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It’s Official, Apple Kills Web Apps in the EU

open-web-advocacy.org

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Re: It’s Official, Apple Kills Web Apps in the EU

#51

Post by lozenge »

neximo64 wrote: post #47
anon373839 wrote: post #14

> It’s telling that this is the feature that Apple refused to share. And it makes sense: the idea that users could install safe and secure apps that Apple can’t tax, block or control is terrifying to them. I think that’s what this decision is all about. When Safari was the only browser engine on iOS, PWAs didn’t threaten the App Store because Safari delivers a degraded experience with them. With alternative browser e…

This is quite often where people make the greatest mistake. It's all about distribution and customer usage. Most people hate and don't use PWAs. What stands in the way are Native iPhone apps are better. It also goes for android too. That's why PWAs fail. If they were successful Apple would find a way to monetise the hell out of them.

Most people don't use PWAs... as they exist today.

What would happen if Google added all the APIs to Chrome that are needed for every one of their iOS apps, and then offered them as "PWAs that work best with Google Chrome"? Google would not have to abide by App Store rules, nor the rules for app marketplaces, nor pay the Core Technology Fee of half a euro per install. Apple's entire approach of using their status as a popular phone manufacturer to control the software market would fall.

Re: It’s Official, Apple Kills Web Apps in the EU

#52

Post by szasamasa »

stephenr wrote: post #24
Aerbil313 wrote: post #11

This is criminal. After decades I finally had the ability to develop for iOS without a Mac and a yearly $99 fee - only for it to be crippled again?

I think it's a bit of a stretch to call a web app "develop[ed] for iOS" The whole point of the web is that it is cross platform. That isn't a negative thing it's a positive, but calling it "develop for iOS" is arguably disingenuous.

had the ability... he did not mention specifically

and yes, with web apps you can develop for iOS too, one code base for all

and whether it is criminal, sadly, must be determined on court... the DMA explicitly supports web apps without rstrictions, so in the enfd it can turn out to be literally criminal what Apple does

Re: It’s Official, Apple Kills Web Apps in the EU

#53

Post by neximo64 »

lozenge wrote: post #51
neximo64 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is quite often where people make the greatest mistake. It's all about distribution and customer usage. Most people hate and don't use PWAs. What stands in the way are Native iPhone apps are better. It also goes for android too. That's why PWAs fail. If they were successful Apple would find a way to monetise the hell out of them.

Most people don't use PWAs... as they exist today. What would happen if Google added all the APIs to Chrome that are needed for every one of their iOS apps, and then offered them as "PWAs that work best with Google Chrome"? Google would not have to abide by App Store rules, nor the rules for app marketplaces, nor pay the Core Technology Fee of half a euro per install. Apple's entire approach of using their status as…

PWA's can do most things: https://whatpwacando.today. Steve Jobs also preferred PWAs and hated the app store. I'm curious as to ask what they can't do that a native app can do without any workaround whatsoever?

I don't know of a single person, ordinary person, who uses PWAs. A Cordova app is a better experience.

Re: It’s Official, Apple Kills Web Apps in the EU

#54

Post by jimmySixDOF »

mettamage wrote: post #18
pas wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

could you please elaborate on how/what the Vision Pro contributes to this problem?

Apple not allowing the open web stifles innovation, including the AVP. The apps in the app store will be dictated by Apple. So whatever their ethical framework is, that is what will receive innovation. While that seems fair, the problem is that the strongest form of software innovation I have seen is where developers can freely plug in.

AVP has support for WebXR behind a flag in Safari that allows the full immersive mode of spatial computing (don't say Vee Are) and that -- so far untill now - is an opening for non-app store third party experiences.

Re: It’s Official, Apple Kills Web Apps in the EU

#55

Post by anon373839 »

vinay427 wrote: post #35
anon373839 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Web apps aren’t inherently slow, bloated or underperforming. You can absolutely build a snappy, polished web app with a UI layer that rivals a native app. (I don’t personally enjoy working with JavaScript, but the reward of truly cross-platform development makes it worth doing when it’s a viable option.)

I'm genuinely curious: do you have any examples you'd like to share? Not that React Native is the same as a PWA, but even in that space I have yet to find an RN app (at least those I know about from their Showcase page [1]) that rivals a native app on iOS, but perhaps it's wrong to assume a React Native app would be comparable to or strictly better than a PWA. [1] https://reactnative.dev/showcase

I don’t have an example I can show, unfortunately.

I am currently building an app for internal use, and because I’m obsessive about presentation, I ironed out every wrinkle in this department. It’s 100% fluid, there are no layout shifts, no surprises anywhere. You would never know it’s not native. But I will admit it took a lot of effort to hunt down all the little idiosyncrasies and fix them.

I think a problem with frontend web development is that there are a lot of mediocre practices that became standard operating procedure. When I do this type of work, I try to keep the dependencies very lean and write a lot of stuff from scratch.

