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Comment by pojntfx | Hacker News Reader

Honestly, this is why we need the Web. But Apple even blocks that since they don’t allow any browser engine apart from Safari, meaning that there is no

- Add to homescreen dialog - Background sync - Proper push notifications - Proper WASM support (a lot of features are missing)

Honestly, at this point, the government should step in, like they did at the end of the last century with Microsoft. Walled gardens hurt innovation a lot, and the App Store in combination with the restricted web on iOS are the ultimate expression of the former.

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Why wouldn't you use Android then?

I would personally like to continue paying higher prices to protect myself from low-quality background-syncing byte-code-obfuscated web-pages with push notifications, please.

This doesnt happen though. Look at the state of web apps accessed through your computers browser - there is no issues with quality if you want a customer base.

My computer browser is indeed fine, but my mother's -- is an entirely different story. I am really happy I can still get her an iPad these days.

Something can be said for both. I have built a couple of 15 year old websites with passionate users who have been begging me for an app. Not to replicate the website, which works perfectly on mobile and is very up to date with best practices. They just want it for push notifications. I can switch to Android, yes. But my users won't switch phones for just my website. And I can recommend something like Pushover, but that's too complicated for most users.

Just enable the API Apple, I bet you already have it hidden behind some flags.

Why wouldn't you just do exactly what your users passionately want, and make a small app just for notifications? You may even make it paid, so that your efforts are compensated -- I am sure, the users will be happy to support you.

I am working on it. But as a web developer this "small app" and everything that comes with it is easily hundreds of hours of work, just to clumsily recreate functionality that's already working in other browsers.

Email them? SMS Them? Its not pure notifications, but its far easier to implement.

Email would get drowned with all the other apps with the same idea, which is exactly why Apple shouldn’t allow it.

Why Apple shouldn't allow websites to email you instead of causing those websites to create iOS apps?

No, it's why apple shouldn't allow notifications from the web. People are already drowning in notification spam from native apps. To the point where Apple has added three different ways the OS prompts you to disable notifications.

People just allow everything and then get overloaded by all the worthless interruptions.

If Apple would make it so that websites can’t request to enable notifications, but only via manual user action, I’d still prefer that to developing an entire app to fit that goal.

You’re very much making this out to be more difficult than it actually is. If you’re a webdev throw a web browser frame in, or use react native, or just spend the few hours it takes to learn how to setup and app and push notifications and add a bullet point to your resume.

Not sure what I need a resume for. I'll probably never work for an employer and I think I'm a better farmer than a webdev.

I know how to design and build things with my hands. I also know how to design logos, websites and other things. I can code and enjoy building and maintaining the network of websites I built in the past 15 years.

But I feel I'm spreading myself too thin when I'm also learning to code in React or Dart (Flutter) for a single one-off project. I fear I won't be able to put in the hours required to become adequately proficient in another field that's constantly changing.

No you are not spreading yourself too thin. Each new language or framework you learn will teach you something you’ll use for the rest of your time programming. You may not remember everything you learn exactly, but it will help you carry conversations or know where to start should you be tasked to need those skills in the future. Also Google is your friend, you’re never going to know some language or framework so completely that you can verbatim spit out it’s docs and signatures without some reference.

The rest of what you said sounds pretty on par with the rest of the self taught programmers I’ve met (me being one of them).

I have e-mail notifications, yes. But a growing amount of people don’t check their email regularly and it gets drowned out.

I feel your pain, for me as a strictly back-end developer it is the same when I have to make front end.

May I suggest trying to outsource this small app to a freelancer? It could be a quite time- and cost-effective small project for someone who already has extensive experience with iOS.

But that's exactly what Apple wants. They want you to invest your time in their ecosystem because that prevents you from spending time in other ecosystems. Every thing they do that makes it more work for you to make an iOS or MacOS app is time you won't be spending making things for other platforms including the web.

plus, they get the added bonus that they can demand you pay 30% of various transitions that they couldn't demand if you just left it a website that happened to be PWA

Their incentives are entirely aligned not to support the latest web standards and not allow any other browsers on iOS to add them

How many apps that are just an interface to a website and could be viable as a website if only iOS Safari had push notifications would actually bring in any significant amount of revenue?

Besides that, according to the latest App Store rules, apps that just surface cross platform services aren’t required to have in app purchases.

A large amount of apps could just be a website if Apple supported more API’s. It would also bring bigger budgets to webdev teams and improve the quality of their webapps.

Care to name some web apps that are successful on Android but are required to be apps on iOS?

You've got it wrong, because Android has much looser review policies so these apps don't have to be web pages on that platform. People (including Apple!) push web apps on iOS to not be subject to App Store review.

It doesn’t matter. If PWAs were good enough on Android, and seeing that you would probably need to build a web app anyway. Why not just build a web app + iOS app and not build an Android app at all?

