Apple broke iPhone web apps in the EU for anticompetitive reasons – Tim Sweeney
techcrunch.com
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I think this will backfire on them. Downgrading their own feature offerings to spite the competition is only going to fuel more animosity by everyone: users, businesses, developers, and legislators. I feel quite firmly that their proposal to comply with the Digital Markets Act is non-compliant. The DMA requires free interoperability, and Apple has imposed a very anti-competitive fee. Once this is eliminated, developers will be free to distribute whatever native apps they wish, and at this stage there are a lot of developers who will jump to any other app store.
Actions like this and also the direction Apple is taking with SwiftUI actually makes me interested in web apps again.
It becomes worse since the gatekeepers are also those that sell us the mobile devices to access the app stores.
It comes down to marketing. As longer there isn't a largish corporation marketing alternatives to native apps, the current situation won't change much - in the short term.
is it easy to create good web UX, not... most web desgners are not real programmers and most websites are terrible, I do not really use many web apps but plenty of them might be terrible now, too
but it all comes down to the developer behind the product... if you get less native offerings in the future (there are areas where native is better, it is actually also a good bot protection to require native apps) then your good programmers simply deliver good web apps to you and it actually will be the same UX only cheaper
interestingly enough, if everybody has to pay the apple tax and it is the user who pays it in the end, developers may just stay by native, no competitive pressure
one area is that smaller innovative apps from even sole developers may never come to realisation because it is expensive to pay android and ios developers...
I just checked lichess... it is a mixed website that is not responsive (on smaller screens terrible) but uses webassembly for stockfish, that is a plus
still one of the biggest expense is 1 or 2 app developers, if they did not get 500k donations they might not even exist because of app store restrictions... that would be a loss
actually they should have just invest that money to create a responsive design and maybe some offline functionality and they could deploy "apps" on iPhones and Android and actually on all desktops... but you might just want to use lichess as tabs there, one tab for analysis, one for broadcasts etc...
that is a good example how we might lose great small projects like lichess... and why we only have 2 greats chess sites, one getting 100 million dollar from subscriptions... it is simply difficult to create a cross platform solution even if the stockfish ai is free and open source
one monopoly creates others...
Nahhh, I don't buy that.
- Sent from my iPhone
I introduced my son to neal.fun this morning and he asked "can you make this easier for me to get to?" and I was like, "sure, there's some way to pin it to the home screen."
I know this feature exists and I've even written code to support this feature ... yet I spent nearly 5 minutes looking for the button. Hiding it in the share sheet is downright stupid.
Firefox has it as a primary option on the main menu.
The reason that devs don't target or improve it is the friction Apple (and Google to a degree) they put in front of utilizing PWA/web apps.
In addition to that, Android supports PWAs in the Play Store. It supports other browsers, and doesn't restrict them from installing PWAs or providing alternate installation flows.
I really don't understand the equivalency you're drawing here. Apple are a uniquely bad guy in this respect, it's not a difference of degree, it's a difference of kind.
I imagine Google could, now that Apple is being forced to allow multiple browsers, have a 'Chrome launcher' for PWAs on iOS. It can't put it on the home screen, but it could present itself as a 'Folder' of apps, that are all web based.
my idea would be long pressing the domain (2 sec) and then standalone mode and "app" icon... like the icon appears and you drop it on your home screen (on desktop other stuff like a prompt do you want a launcher icon, a desktop icon or just integration into apps)
it is extremely universal and easy to remember, practically you grab the web domain and pack it into an icon and drop it onto your home screen or game folder on the home screen etc...
a clear, instinctive user choice... you learn it on one domain and apply it by all other
actually, you do not even need a manifest file if you have some favicon and short app name in the html...
it is just a user choice to switch to standalone mode from tab mode, aka use it as an app
it would also clear up these unnecessary buzzwords and non-standard failing wording like "progressive" "PWA" or "install"...
