoos wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But now Facebook mobile app is a different tech. It's ReactNative, not Obj-C, right?

Only a tiny fraction of the Facebook app is actually RN. Messenger uses none of it for performance reasons.

Huh? Isn't Facebook advertising their main app as no.1 use case of ReactNative?

Re: Apple’s refusal to support Progressive Web Apps is a detriment to the web

#420

Post by gpawl »

ivm wrote: post #133
Aaargh20318 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can make a a native app, which will always be better than a webapp. As an iOS user, I have no intention of ever using webapps (including things like Cordova apps). If you can’t be bothered to make a iOS-native app with iOS native look, feel and features then just don’t bother.

But it means learning something other than JS! It feels like many developers are adamant to never leave their comfort zone. Hence, JS everywhere.

Coders like to code. Product builders want to build products with a minimum of fuss.
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