Why rephrase the question? Lots of apps could have been just a webapp. It doesn’t have to be popular or succesful to prove that point, because it’s the smaller apps / teams like my one man company that would profit the most. Let larger companies spend their money on squeezing out maximum performance via native code. And let me use the browser for the 10k users of my app.

If the argument is that Apple is holding back PWAs, then there should be a lot of corresponding web only apps on Android that are forced to be native on iOS. The developers would have a web app anyway for the desktop so you should see a lot of apps that are PWA apps with iOS apps.

Why should there be? There are thousands of webdevs who weren't 'forced' to be native on iOS, because they don't have knowledge and budget to be native.

You're asking the wrong question.

Whether there should be or not. The question isn’t why doesn’t every website have a native app. The question is if PWAs are good enough for Android because of its great support and not good enough for iOS. You should see a lot of companies doing iOS + Web instead of iOS + Android + Web. But that’s not the case. Companies have spoken with their budgets. They decided that it was worth the money to have native Android apps.

Could it possibly be that HN posters are wrong and PWAs aren’t good enough on Android either?

Almost all smaller e-commerce websites don't have an app. They rely on their website + e-mail notifications.

Would they enable web notifications if it was universally available? Yes. Would they enable it just for Android users? Some do. Does this say something about the quality of PWA's? You tell me. You seem to be adamant that the web sucks, yet literally millions of companies are succesful on the web without accompanying apps.

I never said the web sucks. The thesis was that Apple was holding PWAs back and given a choice, app developers wouldn’t create native iOS apps and just create web apps. If Apple’s lack of support for the necessary APIs was the deciding factor, the same developers who make native iOS apps wouldn’t go through the trouble of making native Android apps - yet they do.

No the thesis is that Apple is holding the web a a whole back. I’m not the one that says Apps like Youtube are better off or even good enough as a PWA. I’m arguing that if Apple enabled the notification API, a lot of websites and apps can save money by not replicating simple functionality in a native app. Your arguments don’t refute that at all.

If the lack of push notifications on iOS were the only thing forcing developers to create iOS apps, those same developers wouldn’t overwhelmingly be creating Android apps.

Where are all the developers who are being forced to create iOS apps but are “saving money” by not creating Android apps because PWA support is so good?

Most skip making apps all together because they rely on email notifications.

I agree. But if PWAs were good enough on Android, you should see, depending on your budget from largest to smallest:

1. Web, iOS, Android

2. Web, iOS - since PWAs are suppose to be “good enough for Android”.

3. Web

But you hardly ever see #2. Why is that?

Doesn’t matter. My point still stands. You keep repeating yours, while failing to see mine.

You’ve made a point without any evidence. If your point is that PWA’s could save developers money, rationally you should see developers saving money by only creating iOS apps and PWAs. Developers with real money on the line haven’t made that choice.

Breaking up your question into two pieces:

> How many apps [could] be viable as a website if only iOS Safari had push notifications[?]

I’d say a lot.

> [How many of them] would actually bring in any significant amount of revenue?

Adding this caveat doesn’t change my answer—but I really don’t like what it's implying. Software is not suddenly without value just because it doesn’t make money.

> I’d say a lot

Yet you didn’t name any. If that were the case, you should be able to name the equivalent web apps on Android that must be apps on iOS.

> Software is not suddenly without value just because it doesn’t make money.

So where are those “valuable” web apps on Android? Also revenue is the most objective way to measure value.

> Yet you didn’t name any.

Reddit, Trello, Twitter. Probably Discord and Slack too.

I haven't used Android in years but I certainly don't see why these wouldn't work as web apps if you had push notifications. All the functionality is there.

And none of those companies thought the web app was good enough to eschew native apps on Android. Why is that?

Because they have the budgets to do both.

That's why you're asking the wrong question.

Companies don’t just spend money because they “have the budget”.

No but that doesn't refute my point, does it.

What is your point? If the vast amount of the industry thought PWAs were good enough, they wouldn’t create Android apps when a web app would do.. Companies don’t just spend money needlessly.

You should see a proliferation of cases where companies create an iOS app and a web app for everyone else.

> Also revenue is the most objective way to measure value.

Nonsense. Wikipedia must be worthless for you? What about air? Do you feel you'd breathe with more satisfaction if someone was profiting from the air you breathe?

On the other hand, there's plenty of immensely profitable things that have negative value. Cigarettes? Oil? Weapons? Opioids? I could go on and on.

And you still haven’t come up with a situation where a major developer was forced to make an iOS app and decided to be content with a PWA for Android customers.

“Value” has a definite meaning in economics. If someone is willing to pay for something, it has value to them.

I don't even care about iOS. I just despise your definition of value, since it's simply wrong and dangerous.

