Apple is pretty incentivized to not allow that future to be realized so we’ll see.
Though I do see the value of curation, reviews and exposure, it’s not really clear from me technically why you can’t side load apps onto iPhones easily.
I remember how I had all notifications and jingle bells on when I got my first smartphone back in 2015/2016. Nowadays turning off notifications is the first thing I do, and then turning them on for selected apps (e.g., phone, Telegram, etc). It helps I don't have social media apps in my phone, and whatever I use I access it in the browser (e.g., Twitter and Reddit).
I think website notifications in Safari will be fine for techies and others who use HN. But it will make many "normal" people's phones look like notification hell.
Don't expect ray tracing or mesh shaders coming to 3D Web during the next decade.
There isn't even a performance gap any more. A lot of CSS rendering is GPU-accelerated these days. There's WASM and WebGPU for heavy computation, and it works, e.g. web-based Figma has become a $20 billion threat to Adobe's native applications.
OTOH SwiftUI is still immature and a big step backwards in performance.
If Safari just allowed users to hide the address/tab bar to play games it would suddenly make web games, of App Store quality, instantly viable.
They won't decimate their android devs nor their huge investment in the android ecosystem. Heck , by a business perspective alone, they have +80% of the mobile landscape. Are they going to give up this edge just because?
Also, the app/play stores sold convenience, easiness, and confidence of app installs. Gen Z basically knows how to use app/play stores to find what they want and there's an article stating they're even using TikTok to search for things. That part over there tells you where do you need to put your $$$. Bet money google is trying to come up with ways to attract that segment.
We as devs have to be prepared for everything society throws at us. From improving our web dev skills to learn a mobile framework should the occasion arise (RN, Flutter, Maui? tauri probably?).
I personally, as with Meta and metaverse as of this moment, don't see myself using web installs to mobile apps any time soon. Web apps have their purposes and mobile apps have theirs too. More diversification (platforms) is better.
Seems like you already realize this, but at least on iPhone, they won't. Apple will continue to sandbag safari while banning other browser engines in order to nudge users toward apps.
Sounds like surveillance hell. Websites already abuse "location" permissions to scoop up data on their users. There's no way this pattern of behaviour won't extend to every other input on a phone. And you can't firewall an SPA from "phoning home" because phoning home is often essential to its basic function. Not that apps are much better in this regard thanks to the lack of user freedom on iOS.