I understand what people meant with these words back then but it just confuses even tech people... nowadays standalone mode ("install") is orthogonal to whether the website is capable, good, progressive or whatever...
like the .fun domain is a nice game that your child tried and enjoyed, it is hopefully well written so you want to use it in standalone instead of tab mode... you do it without fear of installing anything (nothing is installed) and if everything ok you use it launching it directly from the home screen without browser UI... seemless, that is the actual idea, no need for confusing and contraproductive wording
after the first time, you just know it... I would bet 1m dollars if we made consumer group tests..
that is intuitive and easy to remember, I did not say easy to guess :)
Everyone just goes on the app store and downloads random website app. Even if it is just a browser app that renders a website.
Apple would have to eliminate something that people actually care about for any boycott Apple to happen.
So even if I would've known about HSWAs being a thing (and not just "bookmarks on the home screen", which is approximately the exact same thing, but with an address bar), I wouldn't have cared to use them. Like evidently 99.99% of people.
Yes, every thread on this has one or two people saying how badly this impacts them, yet, they are always vague about what these were used for. I have yet to see a single concrete example.
there is a fix number of good programmers...
these good programmers can create the exact same wonderful interactive pixels on your screen whether they use native or web tech, if web tech is allowed
it is the decision of the developers what they use and offer to you but again, if good developers migrate to become good web programmers in the future that you fear then you become good web apps from them, you will not even know the difference
currently, most good programmers use native languages because Apple restricts even now web tech and good programmers are payed to program in swift
you can chill since those websites and web apps you see bad were made by bad programmers not because web tech is inferior... you know, js just instructs native browsers that are native apps so actually web tech can be just the same (with better security if you use secure browsers)
if 1 million programmers create native apps and half is bad half is great and you really see a discrepancy in native vs. web itis simply because more bad than great programmers are currently "designing" web sites
good programmers will not be forced to use web tech and fail to deleiver good UX :)
As tech people we tend to see through apples "dealer" bullshit, just like car people.
Now here you all are 15 years later bemoaning what you have helped create.
They could do the same for web apps. What's been limiting them all this time is Apple policy.
Apple policy 1- PWAs on iPhone must use Safari, Safari only has features Apple chooses to implement
Apple policy 2- Add to Home Screen is hidden away
Now with DMA, Google could make its own web browser, provide all their apps as "PWAs that work with Chrome and not Safari" and people could go along with it. Heck they could even start their own app store without the apps having to follow any of Apple's "alternative distribution" rules- because they're web apps, not native apps.
I'm in favor of being able to install whatever we want on devices we own, and the DMA is a step towards that.
Same as Google shouldn't be allowed to control both Google Search and Chrome.
(And due to these and many other issues they should have been banned from operating in the EU years ago.)
EU is forcing Apple to allow alternates and Apple is doing all they can to delay and avoid, kicking and screaming.
How many apps in the app store are just webviews? I myself have paid apple to publish webview wrappers around pages because they strictly raise users to expect these, instead of the web apps they have no control over (and cannot take 30% of every transaction).
But it seems Adblock would come out of the box in a user friendly mobile operating system. I’m guessing Google, Samsung, etc aren’t much better than Apple in this regard.
What do you mean? If the browser blocks ads, they'll be blocked in the PWA too, won't they?
> As of March 2023, 31% of US adult consumers said they used an ad blocker to protect their privacy, with baby boomers (31%) being more likely than Gen Zers (27%) to use the tech, according to Tinuiti.
> As of Q3 2021, 37.0% of internet users worldwide use ad blockers, according to GWI data cited by Hootsuite. Among those, younger consumers are more likely to use ad blockers, with 25- to 34-year-olds taking the top spot. In the US, just over 50% of adults use an ad blocker on their desktop, per March 2021 CivicScience data.
No matter how much I tried nothing stuck. At one point I tried using the Twitter PWA as I could block ads, but that's about it.