Whether you despise it or not. It’s the only objective measure that we have to ascertain the value that a population puts on an item.

How can it be objective when every single individual would bid a different price for the same product, if asked without being shown the market price beforehand? It's all about perception and -my friend, I have bad news for you- perception is all but objective. Yes, perception of value can be manipulated through tools like marketing. That doesn't make the product itself anymore (or less) valuable than it actually is.

That’s the issue. Anyone could respond that they have an app that valuable to only them and their best friend.

What better choice do we have than to measure value across a population? How much value a population places on something based on how much they are willing to pay is objective. Whether that value is utilitarian or based on other factors is subjective.

Are we really arguing about basic supply and demand? Yes suppliers have methods to drive demand.

I am 100% convinced that mobile Safari is worse for the future of the web than IE6 ever was. And it’s 100% intentional.

Can you elaborate on what you foresee happening, and why?

On top of the now years old and still not implemented notification API, Apple recently declined to implement 16 other PWA API's, citing privacy concerns.

They could make every API opt-in or propose improvements, but they won't.

With IE6, people were at least allowed to install more capable browsers. With iOS there are no other browsers. Only user interfaces around Safari webviews.

This is an unnecessarily pessimistic view.

Yes, Apple wants us to spend all of our time interacting with / committed to their users. No, that aren’t maliciously trying to steal our time from other platforms. The thought chain ends with their platform, never considering that we even have other platforms to support.

A self-obsessed outlook is different from a deliberately sabotaging business plan, even when they present the same outward behaviors. Occam’s razor.

> to protect myself from low-quality background-syncing byte-code-obfuscated web-pages

I am not sure why other people being allowed to install other browsers on their phone would force you to do anything.

Because app developers will use other browser engines allowing them to ignore any of the privacy constraints in place at the moment.

That's already possible, and an app has far more access to your device and data anyway.

Apps cannot currently use other browser engines on iOS

Most of the web privacy settings are specific to Safari, not the Webkit browser engine.

Also an app can access and send more data than a browser window. Anything the webview can block can just get transmitted by the app itself separately. So there's no reason to block 3rd-party browser engines as the GP post says.

safari is enough and has enough bugs to be a totally good vector for malware

The real security issue is: if a bug in Safari is found (it happens quite often) users cannot use another browser in the meantime.

> has enough bugs to be a totally good vector for malware

Not for most people.

It's the main vector for malware on Apple phones (and mac laptops)

Most malware is installed consensually, not as the result of bugs.

So the only solution is to remove the computation from computation devices.

> Because app developers will use other browser engines

That still does not force you to install those browser engines.

If you want the apple approved apps, in the apple approve app store, that fine. But me using different settings does not force you to not use those approved apps.

Even if they switched to Android, they'd still have to ensure iOS compatibility since Apple has ~60% of the smartphone market in the US. Any abusive behaviour from Apple at this monopolistic stage is just asking for an antitrust case & resolution.

That's a misuse of "monopolistic" - 60% is not a majority to the point of no competition. Any developer could write an Android-only app if they wanted, they just don't do it.

Most consumers only handle one phone.

So? Apple has a monopoly on Apple products? Big deal. Ford has a monopoly on Ford trucks, Sony has a monopoly on playstations.

Apple has never had even 50% of the US smartphone market.

https://www.counterpointresearch.com/us-market-smartphone-sh...

iOS is 60% of the mobile (phone+tablet) market

https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-sta...

>Statcounter is a web analytics service. Our tracking code is installed on more than 2 million sites globally.

Sorry but this is not an effective way to gauge market share of a browser or a platform. That 60% figure you're throwing around is not an absolute metric. It's based only on visitors to websites that use the "Statcounter" tracking code. There definitely is a large margin of error using this to gather statistics about market share.

In comparison, the other commenter's link is actually more accurate because:

>This report is one of the series of reports which tracks mobile handset: Smartphone and Feature Phone shipments every quarter for more than 140 brands covering more than 95% of the total device shipments in the industry.

Tracking site visitors based on sporadic implementation of a tracker, vs getting actual numbers of units shipped/sold. I'm going with the actual numbers, not the sort-of-guessing of Statcounter.

If you track shipments, how do you handle iPhones generally staying in use longer than Android phones?

(Disclosure: I work for Google)

Neither one is a great way to measure market share. Using tracking pixels is notoriously bad though, because it tends to lead to an echo-chamber like effect. Not everyone with a device will visit a site with the specific browser tracking code, and many people will visit those sites many times from different IP addresses, and even different browsers installed on their device. There are many ways tracking code can lead to false statistics.

Units shipped doesn't tell the whole story either, but it is a specific metric that doesn't suffer from bots gaming things or any of the other problems that using stats based on tracking code can lead to.

