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Comment by maxwell | Hacker News Reader

Which features?

getUserMedia is now supported in WebViews, so one can build, for instance, a FaceTime competitor that runs on Chrome on iOS, where it wasn't possible a few months ago. But the Fullscreen API still isn't supported, a blow to the web-based FT competitor.

What else?

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Push notifications are impossible on iOS PWAs. Basically takes out a big chunk of possible apps you could build on this, no one wants e.g. a messenger that can't notify you when you get a message.

> no one wants e.g. a messenger that can't notify you when you get a message.

I deliberately disable push notifications in all messengers to avoids distractions, even though I'm actively using the messengers _when_ I want to sync with people.

It's great that works for you.

Other users have other priorities.

The claim was "no one wants x", the reply "I want x", your counter "others don't want x" as an attempt to dismiss the reply. That is unfair, the original claim that no one wants it was wrong and it was correct to point out that it was wrong.

The fundamental question is: would anyone choose to implement a messenger app as a PWA on a platform that doesn't support reliable notifications.

"Nobody wants...." is probably best interpreted as "No developers want to build..."

The idea of PWAs is that you make them once and they'll work on all platforms. The reality doesn't quite live up to that idea as this thread shows, but to me the idea to have single-platform PWAs still seems so odd that I would not interpret it that way. Still, if that was what was meant, then sure, I think I agree.

That's a good one, here's the feature request:

https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=182566

Not a feature per se, but being in the process of building a PWA for iOS with access to the camera, the fact that the authorization dialog pops up every time the app is opened (meaning that the permission is not saved even if the PWA has not been modified) looks like a deliberate attempt to make this technology not truly viable, because it really provides terrible UX.

Same with geolocation permission. A maps app that has to ask permission for your location every time is at a major disadvantage.

Might be fixed in the iOS 15 beta.

Also could be workaround, but looks complicated:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/39665367/how-to-prevent-...

That "workaround" is only available for store apps, not PWAs. Apple would love if every web developer had to submit to their app store just to add features like geolocation and camera and notifications. And that's exactly what happens today.

Yeah, I've run into that too.

Seems to affect most/all permissions, e.g. https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=213468

Looks like persistent permissions might be in the iOS 15 beta though: https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=228317

Also appears that they're implementing the Permissions API:

https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=229504

https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=229590

Isn't Chrome on iOS, just like every other browser on iOS, just Safari?

It is. It's just a skin.

Well, they all use WebViews, as far as I know, but Safari has its own browser UI "chrome".

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/webkit/webview

Before iOS 14.3, getUserMedia didn't work in WebViews. See note 3: https://caniuse.com/stream

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