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Comment by sfryxell | Hacker News Reader

Here we are, being monopoly fucked right in the face.

https://realness.online is my PWA only application, So, I've got a front row seat to apple's monopoly fulcrum killing all desenters.

if you install https://whatpwacando.today/ on a phone or ipad today you can see how they already barely support standards.

Only basic things work. filesystem access is only halfway. no Contact picker, no background sync. They will destroy the user experience for everyone in order to disable other browsers more robust implementations of the spec.

They have been monopoly gaming us for years The EU is forcing them to go out in the open with it

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Why should websites, which are the least trusted form of code, be allowed to get filesystem access or contacts?

We all know that nontechnical users click through those and won’t understand the risks. So how do browser devs deal with the ethics? “Our browser presented them a dialog, not our fault, they should have read it?” We know many won’t, I don’t care whose fault it is if I’m in that address book.

If we want to imagine a world where websites have equivalent capabilities to native apps, first imagine a world where people install hundreds of new random native apps every day, both unreviewed and unsigned. Or, accept Microsoft requiring each website publisher to verify their identity with MS and sign their sites, like app developers? What’s the solution to avoid rolling back the security model 10-15 years?

This argument is not new - "they don't know any better than us" is what was used to deny the poor, the minorities and woman their right to vote for a long time. And these rights were won after a hard struggle. Apple also shouldn't be allowed to take away our consumer right with similar fear mongering. A balance where the user is in control of the device they rightfully own versus protecting the technologically illiterate from their own ignorance is possible. Just because some alcoholics ruin their own lives or even others with their addiction isn't a good excuse to ban alcohol for everyone. Just because terrorists are able to exploit a weakness in internal security, and cause harm to the State doesn't mean that the State can demand that everyone should blindly give up all their rights to a nanny state for "security". It's all about finding the right balance.

Right now Apple devices don't offer that and violate our consumer rights by limiting and dictating what software we can run on it. It also uses this control to exploit us - by forcing us to install software only from the app store, we are unnecessarily forced to pay extra for every paid software because Apple expects a hefty app store commission on it.

> Just because terrorists are able to exploit a weakness in internal security, and cause harm to the State doesn't mean that the State can demand that everyone should blindly give up all their rights to a nanny state for "security".

Tell me you haven't been through an airport post-2001 without telling me.

I'm happy to earn your trust. Apple makes that impossible for me to do.

It's on demand contact pickers and file pickers, not indiscriminate access to all your contacts and files, where do you have that from?

technically nothing is installed, it is just bad wording and bad decision to call it install... just standalone mode with an app button

what is "installed" is js, css, html etc. files downloaded the second you go to a web site, service workers are silently "installed" before and without "install web app"...

so if your device survived the last 10-30 years having "installed" thousands of websites already then you will stay safe if your favourite monopoly after 3 years of prolonging app store revenue hit finally lets you run your website standalone and with the push of a button

you can run LastPass native clones on ios store but really, you should not run a chrome/firefox native code (from Google, Mozilla) that is governed by an open source readable js code that a service worker is?

the whole web app is a website run in standalone by the browser without browser UI and with access to some things IF you say so... and of course competition is that safari will not let web bluetooth or file picker or whatever and if people learn that another chrome feature led to this big security issue they will use safari...

The right for entrepreneurs to make a profit trumps users’ rights to privacy and security.

So your complaint is essentially "Safari doesn't default enable a bunch of experimental features and doesn't blindly adopt whatever half-assed features Google pushes".

Looking at the CanIUse stats for the features you complained about made me wonder if your whole post is meant to be sarcastic.

- the contacts api spec is draft, and can be enabled as an experimental feature in Safari 17

- the file system access api is a Google-sponsored draft and not "fully supported" by any browser; Safari and chrome both support the same thing on mobile: "Origin private file system".

- the background sync api is yet another Google-sponsored unofficial draft.

I should be allowed to build a relationship of trust with my customers without a walled garden. Apple isn't keeping you safe they are keeping you to themselves

That doesn't respond to my comment, at all.

I didn't even read it. You conflated spec adoption with developer need.

please do not call it install, nothing is installed, it switches to standalone mode and you can start it from the os directly (app button etc) very bad wording... all that is to "install" has long been downloaded and was "installed" before the thingy you call install will be triggered... this wording must go and better when we IT people start with it...

Android exists.

As a long time user of both operating systems - this doesn't help the discussion. Large numbers of users are brand loyal, so only targeting one OS removes huge swathes of potential customers from your business as a publisher.

It helps from law point of view.

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