Studies have shown that individual iPads and iPhones are used for web browsing much more than Android devices, just as their users spend more on apps.

So Web Browsing is a very imperfect measure of installed base. Worldwide estimates are that that less than 20% of mobile devices sold are iOS, roughly 15% iirc. It’s almost certain US sales percentages for iOS are much higher, but no where near 60%.

> I would personally like to continue paying higher prices to protect myself from low-quality background-syncing byte-code-obfuscated web-pages with push notifications

are you really saying you would pay higher prices because you can' t press the "no" button and never visit the same website again?

Along with every time I have to press OK to the “we used cookies” dialog, using the web is already like a “punch the monkey” game.

These modern web APIs have a massive user experience problem, and if we want the web to be truly competitive with native, we'd be foolish to ignore that.

Beyond the "punch the monkey" game you mention, another massive problem is that web push notifications have just become another vector to deliver spam to users. If you look at devices belonging to "normal" users, you'll often see dozens of spammy web notifications (pornographic content, "30% off, BUY NOW", etc...). And because these are average users, they don't necessarily understand how to configure their devices to reduce or eliminate the spam.

Web push notifications needs a way to proactively filter out those that abuse the API, otherwise its doomed to become just another vector for spam that pisses off end users.

I'm angry at Firefox because it was the only browser that I trust that allowed me to have extensions to solve my problems with bad websites on mobile and they removed them.

But bad websites are not something we are going to get rid of using only iPhones...

The difference is that notification spam on the web is allowed to escape the sandbox. Because of the punch the monkey nature of the web, I inadvertently clicked “allow notifications” on both PCWorld and Tom’s Hardware on different occasions - they both spammed me at least once a day. But not enough to figure out how to disable it.

To get rid of the cookie notifications, I can at least set web pages I go to default to reader view.

I never accept web notifications, not even on slack.

The problem is that if Apple singlehandedly decide what's right and what isn't we are back to IE.

There is a middle ground I would be okay with. A website is only allowed to ask you if want notifications if you added it to your home screen. If you delete the web page from your home screen, it automatically disabled the notification. It falls within the same paradigm that people are accustomed to.

AFAIK this is not the way Safari works and it's not the main motivation for Apple

They just don't want web apps to rival with the native ones skipping the whole store experience and fee

But that's just speculation on my side, I have no data to back it up

This makes no sense. As I said in another reply. If PWAs are so great, why aren’t companies bypassing creating Android apps and just telling Android users to use web apps?

On top of that, how many apps are really just surfacing server hosted services where there are no in app purchases?

According to the data I found, PWAs make 50% of the Android market.

Among the most popular there are

- Uber

- Pinterest

- Telegram

- Trivago

- Tinder

- Google maps Go

- AliExpress

Yet most of those companies decided to make native apps. If PWA’s were good enough, why bother writing native apps for Android?

Do you have a citation?

> PWA’s were good enough, why bother writing native apps for Android?

same reason people write native apps on iOS

It's easier to track users, especially those users rich enough to buy high end phones and that will probably spend more money and the ROI is higher.

They also make PWAS to gain user base on low end phones and emerging markets.

And because making them is quite cheap.

So most companies aren’t using PWAs to save money on Android and probably wouldn’t on iOS either....

Do you propose that Apple makes Safari more able to invade privacy?

If the only purpose of PWAs for Android is to make it easier to run on low end cheap phones - that’s really not a good argument is it with iOS is it? Even the 6s from 2015 is more performant than many mid range new Android phones.

Yes. I don’t want to press the “no” button for a 100 times.

You should lobby W3C to remove the API from the standard then.

Or ask browser vendors to have a global allow/deny flag for every Web API

I don't know if you're being sarcastic or not, but here's the thing:

I don't want websites asking me to enable notifications. 99.9% of the time, the answer is no.

I don't want websites asking me to enable location access. 99.9% of the time, the answer is NO.

Nor do I want them asking for permissions to install to my Home Screen (the answer is no), or to track me (the answer is NO).

>Or ask browser vendors to have a global allow/deny flag for every Web API

When possible, I've carefully configured my browser to automatically reject these requests, but instead of respecting that, these websites, with all their hubris, have chosen to circumvent my preferences by presenting shitty JS-based permission requests (as opposed to using the permissions UI built into the browser).

Each one of these new web APIs have significantly degraded my experience as an end user, by presenting a million permission dialogs whenever I'm visiting webpages, without providing me with any features of value (again, because I'm not ever, ever gonna trust some random website with these permissions).

Users don't care to pontificate about the virtues of the open web, they just want their stuff to work. And until the open web can provide a better user experience, of course users are going to flock to various walled gardens (App Stores, Facebook, etc...). Until we find a way to implement web standards elegantly, without degrading the user experience, the open web is always going to face an uphill battle over the relative safety of walled gardens.

