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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

#91

Post by interpol_p »

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…

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.

When I change my preferred text size through accessibility settings, good native apps respond correctly. If I need voice over support, the operating system knows how to read the view hierarchy to me in a logical way.

When drag-and-drop becomes a thing in iOS 11, native apps will implement that feature well. I think it will take some time for web apps to implement it as nicely (if ever).

There are thousands of tiny details that your web app just won't have. Those details are more important than your familiarity with a tech stack or how long it takes you to deploy something.

You say that:

> By fragmenting development effort, the overall product isn't as good on any platform.

But I would say that:

> By building a web app, the overall product isn't as good on any platform.

I have yet to find a "web app" that I delight in using, though I love many web sites and native apps.

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

#92

Post by SquareWheel »

TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #53
ino wrote: post #32

All browsers still suck at basic functionality. Here's a quick short list of things that developers still have to write because the current implementations are broken, buggy, inconsistent or absent: - Date pickers. - Image upload [1]. - Autocomplete and datalist. - Range pickers. - Upload time remaining without javascript. - Number min/max/step, use up/down keys to increment/decrement. - Form elements that are unable…

My theory is that the next big "thing" with web browsers will be to integrate a widget kit that simplifies these sorts of things. Like a stripped down version of Qt. I've made this comment before, and someone said Java Swing, and, yeah, but I still think there's an opportunity here.

Sounds to me like a suitable use case for WebComponents.

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

#93

Post by mnarayan01 »

aedron wrote: post #54

Since the article did not go into details, and many of the points seem nonsensical, can someone elaborate? Why can I not "Create an app loading screen" without service workers? Why can I not "Create an initial app UI to load instantly"? Seems these are trivially possible with regular Javascript, but maybe I'm misunderstanding? Similarly, "Use push notifications", "Add offline support" and "Prompt installation to the…

> Why can I not "Create an app loading screen" without service workers? Why can I not "Create an initial app UI to load instantly"? Seems these are trivially possible with regular Javascript, but maybe I'm misunderstanding?

If you're waiting on async requests than everything is fine without Service Workers, but if you're performing computation then the whole UI will be blocked.

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

#94

Post by egeozcan »

jvzr wrote: post #17
IBM wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a reason for users to care about this at all? Because it seems to me that this just solves problems for developers while making the user experience worse or not as good as it could be. The same goes for Electron-based apps.

Exactly. I don't want websites to send notifications. And I dislike websites with Offline support: I always have to refresh twice to make sure the content I'm seeing came from a fresh source and not from cache.

Why is your complaint specific to websites with offline support? I always get stale data when I open Twitter app. I have to go to the top and refresh to get new tweets (and then they serve you with even more stale tweets but that's another problem).

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

#95

Post by interpol_p »

SquareWheel wrote: post #81
rsynnott wrote: post #15

As an iOS user, I'm actually quite glad that websites can't send me push notifications on it. And app loading screens are a feature? If people _insist_ on making phone apps as websites, there's Cordova and all that. Such apps are never very good, of course. I still haven't seen a website-based desktop/phone app that wasn't a clunky non-native-looking resource-hogging mess.

That exact argument can be applied to native apps. Should native apps have push notifications removed? Why not? Because they can actually be extremely useful. Such as for receiving emails, Facebook messages, Slack pings, or news updates you've subscribed to. Maybe somebody tweeted you. Any of these apps could work as progressive webapps. Regardless if the platform is native or web-based, the feature remains opt-in. I…

Yes but supporting the feature encourages developers to make web apps. Why would you want to encourage that?

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

#96

Post by jvzr »

NoGravitas wrote: post #83
jimktrains2 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im comfortable with the current system where websites request permission for notifications, but they are as useful as phone notifications. Message in a webchat, new email, new private notification on Twitter, &c. It should always be opt in, but it is a useful thing for many use cases.

Can't reply to FussyZeus, but in Firefox, you can permanently disable notifications for all websites (though it is not exposed in the UI). Go to about:config, search for dom.webnotifications.enabled, set it to false.

Thank you, and thank you, Mozilla.

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

#97

Post by Dude2018 »

bluejekyll wrote: post #85
Dude2018 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Screw new features, using JavaScript and HTML/CSS for apps must die.

The DOM and CSS are good underlying principles. It would be nice if there was an alternative to HTML, like something encoded in JSON. As to JavaScript, with WebAssembly coming, there may be options in the future.

Flow-oriented markup is meant for documents not GUI.

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

#98

Post by GordonS »

rsynnott wrote: post #15

As an iOS user, I'm actually quite glad that websites can't send me push notifications on it. And app loading screens are a feature? If people _insist_ on making phone apps as websites, there's Cordova and all that. Such apps are never very good, of course. I still haven't seen a website-based desktop/phone app that wasn't a clunky non-native-looking resource-hogging mess.

> If people _insist_ on making phone apps as websites, there's Cordova and all that. Such apps are never very good, of course

I strongly disagree. We use Ionic (which is based on Cordova) for line of business apps, and the results are as good as native apps, but with the benefit (amongst others) of having a single codebase for both Android and iOS.

Hybrid apps aren't a good match for all types of app - games in particular - but they do work well for many others.

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

#99

Post by SirHound »

interpol_p wrote: post #91
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…

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. When I change my preferred text size through accessibility settings, good native apps respond correctly. If I need voice over support, the operating system knows how to read the view hierarchy to me in a logical way. When drag-…

> 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.

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

#100

Post by bluejekyll »

IBM wrote: post #69
pluma wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Push notifications? Every single messenger or anything that lets you set reminders. Note that features like push notifications are implemented with a discrete opt-in on every other platform already. Don't want notifications? Just say "Deny" when you're prompted. Offline support? Only if you happen to live in the 99.99% of the world that doesn't have 24/7 perfect WiFi/4G coverage with unlimited data. If you've ever ke…

All of these things are already available in native apps. Putting aside all the business reasons for why Apple wouldn't want to do this, why should Apple spend any time to enable this for web apps? You say the choice is between a web app and no app, and I'm sure on the margin this impacts companies that can't afford to create a native app, but why should Apple cater to the lowest common denominator? Steve Jobs' post…

This is a great post about why you should target iOS and macOS features specifically. But it misses the point,

> we want to provide the most advanced and innovative platform to our developers, and we want them to stand directly on the shoulders of this platform and create the best apps the world has ever seen.

Yes, that's what (you and) Apple want. But what developers really want is a simple cross platform framework to target all OSes and the widest user base possible with the least effort.

These applications can then enable custom features on macOS where they get a better experience if they have a need for that.

Remember OpenStep? Yellowbox? We want those tools; right now the web is an ok standin, and until there is something better, developers will keep demanding these features. It's about targeting the widest user base possible, not about making a single platform the most successful.

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