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Comment by philip1209 | Hacker News Reader

I just launched PWA support for Booklet [1].

The feedback I keep getting from users is "Wait, Apple really lets you do this?"

Push notification access outside of the App Store controls is insanely powerful. Many apps don't need to be native code - but go through the rigmarole to get access to push notifications.

I think we'll see a lot more PWAs this year, and along with that - I think Apple will start to roll back some of the features like they're doing here in the EU.

[1] https://hq.booklet.group/posts/introducing-push-notification...

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PWAs seems like can do a whole lot. What is it that they can't do these days?

I am pretty confused as to why someone would even make a native app for 99% of applications these days when you can make a PWA/Capacitor app that runs on web/android/ios all in one codebase.

Even mobile games can be run on your browser on mobile, so I am not convinced the native performance is an issue at all.

Biggest ones for me:

- Password Manager APIs

- Notification channels

- Share Targets (Android supports this, kind of)

- Widgets

> Share Targets (Android supports this, kind of)

* Chrome on Android supports that.

I think iOS supports it, too:

navigator.share({ title, text, url: url })

Doesn't look like it: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Manifest/share_...

I think the OP was talking about the opposite API. Being able to share to a PWA from other apps on the system.

To add a few:

- Ability to stay in memory for longer due to lower consumption

- Less weirdness with navigation

- More “solid” feel (less layout shifting, “flashes”, etc)

- More good practices on the default/happy path (less UX to have to think about and import libraries for)

> - Less weirdness with navigation

> - More “solid” feel (less layout shifting, “flashes”, etc)

These are the result of the frameworks chosen, not PWAs themselves. Flutter PWAs are always going to be slow and weird, but there are some real gems out there that feel and navigate like native apps.

One annoying issue: Android and iOS have different standards for things like scrolling, animations, gestures, and whatnot. Apps like Voyager (https://vger.app/) feel like native on my phone, except that something feels off because of the iOS behaviour.

Might be missing something here, but shouldn’t native scrolling behavior be obtainable by just letting the browser do its thing instead of manually managing it?

Only partially, as far as I understand it. To get the "native" scroll on iOS, you need to add a line or two of CSS (-webkit-overflow-scrolling) here and there. It's harder on the slower frameworks (Flutter etc.) where you're basically running a Javascript browser engine inside your browser, so you need to implement that behaviour manually (which usually means "wrongly").

Implementing native back button behaviour is more annoying, requiring you to hook into the browser navigation mechanism.

Shameless plug: my app Homechart (https://web.homechart.app) doesn't really have those issues (uses Mithril and extremely limited dependencies).

I just opened the link in Safari on my iPhone. I scrolled down to see the rest of the page but noticed I couldn’t scroll all the way to the bottom. I could see the bottom peek out from behind the address bar but when I let go of the scrolling it would pop back up so I couldn’t scroll fully to the bottom.

I then scrolled again and this time it worked. I then refreshed the page to try again but noticed that the page started already scrolled and I couldn’t get it to properly centered right.

After yet another refresh I was getting the original scrolling issue. I also noticed that when scrolling down the top portion of the screen is a solid white bar which looks out of place.

I say all this not to pick on you but I constantly see web devs talk about how great you can make a PWA but it is constantly all of these little oddities that make the experience feel so subpar compared to a native app.

> Capacitor

Those should have access to all features of a native app, since they are native apps containing a webview. Even if that requires some platform specific code, that's still better than completely platform specific code.

For games on the other hand, your engine should handle most of the work supporting different platforms natively, so using a native build probably makes sense for games distributed via appstores.

The biggest one for me is that customers understand Apps.

ie, if you have an App on the App Store, there's no explaining to do to the end user. Everybody with a smartphone has installed an app at some point in the past decade, they get it.

Once you move away from that and are having to explain to the user what a PWA is, that it's really the same as an App, just pin it to your home screen, etc etc, you just lose people.

Maybe you don't need to explain it that way? Maybe it's enough to say: It's a website, you can pin it to your homescreen, it will open in fullscreen mode ...

But saying "it's a website" implies that you need internet connectivity to use it. That's not necessarily a requirement for PWAs.

the mental step that is missing is that we can build "websites" that don't need internet connectivity. this is not a new feature, and not a mobile specific one either.

somehow we need to promote the concept of offline websites. or of downloadable webapps.

"click here to install this application on your desktop. it will then work offline just like any other application"

Though a website in the browser can be offline, maybe the simplest call to action would be "Use MySite offline by adding it to your home screen"

True for pwa but Capacitor is just an app on the App Store.

PWAs cannot be a share target, and on iOS so many things are done through the share many sending whatever data/image/etc. from one place to a different app. It’s a core computing paradigm on iOS and PWAs are shut out of it. Biggest blocker for me right now

> PWAs seems like can do a whole lot. What is it that they can't do these days?

A pretty good summary was posted here the other day:

https://whatpwacando.today/

> I am pretty confused as to why someone would even make a native app for 99% of applications

The install experience with PWAs is still shite. Also, the last time I checked, every browser puts the apps in a different folder on desktops, and there's no central screen that shows you ever PWA you have installed. It's hard to even find them later.

For example, on the Mac, the PWA on the above page doesn't install at all with Brave in the default configuration. There's not even an error message. Safari installs it to the Dock, not the "home screen", and so on.

PWAs are cool as hell, but the whole install process needs to be thrown away and rewritten from scratch.

1. Battery Usage - Native Apps are still better.

2. Until You can have single button Add PWA and install on Homescreen. Current PWA is still too difficult for average consumer to understand.

3. As much as I want many more PWAs, they are still not buttery smooth as Native.

I feel that by focusing on app stores the EU has overlooked the killer tech to ensure competition, openness, and to prevent lock-ins: PWAs.

It's not too late for regulators to mandate support for them.

If Apple does revert web app support, they 100% deserve more antitrust litigation.

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