I think nobody wants web notifications, but the API is in the standard.

I know I don't want them.

Apple is in the committee.

https://www.w3.org/Consortium/Member/List

I can relate.

Every time I pickup an old iOS device the stupid thing is nags me to update it, 100 times. And you can't just click no you have to click multiple things to get it to fuck off.

So, in practice, Apple vetting process doesn't even do what they say it does and still grabs 30% from developers?

Yes, absolutely! Just like I'd rather pay for Apple Arcade so that I don't have to wade through the sewage of free-to-play games clicking "no" on in-app purchase requests and hiding spammy notifications. Just like I'd rather pay for streaming services with no ads rather than having to mute commercials on live TV or skip commercials on DVR'd TV.

It's not absurd to me to pay for platforms that attempt to preemptively remove filth rather than need to be on the constant lookout for filth. This is particularly true when most of these entire ecosystems (the web, app stores, video content) seem to be based on sneaking filth in front of your eyes at every available opportunity.

Web notifications are a standard feature, meaning the APIs are in the web standard.

Making an hyperbole here, but wouldn't Mosaic 1993 edition solve every issue then?

Reasonable people can disagree about which features are and are not useful. And those reasonable people can purchase smartphones and computers which best cater to their own views about these features.

True, but reasonable people that know about web notifications API are less than 1% of Apple customers...

That sounds like a great reason to not let every trashy website in the world to spam them asking if they want to enable notifications.

But is it Apple's call?

I mean, removing features of course makes software more secure

I argue that disabling JavaScript would only bring great benefits to humanity

If Apple had a dominant market position in smartphones then one could argue that end customers don't have much of a choice, but Apple only has at most 50% market share in the US and much lower globally. For my own smartphone usage I would much rather Apple choosing which features and APIs that third-party developers (of apps and websites) can use rather than those developers being able to do whatever they want. I think it's pretty clear that developers tends to have a much more hostile relationship with their end users than Apple does with their customers.

The argument is not about market domination, but about money power

Apple market is rich, it is the richest tech company, with the highest market valuation ever, one cannot avoid it

So it's gonna drive adoption no matter what

Like it did for Flash (right or wrong, they did it)

I was writing web applications during the 90s, they were called intranets back then, IE wasn't bad, it was simply unavoidable

And being unavoidable halted competition for more than a decade

On another side: having a platform that doesn't obey to common standards creates tech segregation

I remember seeing japanes phones 20 years ago, they were ahead of time,but unusable outside of Japan

Last but not least, having a flag that says "allow me to shoot myself in the foot of I want to" it's less hostile than "you don't know what you're doing let me handle it for you"

So then write for all browsers, support what you can for each, and don’t promote Chrome anymore? If you continue to promote a one size fits all browser and the market moves that way then we’ll shortly be having this same discussion about Google. If you were writing websites in the 90s you should know this.

> So then write for all browsers, support what you can for each, and don’t promote Chrome anymore?

WOW

That escalated quickly

I never promoted Chrome, in fact I'm an old time Firefox users and in the 90s I owned a Netscape 3 gold license.

I don't write fronted software anymore, but writing for every browser means adhering to the standard

Apple has steered away more than any other vendor lately

So...

> I don't write fronted software anymore, but writing for every browser means adhering to the standard.

Yes, which you’ll find if you do Safari adheres to quite well. Finding examples where it doesn’t is easy, just like on chrome. Which is why we have media queries and poly fills because it’s simply impossible to have a unified platform without one entity owning it. If you found out Chrome doesn’t render the same on linux as it doesn’t on windows, would you call this not adhering to the standard?

> Yes, which you’ll find if you do Safari adheres to quite well

They don' t

Apple refused to implement 16 web API in Safari

> Which is why we have media queries and poly fills because it’s simply impossible to have a unified platform

And that' s why big players like Apple hat control a closed ecosystem shouldn't be allowed to be assholes

At least on Android I can install other browsers and other browser engines

Do you see the difference?

> Chrome doesn’t render the same on linux as it doesn’t on windows

that' s not true

Windows and Linux that have simply different font rendering engines and different native widgets

That's all

> would you call this not adhering to the standard?

absolutely NOT!

In no part of the standard rendering is formalized

It wouldn't make sense

The way things are rendered is standardized, not the way they should look

https://www.w3.org/TR/2014/REC-html5-20141028/rendering.html

> HTML is intended to apply to multiple media (it is a media-independent language). User agent implementors are encouraged to adapt the suggestions in this section to their target media.

> Apple refused to implement 16 web API in Safari

OK and these APIs don’t stop real work.

> And that' s why big players like Apple hat control a closed ecosystem shouldn't be allowed to be assholes

And putting all that power into the hands of a single browser will not end well, so stop promoting Chrome or saying other browsers should be like Chrome. FF isn’t going to win.

