Ask HN: Why not just do Web Apps for iOS? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why not just do Web Apps for iOS?

4 pointskomape7 comments

Over the last years more and more people complain that Apple has too much control about which apps are allowed in the App Store. That their reviews are bad. That they take too much from your money. And so on.

In the very beginning of the iPhone Steve Jobs preferred Web Apps over installed apps. As we all know they changed their mind in favor of the App Store. But it’s still possible to develop and use Web Apps on iOS. So why there are so few?

Apple can’t kick you out and they can’t take your money. Two keypoints of criticism so far. Are there other limitations?

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A few years ago, I made a web app mainly for iPad. The developer experience was bad. It did require a lot of efforts compared to normal web development and it had stupid bugs that Apple didn't bother to fix. Like the clock and the battery would be displayed above the app area if you rotate the iPad after having started the app.

Because web apps have pretty limited APIs on iOS. In other words, you can do so much more, faster, with native apps.

People are used to buying Apps from the App Store. Web Apps you have to search for in order to use and the average user isn't going to waste their time doing that when an App Store exists.

The main limitation is Apple. Progressive web apps are poorly supported by recent releases of iOS.

On Android, progressive web apps have way more support.

If I release a web app for Android, there are APIs I can use that prompt native installation prompts the user can see. The user understands my web app can be downloaded like an app from the app store can be downloaded.

On iOS, your web app just looks like a webpage to users. It is technically possible for users to "download" your web app by adding the webpage to their home screen, but this scenario is tedious. The webpage that the iOS user added to their home screen always opens in Safari, so it just feels like a bookmark to the user.

If you add an app to the home screen on iOS it will open without the normal Safari navigation/controls, so it definitely feels not like a simple bookmark. Also, the "tedious" process of adding an app to the home screen requires a total of three clicks on iOS (Share > Add To Home Screen > Confirm).

3 clicks is more friction than you can imagine. It should be very visible (on the top or bottom bar) and definitely should be 1 click. It could mean 100 installs vs 100k installs differences.

I think a lot of people do build and use web apps on iOS.

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