Don't upload your PWA to the app stores
kevinbasset.medium.com
kevinbasset.medium.com
So for me, I publish to the Play Store to get some free users who find my app that way. App Store, not worth the headache of trying to skirt Apple's rules.
Ideally I think app stores should allow listing PWAs directly, rather than banning them (like Apple) or forcing them to use a wrapper (like Google). Whatever complaints people have about that (app can change without review, etc) also apply to the current situation in the Play Store. Once your wrapper PWA is accepted, you can change the website however you want. So what's the point of the wrapper?
I think it’d be a bit of a challenge — in both ecosystems, corporate MDM and parental controls currently define policies to control app installation by store-specific metadata. You’d need equivalent PWA standards these OSes could grab ahold of, to determine which PWAs to allow installation of, or to surface in app discovery views in the store. (Probably it’s be something akin to the old https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_for_Internet_Conten... system, but probably reworked now that we actually know what things people care about preventing their kids — or employees — from accessing online.)
Which in turn, to support the spirit of PWAs as a vendor-neutral “web thing” — means that the OSes would need to agree on what exactly the set of content rating controls are that they’re allowing administrators to define policies against. I.e. the stores would need a more-unified data model; perhaps even an externally standardized one.
They could ask for whatever extra metadata they need upon submission of the URL to the app store. Or standardize it so we could just put it in some JSON file.
It's like those people who use 2FA TOTP functionality along with the password managers. My friend, that defeats the whole purpose of 2FA. It's not just supposed to be an extra step, it is supposed to be isolated in another device from where your passwords are not. And 2FA's are NOT supposed to be in the cloud.
But this will happen. Because VC's will tell them to do this. And thus people it will eventually become a norm. sighs
It defeats _one_ of the purposes, and if that's not _your_ purpose, than it's acceptable to you. One of the purposes of 2FA is to stop randos in non-extraditable-country-x hacking your account by attacking just your password.
What it doesn't cover is protection from having your machine compromised, since as you've pointed out, everything is in once place (in memory if the password manager is unlocked). For me that's an acceptable risk-to-convenience trade, since I'm in much bigger trouble if my machine is compromised anyway.
Like, if you were considering buying an office product, would you buy the one that’s available in the App Store and online, or the one that’s not on the App Store?
It really depends on your app, but many mobile users just search for stuff in Play Store first before searching on Google, and even Googling it will help as you will get a widget about your app (sometimes). The web version is (for the most popular queries) on average 1.6th in Google results.
Although the dataset may not be very large (10k+ installs shown on Play Store page).
this is an ad.
> 1. This won’t get new users
App Stores are still a discovery mechanism and it's a pain teaching users how to add them to their home screen vs. just linking to an App Store entry.
> 3. It defeats the whole purpose
There's times to take on the world and times to join it, and the current trend is to put them in the App Store. I don't know how many companies starting out can afford to wait for the world to change on this.
> 4. PWAs don’t belong there
Incredibly subjective.
> 5. App stores aren’t more convenient
...huh? Users are already familiar with the flow to open an app store and search for a company. Users are generally not familiar with adding a bookmark of a PWA to their home screens.
this was not a blog post.
1. Organic app store traffic is non-zero, particularly in markets with less tech-savvy users. People do search app stores for apps to solve problems they have. Also it's a marketing channel (like any other performance marketing channel) that you can bid on and spread marketing across, more channels typically means lower business risk.
2. Yes there are horror stories, but apart from the HEY story (which comes with a dose of DHH caveats), many policies are things like needing a privacy policy, or needing account deletion functionality. If you can't meet these sorts of requirements for an app store I think there's often a deeper problem for users (although I recognise this is not always the case, legitimate issues do slip through cracks in my non-Google experience).
3. This is web idealism. I agree in principle, but the world doesn't work this way.
4. I don't think the sort of modern, good PWA is what Apple envisioned when they said "don't repackage your website". If an average user can't tell the difference, Apple won't care. And that statement from the MS open source project does not appear to be from a user with any actual association with MS or the project, it's a random GitHub comment.
5. App stores are more convenient, anyone making this claim is either being dishonest, or has no idea of the average level of technical ability of a mobile user.
6. This is a legitimate point and a blog post structured around this as the main point would be a much stronger argument.
7. Cool. But why not both?
8. Sure it's more work but like anything, it needs trading-off with the business opportunity of being on an app store.
9. ChatGPT is on the App Store and has been very successful there. Wordle famously got cloned by a number of app store devs who made a ton of money before getting called out for it.
10. Advert.
From his public persona, I have little confidence that DHH can play the necessary part in those discussions, and therefore I assume that he gets worse overall outcomes and his experiences are therefore not representative or useful to most.