Re: It’s Official, Apple Kills Web Apps in the EU

#56

Post by fifafu »

troupo wrote: post #50
fifafu wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One example: a while ago I worked on a bluetooth le based companion app for industrial sensors. The client would absolutely have built this as a web app if iOS had offered web bluetooth. With alternative engines this would be possible and Apple does not want these kind of applications outside the App Store. With the right engine basically any kind of app could be created as a webapp / pwa So in the US it doesn’t matt…

> One example: a while ago I worked on a bluetooth le based companion app for industrial sensors. The client would absolutely have built this as a web app if iOS had offered web bluetooth. With alternative engines Do you know that the only "alternative egnine" that implements hardware APIs is Chrome? Because it's a Chrome-only non-standard that Firefox opposes, too ?

Well on desktop Chrome/Edge has a high enough market share that the client would not have cared.

I don’t think Apple can tell alternative browser engines what features it will allow and which not. Or is there something in the EU regulation that says browser engines must follow a standard?

Re: It’s Official, Apple Kills Web Apps in the EU

#57

Post by lozenge »

neximo64 wrote: post #53
lozenge wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people don't use PWAs... as they exist today. What would happen if Google added all the APIs to Chrome that are needed for every one of their iOS apps, and then offered them as "PWAs that work best with Google Chrome"? Google would not have to abide by App Store rules, nor the rules for app marketplaces, nor pay the Core Technology Fee of half a euro per install. Apple's entire approach of using their status as…

PWA's can do most things: https://whatpwacando.today . Steve Jobs also preferred PWAs and hated the app store. I'm curious as to ask what they can't do that a native app can do without any workaround whatsoever? I don't know of a single person, ordinary person, who uses PWAs. A Cordova app is a better experience.

I don't mean just adding an improved notification API, I mean they could literally allow access to the entire SwiftUI and all other iOS APIs from the web. Heck, they could allow PWAs to run in Objective-C instead of JavaScript. At that point it would be indistinguishable from a native app, except that it would not be beholden to Apple's policies like Core Technology Fee, notarisation, payment scare screens, etc ( https://proton.me/blog/apple-dma-compliance-plan-trap )

Re: It’s Official, Apple Kills Web Apps in the EU

#58

Post by szasamasa »

gizmo wrote: post #13
szasamasa wrote: post #2

Apps are standalone user experiences. Native apps play by the operating system's security rules, while web domains operate within the sandbox of the browser. Web apps are just websites in standalone mode. If you misunderstand web apps as some wicked things coming out of your trusted browser to party on your device, you might not see clearly in the Apple vs. EU debate. Apple just made their true target crystal clear:…

I agree with all of this except for your bafflement. Justice doesn’t always prevail and Apple’s legal gambit might work. Remember how Microsoft got in legal trouble for bundling software in the 90s? A judge ruled that Microsoft had to be broken up for their monopolistic and anticompetitive practices. And today Microsoft has leveraged the popularity of Excel and Powerpoint to get every business to use Teams and the re…

you are right, I could have expected this

but I just did not... I did not expect Apple to try another round... their argument is just so transparent and weak in my eyes

I am studying DMA and I still think there is no way they can get away with this

I would really love some open discussion somewhere with legal experts and Chromium, Gecko, Webkit engineers, even android, windows, linux, mac, ios engineers.

But even without them, web apps just literally work in all OS so Apple cannot really claim it is that much effort to be secure on iOS.

Does anybody know any security issues that ever happened because of modern web app capabilities?

How on earth is a native app more secure, does apple has access to source code?

Re: It’s Official, Apple Kills Web Apps in the EU

#59

Post by p_l »

neximo64 wrote: post #53
lozenge wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people don't use PWAs... as they exist today. What would happen if Google added all the APIs to Chrome that are needed for every one of their iOS apps, and then offered them as "PWAs that work best with Google Chrome"? Google would not have to abide by App Store rules, nor the rules for app marketplaces, nor pay the Core Technology Fee of half a euro per install. Apple's entire approach of using their status as…

PWA's can do most things: https://whatpwacando.today . Steve Jobs also preferred PWAs and hated the app store. I'm curious as to ask what they can't do that a native app can do without any workaround whatsoever? I don't know of a single person, ordinary person, who uses PWAs. A Cordova app is a better experience.

I find PWAs great for all those little used or temporary apps.

I have a bunch of specialized calculators installed as PWAs - they work great for the purposes.

Similarly, there's no reason a conference should have a native app that will only pollute my system over time - PWAs are ideal for once-only events that aren't going to reuse the app for next edition.

Re: It’s Official, Apple Kills Web Apps in the EU

#60

Post by throwaway49849 »

vdaea wrote: post #30
throwaway49849 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The AVP is one of the most out of touch products I've ever seen from a respected brand, and I can almost hear Steve Job's scathing criticisms of it, based on everything I know about him. Not to mention, it goes against the increasing trend of less screens and less tech. The fact that it got made and is being pushed so hard as the next step in computing, is bonkers. So to me, it contributes because it is another data…

>it goes against the increasing trend of less screens and less tech Where are you seeing this "increasing trend"? Also, how should a tech company that makes money from selling gadgets react to this purported trend? Start selling chairs?

I'm sure you can find conflicting information, but here is a data point that aligns with my own experiences:

"Human contact is becoming a luxury good." https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/23/sunday-review/human-conta...

>Also, how should a tech company that makes money from selling gadgets react to this purported trend?

That's like asking what cigarette companies were supposed to do when we found out cigarettes cause cancer.

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