> At least on Android I can install other browsers and other browser engines Do you see the difference?

Yes, next question, do I care?

> that' s not true

100% true, read the dev blogs and understand the WM on linux is fundamentally different than windows or mac, therefore rendering is not exactly the same.

Standards help align, they do not force alignment. If safari implemented a p element as a span, then this is not following the spec. Choosing not to implement a portion of a modular spec, is still following the spec.

> But is it Apple's call?

Yes, just like you’re free to never visit an annoying website asking to spam notifications you’re free to take away Apple’s decision making power you grant them by simply not buying an iphone.

> you’re free to take away Apple’s decision making power you grant them by simply not buying an iphone.

That's a very common argument

But it doesn't get any less stupid with time.

I never owned an iPhone.

Because I am an adult homo sapiens that can take decisions for himself.

But you should know that if a standard exists, and the standard has been approved by a consortium, a consortium where Apple is a very important member, they should at least support what they signed for, instead of forcing developers to go through hoops just to support their platform.

When Elon Musk make Teslas he has to put airbags in them, stop lights, front lights, safety belts, they must pass crash tests, because that's the standard, otherwise he couldn't sell them as cars.

So if Apple believe that the standard that they approved is too dangerous, they can make their OS more secure, instead of putting the blame on developers.

Developers are not jumping through hoops to support their platform. I’m a full stack dev, I understand what it takes to support safari and a majority of the time is actually Chrome being fast and loose with the standard, not Apple. Is it a partial implementation, sure. But the features lacking don’t stop meaningful work at all. Just like hearing my statement is old, so is yours.

> Developers are not jumping through hoops to support their platform

They are

> I’m a full stack dev, I understand what it takes to support safari and a majority of the time is actually Chrome being fast and loose with the standard

I am as well, I understand a closed platform when I see one.

> But the features lacking don’t stop meaningful work at all.

If only it was true...

It' s not lacking, it has been removed on purpose.

The web engine Safari is built from already supports those features.

I can play this game too, Nope.

Nope, apparently you can't play the game.

You don't even understand the rules.

Sorry.

Notification APIs are in Webkit, the open source implementation of Safari.

proof: https://github.com/WebKit/webkit/blob/89c28d471fae35f1788a0f...

Can you prove that Apple didn't remove standard APIs from their browser?

So this somehow keeps other HTML from rendering and CSS just doesn’t display correctly right? Look around, you’ll find very little care for that API except from sites trying to spam devices, something apple is against. So again, no, safari is following the spec just fine.

Privacy concerns about Google and security updates at the mercy of terrible carriers.

But those reasons are weakening.

I totally agree. Apple is great for privacy - and that's important to me - but I'm slowly starting to think I might move to something else. Sadly, it seems my only real option is Android. I miss windows phone and blackberry.

I agree with those reasons, not sure my will is weakening, so I'll add: vendor versions of Android, the dreaded "Android" slowdown, and slower/choppier performance - generally - when comparing latest releases of hardware & software.

> and security updates at the mercy of terrible carriers.

Buy the hardware, install lineageos, insert SIM?

Is LineageOS the most trustworthy aftermarket smartphone OS out there? What makes it so?

Aren't I still bound by a GMail account for login and contact information, so if Google randomly decides to ban my account (see what happened to the viewers of a Markiplier stream), I'm in trouble?

How so? Lineage works without gapps, although obviously you then lose access to those services, including the Play Store.

I’ve never used LineageOS, I was asking. I didn’t see how you could completely separate Android and Google, especially for things like contact syncing.

Ah, okay. So the simplest case is that you just don't have those features through Google so you have to find another provider. For instance you can do contact sync through CardDAV courtesy of apps like https://www.davx5.com/, email with K-9 Mail, get apps from F-Droid, etc. Depending on exactly what the problem with Google is, you can also use unofficial software that still talks to Google services like https://microg.org/ instead of play services and newpipe instead of the official youtube app.

LineageOS comes with AOSP stock applications and you can install additional app stores on it. You can also install the google apps packages including play store and play services, but you don't have to. Of course many 3rd party apps rely on play services e.g. for payment.

It’s great, but you need a phone that’s popular with its developers.

> Why wouldn't you use Android then?

Frankly, because everyone I know uses iMessage.

Safari on macOS supports push notifications and it hasn't intrinsically been a bad thing -- at worst, I have to tell a web site "no, I don't want your notifications." They're opt-in rather than opt-out like native app notifications are. The higher prices you and I are paying aren't protecting us from "low-quality" notifications as it is, anyway.

At any rate, maybe you're so worried about single-page web apps being bad actors that you're happy Apple so severely hamstrings them, but I... just can't see a lot to worry about there. And if Apple let PWAs be even a little better on iOS than they are now, it would go at least some distance toward ameliorating complaints about the App Store.

