Let's be clear: that's not because users don't know how to do it. It's because Google and Apple haven't made it as easy as installing an app from their app store. That's a choice, and it's a deliberate one.
Also, Google has made in much easier in recent years to submit plain PWAs to the Play Store: https://youtu.be/ddbHp8tGBwQ
Right, because for a very long time (and maybe still) PWAs have been much closer to terrible websites than good apps. They generally don't have the same UX properties as real apps.
Remember when the iPhone first came out and web apps were the only option and they sucked balls? That never really changed. People still find mobile sites with maps that are impossible to use. They don't expect that from app store apps.
And if it's just a web site, why do you need to "install" it? A link is surely sufficient?
Really? You don't understand the value in having the PWA appear as a native app icon alongside everything else on the device?
It's a bit confusing, isn't it? "Add to home screen" makes it seem like you're just adding a link, but it's installing the PWA, possibly enabling notifications, and etc.
The point is that there are apps that can pretty much be built entirely using web technologies as PWAs, but in doing so they are no longer "just web sites" and they need functionality of installed apps, like notifications. For example, most banking apps on Android could be entirely rewritten as PWAs, but they'd need to make use of things like notifications (I don't want a random website sending me notifications, but I DO want notifications of activity on my bank account) and camera APIs (e.g. for mobile check deposit).
It basically is just a difference in use case and how most people thing about "apps" vs. "websites". If I have a long term relationship with a business, and I access its functionality frequently, I'd rather have it as an app on my homescreen.
There are benefits to having something installed. You can give anything installed the ability to send notifications.
Having to manage that permission on a per-website basis is way above the tech ability of most users.
But this is apparently difficult for "tech literate" people to grasp.
The last thing being the worst as SMS 2FA is so insecure, but SMS of your bank deposits isn't much better.
This isn't true for all apps, but with the notable exception of games, I'd say it applies to most: banking/finance apps, social media apps, travel/airline/booking apps, etc.
So two of the three parts that are native are there to make it a worse user experience?
Analytics tell developers exactly where bugs and crashes occur.
And on which devices or versions of the OS the problem is.
Without analytics it would take weeks/months to figure out exactly what line of code is causing the issue. Heck, the developers might NEVER KNOW that the software has an issue.
Apps would just keep crashing on users for years. And developers would have no idea why users were abandoning their product.
Nobody that has any idea what they're talking about would say that analytics makes for a worse user experience.
Maps require complex gestures and advanced graphics and UIs that would never work well as a PWA. Try maps.google.com. Its nothing like the Google Maps app. Plus Android Auto integration.
Tile probably needs pretty deep Bluetooth integration and background processing that the web doesn't provide.
YouTube can do things like PiP that you can't do on the web.
edit: Sorry for the snark. I think that maps are probably doable with pointer events (https://caniuse.com/?search=pointer) and Android is doing pretty well in terms of Web Bluetooth https://github.com/WebBluetoothCG/web-bluetooth/blob/main/im...
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Picture-in-...
If I request the Desktop version of YouTube, where Google doesn't hide their own Mini player button, the video continues to play in the corner.
Mapbox.js is also pretty capable.
Not really sure what you're on about TBH.
It would be trivial to present the user with a more proactive notification that a site can be installed as an app, or even include such a notice in their search results on Google, but they choose not to do so.
iOS is more difficult since user needs to understand that "saving to home screen" is same as installing "app" and there's no way to trigger it programmatically or help user in any other way than with visual illustrations.
The native share dialog is about "I have this piece of content, now share it with one of these other apps", e.g. saving a document locally, or sending it with AirDrop, or saving to Google Drive, or sending as an email attachment, etc.
Installing a site as an app on your homescreen has absolutely nothing to do with sharing content to begin with.
Go back | go forward | share | bookmarks | see all windows
Do you think there should be a separate button just for “Add to Home Screen”?
Or could you just put the standardish share icon on your page and below it say “click here and choose add to Home Screen to…”?
Is that really that much harder than to tell someone to go to the app store?
Most people know how to scroll.
One notably stupid usage of the Share option was (I believe it is no longer how it’s done) adding an image to a hidden folder — that’s something you definitely don’t want to share, yet quite easy to accidentally send to someone during this process.
It literally took a two second Google search
That's not really correct. "PWAs" actually just describe a suite of APIs, most of which Apple supports: https://firt.dev/notes/pwa-ios/.
The biggest "missing link" has been support for push notifications, which iOS 16.4 added: https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/16/23603042/apple-push-notif...
If the app is a valid PWA, it's displayed like any other app on your device. There is no browser UI, it gets its own entry in your app switcher, etc.
1. For people like you that don't want to install them, they're just a normal website.
2. For people that do want to install them for the added functionality (things like notifications), then it is easy to install, and furthermore cheaper for developers to build and maintain (one codebase instead of multiple).
You say "you have no desire to have an app", but I think for most people that's really dependent on the site/application. Yeah, for any site I just have a short term or infrequent transaction, I don't want an app either. But many/most people use apps for businesses they have long term relationships with (namely financial institutions).
In short: most devs' simulacra suck.
Check out:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Navigator/s...
The problem is not that it’s difficult, it’s that the share sheet got bloated and should be completely rethought.