Actually I believe you're wrong: if people actually preferred Apple's way of doing it, Apple would have no reason to restrict other ways.
They restrict it because people prefer the other way, and that would harm Apple's profits.
If PWA is cheaper to make, companies will go there. Whether or not it's better for the users. Companies want to make money, not help users.
Yea but Apple is a company too…
They don’t even see difference between PWA and apps.
If everything becomes PWA, there is no transparency for the apps. No indication what data they collect. No control for the quality of the apps. No moderation over malicious apps.
PWAs need more permissions to provide the functionality people need, it is not just website.
The point is the experience, not the name of it.
The problem with statements like that, aside from the loftiness, is that you end up with a world where people who think they know better get to decide. I worked in the public sector digitalisation, and while I’m a programmer we were bundled with the rest of IT so I experienced what the supporters had to deal with. This included a lot of employees who genuinely couldn’t tell if the device they needed help for was an iOS or Android device without some guidance. So I’m not going to dispute the claims you make about how it’s nice to protect the “average person” from themselves, but I don’t think any of us will like the what that sort of thinking creates. Well, maybe some people will, but a lot won’t.
I recently wanted something for my two-factor keys and the best all I could find was for Android but not iOS. I ended up filming over a few $ for a Bitwarden subscription, but there are just a lot of little stories like that. I mean, I’m not in the audience for Fortnite, but I’m sure a lot of people were sad when it left iOS. A of which can be avoided if we stop giving all the power to the tech companies.
I’m not sure Apple really has anything to fear from it either in terms of security or usability. Part of the reason they sell so well, at least to me, is that they have the ease of use and tech that works out of the box. It’s very rare that I need side loading. I’m not a huge fan of the Safari enforcement, but it doesn’t really bother me either as I can still use FireFox and the sync. I think Google might have more to fear from it, since they need to peddle commercials inside apps like YouTube, and you can block that if they allow you to side-load app blockers, but for Apple I think almost everyone will just keep on trucking. It will of course hurt their control over payments, like the original poster points out, but that’s not really “my” or the “average persons” problem.
Sideloading will hit hard for Apple's pro-privacy brand.
You lose transparency and quality control for the apps. They don't need to tell you about their data collection practices. They don't have to do actually anything at all, since you can't ban those apps anymore.
Phishing is still a problem of Android and that will become a problem on iOS too. On Android there is still business for anti-virus engines because of the sideloading and Phishing. On Apple devices, there isn't really need for anti-virus but it will become relevant again.
If the sideloading will become very easy, big players who make money with data collection, will leave the platform. You won't find Meta apps soon from the App store. They are so big that people will download these apps regardless.
If that happens, how many fake Instagram apps we will see after that? And you can't ban them from the App store anymore.
So it appears the non-average person doesn't have a clue what's right for the clueless masses either.
Liberty, choice, community and respect. That's all that is needed.
Respect, as you say, is important. Leaf by example.
I was referring into technical implementations and what risks are included. It requires deep undertanding how these things work. Average user does not have it. Many aspects are invisible to the end-users, like the war against malware in App Store.
The end-user knows what they want in terms of end-result. How to to get the job done with a tool (app). They can compare end-results.
Sometimes, however not all results all there to be compared. Because, they don’t understand what kind of tools can be actually created. They are happy with the current one because they think it is the best what can be.
Or, what else the tool can do besides their advertised functionality. Which can be malicious or harmful to user in another way.
Or tools could work in a better way, but are currently hindered for monetary gain.
All this requires specialised knowledge.
You're saying this like there isn't any trash on the Apple App Store? Come on... Beyond the top lists or other discovery models, the Apple App Store contains bunch of things that will never even be downloaded by anyone...
It was more exclusive in the beginning, I give you that. But today, it has as much trash as any other app store.
And that's one of the values of Apple: this vertical integration that makes the overall thing look more polished (and probably easier to use to some extent).
Of course, they are happy to keep the restriction because they can take 30% commission on the paid apps, I'm not saying they are perfect and that there is nothing to improve. But I am not completely convinced that forcing them to lower their standards of integration (by allowing any kind of apps) is necessarily beneficial for the users.
After all, why do developers want PWAs? Probably mostly because it is cheaper for them, not because it's better for their users, right?
Wrong, PWAs can provide better services for users, and the lack of PWAs and enforcement of the App Store monopoly can hurt them[1]:
> The fact that Apple refuses to implement basic features in mobile Safari that Firefox and Chrome have had for years now, and the fact that they refuse to allow other browser engines on iOS is the reason why we can't have nice things like progressive web apps.
> I recently worked on a health app related to the COVID pandemic. The most common use case would be served really well by a PWA, and as such, there's no reason users would need to install an app on their phones to access the web app's full set of features.
> Despite the web app working perfectly on Android and across Windows, Linux and macOS without native integration, we now must dedicate time and resources to develop an additional iOS app just so iOS users, which over half of Americans are, aren't left out.
> This is an expensive endeavor time-wise and money-wise, during a pandemic where time is of the essence and resources are stretched thin. It shouldn't be this way, but it is.
Seems like you do confirm my points.
I am not saying that users can never benefit from PWAs. I am saying that globally, I am not convinced that PWAs will improve the life of iOS users. Just like I don't feel like Electron is improving my life. Slack would maybe have to make a proper app if they did not have Electron, it's not like Salesforce doesn't have the money. I could even go further: if it was actually expensive for such companies to write apps for the platforms they need to support, maybe they would open their APIs. Slack/Discord are glorified IRC messengers, I would love to have a lightweight client to use them (instead of getting a full copy of Chromium for each).
A yet there are a ton of low effort and literal fart apps on the App Store[1].