>They're opt-in rather than opt-out like native app notifications are

Native iOS notifications are opt-in

Just a point of clarification: native app notifications on iOS are absolutely opt-in. If the app wants to send notifications it requires a dialogue and user confirmation.

Disappointingly, Apple makes an exception for their first party apps.

Thanks. It may be that the exception was stuck in my head. :)

This answer is wrong on so many levels...

I don't know why Apple is allowed to keep other browser engines out of their system, but probably just because the relevant people just don't understand that the Chrome/FF/etc. on iOS are just a Safari with a different UI and that it gives Apple about half (depending on country; in the US probably more) of the mobile browser share and users just the chance to either use Android or be stuck with Safari.

In addition, the author obviously doesn't know that the before mentioned push notification API is not just used for regular push notifications, but is also required for other use-cases like messengers for example.

Playing the devils advocate here. This browser restriction is what I'd wager is keeping the non-chromium browser market at a substantial proportion.

I am wondering what you are referring to with 'non-chromium' browser market. Typically people don't complain about chromium-based browsers, but about the dominance of Webkit-based browsers (Safari, Chrome, Opera, Edge, etc.) and from that perspective there is more or less just Firefox left.

Nevertheless, that is besides the point as the rendering engine is not the sole source of browser differences. I am not saying the Googles high market share isn't a problem itself, but that Apple is abusing their market position to hold back the development of the web (by not implementing relevant APIs and not allowing competing browser engines on their platform).

Google forked WebKit 7 years ago.

> Typically people don't complain about chromium-based browsers...

In my neck of the woods people most definitely do complain about Chrome, specifically the lack of privacy from being a Google product.

Yes. Including mobile WebKit users, there are enough non-chromium users to give devs incentive to support non-chromium browsers. Take away mobile WebKit and alternative browser usage dips into single digit percentages, which is low enough for many devs to readily disregard.

It’s a bit ironic, but browser engine monopoly on iOS is the only thing standing in the way of browser engine monopoly across all platforms.

Google nominally allows other browser engines on Android, but non-Chrome marketshare is a rounding error. There's not some great browser engine ecosystem out there, waiting to be unleashed.

The conversation is 100% about how much influence Apple should permit Google to have over the evolution of iOS.

Actually, since a year or so Firefox is a pretty solid mobile browser and I am pretty pissed I can't use the real thing on my iPhone.

It boggles my mind that a company makes a fairly innocuous decision (which you would expect consumers to punish them for) like requiring all web views to use the same renderer as Safari, and there are people like you rushing to have the government jump in and regulate "the kind of rendering for web pages that a private company allows on their devices". Seems like total insanity to me and I don't understand it.

Apple does not own the device though.

If they own the device, then I want my 1k back.

Buyer beware? Were you under the impression whatsoever that you were buying 'free' hardware?

How could customers punish Apple for that, and that specifically? (I'm being careful with my wording to exclude the response of "switch to Android", because that is not a punishment for that thing specifically–the fact that people don't switch just means Android is worse to them, not that they agree with this particular part of the iOS.)

One way would be if major web apps launched and iOS users complained about being unable to use them. For example, Spotify Web Player launched without desktop Safari support. If macOS only had Safari, users might have complained and put pressure on Apple to change it.

Consumers in theory would punish Apple by not buying Apple products. But they don't and I can only guess why (they don't care about browser rendering engines).

If you're trying to narrow your punishment to be specifically "the crime of not letting me pick my own browser rendering engine" then I can't help you. This is not a hill I even remotely interested in dying on or spending more time on.

Kind of like Windows requiring all users to use IE?

Sorry, it's been a decade so I don't remember that whole thing. Were users required to use IE, or was it required to be installed? I remember using Chrome/FF/Opera on Windows for many years. You could swap to another browser for whatever browsing experience you wanted.

You can definitely add websites to your home screen on iOS.

I do this for Facebook to avoid summoning that demon on to my phone.

By "dialog", they likely mean an API with which to prompt the user to add it, like they have for apps on the App Store.

I think they're referring to PWA-style "Add to Homescreen", which I agree is a weak point of iOS/MobileSafari. I also wonder why there isn't good/any support for WASM in Safari.

Does android provide a way to launch this dialog from within the website?

iOS has a PWA-style add to home screen dialog, but it's part of Safari. It's accessed from the share sheet.

Chrome on Android will indeed present an "add to homescreen" dialog when the user visits a PWA.

https://web.dev/promote-install/#browser-promotion

The web does not solve the problem identified in the post. Nothing prevents Google from releasing new versions of Chrome with insufficient warning, and breaking sites. An example of just that is https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/15/20966237/google-chrome-w...

