One word: Apple.
Preventing PWAs is detrimental to users and an abuse of their monopoly.
Preventing PWAs is detrimental to users and an abuse of their monopoly.
For desktop browsers there are also no application launch icons.
Probably has most to do with the limits of the UX of a phone. Pulling up a browser and typing in a url, hitting autocomplete is done in 2 seconds. On mobile everything is so much more painful, a lot more desire for one click wonder buttons
Safari on iOS can do this, too. You can pin a website to your home screen, which is something that I have done for PWAs.
It could have easily gone another way where this was the "normal" behavior of the mobile ecosystem.
The iPhone however was designed for a networked world so it didn't have all the limitations of desktop OS.
The web wasn't designed for a mobile world so it had a lot of limitations: hard to do a good UX, passwords to type on a tiny keyboard, no offline mode (or so complex to use that no dev do), URL vs app icons...
The world works with power: Apple used their power to make strangle the entire idea of the web on mobile by putting a break on change. Why? Mobile web tech helps their competitors more than it helps them.
If Apple's own platform / APIs had had the same rate of change as they effectively forced on the mobile web, then they would be a decade behind Android.
This is exactly the same thing as Microsoft did in the 90s with productivity software. They had secret undocumented APIs which made Office a fantastic experience and non-office "meh".
See: US banking (in the EU I can transfer cash, instantly, for free to a friend's bank account and have been able to do so for a decade), Fossil fuel vs Climate change, most commercial standard bodies. It's everywhere.
This one actually seems like a fault of the US government dragging its feet on making advancements on a nationwide protocol for transferring money and staying stuck on ACH. So much so that, that the biggest banks had to get together and create their own system 10 years ago:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zelle_(payment_service)
> Launched in April 2011, clearXchange was originally owned by Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo.
Supposedly, the US government is finally rolling out a proper system in 2023:
https://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/fednow_about.h...
> Apple used their power to make strangle the entire idea of the web on mobile by putting a break on change.
1. apple/jobs wanted web tech initially for apps
2. native app devs were beating down the doors for access to native, not web apisYet, most business still go native due to the development experience, like not having to turn <div> magically into beautiful dropdown combo boxes with multiple selections via an HTML/CSS/JS soup, that don't feel quite right with the native ones.
It’s hard to twist the web into something it isn’t. So much effort goes into making the web do what native apps already do instead of trying to complement all that towards a better experience.
What do you mean by "machine code" though? To me, the most native you can get is a Java/C++ app that uses Android APIs directly. Anything lower is systems development, something not generally possible for normal developers.
I mean like C/C++ (which compiles to machine code) and not Java (which compiles to bytecode).
Same as the distinction the terminology made on desktop: https://stackoverflow.com/a/855774
Nowadays, my understanding is, if it's not loading a webpage off the internet, people call it "native". Doesn't matter what framework it uses to actually display things (even if it uses web technology).
Just like C# is one of the native ways to make Windows applications.
Please do everyone a favor and, at least for the sake of desktop development, don't misuse the terminology like that if you want people to understand what you're saying. The entire reason ".NET Native" was developed was that C# did not produce "native" applications. Saying C# produces native Windows applications is going to confuse the heck out of everybody.
.NET has always supported AOT via NGEN, although it only supports dynamic linking and was optimized for fast startup of applications.
Windows 8 introduced the Bartok compiler used by Singularity, where applications would be pre-AOT compiled in the Windows store minus linking, with on-device linking happening on installation.
Windows 10, improved the later scenario with the introduction of .NET Native, slightly based on the Midori experience.
The new Windows 11 store is still fully based on .NET Native, as it makes use of WinUI 2.6.
I didn't claim otherwise. But AOT != "native".
What makes something "native" is not merely the fact that you compile to machine code. It's one of the main features of native code but far from the only one. Again: there's a reason they came up with ".NET Native" and called it that despite the fact that NGen always did AOT. And there's a reason the Android NDK has an N, unlike its SDK. It actually means something beyond AOT.
You can go against the grain if you want and call them all native apps, telling people they're Wrong On The Internet, but you're just confusing people.
Curious to find out, how those people distinguish it from an MFC/ATL or an Win32 one.
But see for example https://stackoverflow.com/a/855774
If you still don't like the terminology though, I'm not going to keep arguing. I didn't coin the term. You should go ask Microsoft why they didn't call C# native when NGen was already there. I'm just saying that terminology is already established and you're confusing people by using it differently.
Which isn't what users talk about when arguing about native apps, they don't even know what a GC is.
Because I'm sure if you went and asked the vast majority of "users" what a "native app" is, you'd get a coherent answer instead of a blank stare.
Let's lay this matter to rest. You don't like the definition, I get it. It's fine.
Or are you going to argue that Visual Studio, SQL Server Management Studio, Microsoft Store, Microsoft Blend, Office AddIns, Power Automate Desktop aren't native?
I'm not sure how the discussion turned from "native" to "the way to go".
I get the feeling like you're jumping all over HN trying to reply to me at every comment you find because... you took "not native" as some kind of insult to tools you like/consider superior?
I am jumping because the distinctions you are making aren't the ones that users care about.
So each one can go on their merry lives with their own dictionary version.
So Java, Kotlin, C, C++ and Web.