Safari -> share icon -> Add to homescreen

> there is no - Add to homescreen dialog - Background sync - Proper push notifications

All of those sound like things that will be abused by the majority of developers the minute they are allowed to inflict them upon users, either willingly or commanded to by their overlords in the name of ""Engagement""

I have not seen these things abused yet. The user agent prevents it.

Of course you haven’t seen them abused yet, iOS doesn’t allow it. I remember developers abusing notifications in Android Cupcake.

I don't use iOS. I use only mobile and desktop OSes that allow these things. I still haven't seen them abused.

There are already countless websites abusing the web notifications API to push spam to end users. You're probably savvy enough to effortlessly avoid it, but the average end user often is not. We can't keep ignoring the the UX issues with a lot of these web APIs if we want them to be successful. Users don't care to philosophize about the open web, they just want their shit to work. That's what Apple iOS is providing them, and they will continue flocking to iOS until they're presented with a better alternative.

Reasonable implementations let users easily block the notifications after receiving them. It doesn't require much savviness.

I really have no idea what you mean by your comment, but humorously enough user agents are frequently one of the most widely abused parts of the browser.

The "User Agent" is the browser itself the header just how a "User Agent" identifies itself to the server. That language really only shows up in the RFCs though.

Many Customers prefer a walled garden.

Exactly. Has anyone here even been in an actual walled garden?

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=walled+garden

They look like pretty fucking pleasant places to be in!

Oh please point me to the latest Web innovations that do something else other than track me or pester me with junk I don't need.

> Walled gardens hurt innovation a lot

How?

What do you even define as """innovation"""?

Honest question, I'd love to see some actual answers here instead of the usual canned hyperbole.

So far Apple's users are mostly satisfied with them, happily voting with their wallets, and the only people complaining about Apple are mostly the developers and companies who want unfettered access to iOS' users, and I haven't heard any good reasons from them other than "we want to maximize our own profits."

One example I saw cited recently is the Web browser itself. This is according to one of the original iPhone developers at Apple:

> Apple’s iOS rules would not have allowed for the invention of the web browser. Let that sink in. They would have rejected one of the most important technical innovations in the history of computing. Microsoft‘s bully tactic of making IE free seems quaint in comparison.

> But here’s the kicker: think of all the other amazing ideas that haven’t gotten a chance to be invented because they aren’t allowed on mobile devices. Mosaic happened less than 10 years after the Macintosh. We very well might have already had a browser-caliber invention by now.

> Just for people asking: the flagrant violations of AppStore policy that web browsers would be rejected for in this hypothetical are:

> 1) Running outside code

> 2) Allowing payments that circumvent Apple’s IAP

> 3) Allowing access to NSFW content

Source: https://twitter.com/tolmasky/status/1297199788316692480

More commentary: https://mjtsai.com/blog/2020/08/25/potential/

It’s hard to give specific examples about innovation that hasn’t happened, if only because not everyone is sufficiently innovative to come up with truly groundbreaking ideas.

I doubt any of the original Mosaic developers had any idea just how important their original innovation would become.

I get what you're saying, but right now, in the current state of the industry, here's the thing:

People are free to "innovate" and experiment and invent on Android and the PC, and if an innovation is deemed desirable on Apple's curated platform — which they are perfectly within their rights to control, and millions of users continue to be happy with that — then Apple will make a provision for it.

On iOS, there would be a whole host of problems with allowing third-party browser engines and app stores that the people clamoring for looser restrictions have yet to address:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24469664

Not the least of which is: How would you enforce a user's settings for privacy and parental controls on third-party browsers and app stores?

>hard to give specific examples about innovation that hasn’t happened

It's hard, but not because of prohibited innovation. It's because we have android, and it doesn't have neither ios rules nor a fantastic potential innovation that breaks the deal with apple. There is simply no example that could be used as a good enough argument. Apple users do not live in a vacuum as well, many of them have seen or used other platforms and still stick with ios as it is.

>iOS rules would not have allowed for the invention of the web browser. Let that sink in.

Web browser is a highly secure piece of software, protected on par or even harder than the os itself. If any ios app could freely download, compile and execute an arbitrary code from the internet, that would be a world-wide security and privacy disaster every few weeks. Let that sink in instead.

> Web browser is a highly secure piece of software, protected on par or even harder than the os itself. If any ios app could freely download, compile and execute an arbitrary code from the internet, that would be a world-wide security and privacy disaster every few weeks

It sounds like you’re saying iOS is insecure compared to WebKit and Blink, and that they can be trusted to run arbitrary code downloaded from arbitrary untrusted sources, but iOS cannot.

That’s a pretty damning indictment of the state of iOS, if it’s less capable of sandboxing than a browser, despite having tight coupling between hardware and software.

> Let that sink in instead.

Tragically, you’re probably right too.

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