It's like roasting Toyota for taking out a manual handbrake. Sure it sucks, but come on, do you really think the average Toyota owner cares their Prius has an electric e-Brake?
How would you know? Do you ask everybody?
They might not choose to limit functionality as much but Android does not have first-class support for web apps either.
Windows uses executables and msi's as programs and users know that these programs are first-class citizens. Almost nbody on mobile knows about apk's and ipa's. These systems were designed to inherently educate the user that software can only be installed via one place.
She's using an iPhone specifically because Apple doesn't go for shenanigans like multiple ways to get apps on the phone. The point is to have an App store and funnel everything through it. There is enough sensitive stuff on a phone that I'm not even sure running a full web browser is a good idea for her. "Limited capability" really is the name of the game here.
It isn't just we don't care because Apple doesn't support it. We are in fact grateful to Apple for not supporting it. This is value-add by Apple. The "App for Everything" model of interacting with iPhones is/was a brief golden age for unsophisticated users where Apple was more than earning its commission. Android phones are technically fine, if people wanted this sort of thing they would go buy Android.
there should be a way to make a phone secure (including via optionally disabling features - and giving those controls to the user, instead of being at whim and will of manufacturer), without giving up that functionality for literally everybody.
and they kinda did make something like that, didn't they tout their "senior mode" thing recently? assistive access. there's the solution. so put their phone into a "more secure" assistive access mode, or parental control mode with limited apps, and leave everybody else who actually knows how to do things to their own devices.
bottom line, even without sideloading or whatever, app store still exists, as does internet, browsers, voice calls (the regular phone ones) and sms. all run a possibility of getting scammed any way. if you're so concerned, might as well opt for a dumb phone, or no phone at all.
They shouldn't. Everyone should buy the phone that best suits their needs. That might be an Android phone or a whatever. Windows maybe. They're all good phones.
The issue is, for my family that is iPhones and people like Mr. Sweeney are trying to wheedle the EU into making iPhones worse for iPhone buyers. We don't need regulators trying to help by making iPhones worse. If you don't like what iPhones do, don't buy one. I think literally every manufacturer in the phone market has figured out how to make a great phone that looks and acts like an iPhone with minor differences.
not letting sideloading in doesn't mean that app store doesn't have its scammy apps with in-app purchases and whatever, and not allowing pwas doesn't mean that those exact same web apps aren't available via safari as a website. if those are the kinds of things, installing apps and going to websites, things that are very much available on a regular iphone, that are being deemed unsafe for somebody, an iphone is not a good fit for them.
I’ll go first - notifications. What else.
Not defending web apps or anything, but sometimes the way to a customer is through their wallet.
I'm inclined to agree.
Anecdata, but I use precisely one HSWA, VisitJapanWeb, because the mongoloids known as the Japan Digital Agency are stuck in the triassic era and can't figure out what publishing on application stores is.
Note: I'm Japanese. I get free, top dibs on trashtalking my brethren.
1. first ensure that companies may start to think strategically about putting their best to web programming (not web "designers" of flickering html screens who use css packages that are 1mb without dynamic loading and the page uses 1% of it)
2. wait 2 years
3. get the same UX (in standalone mode if you wish aka home screen web apps) via your freely chosen browser engine via the web for 100$ instead of 130$ in the App Store (some app lifetime cost, for the sake of argument)
4. see how people of the future decide :)
Before you complain about shitty websites and nobody wants web apps anyways, first ask the question whether you know any good company or developers who re-focused their resources (programmers) to abandon native programming and take all the fix cost hits for a strategy that delivers the same experience without 30% tax getting a competitive edge.
Oh, you cannot make such strategic decisions until regulators of the world force Apple to abandon anti-competitive practices? Like as you see even in 2024 there is still no clarity whether it will be possible to deliver the same standalone UX to iOS via the Web because of Apple?
Your reasoning is somewhat circular. Let alternative "app stores" like the web deliver the same standalone UX to iOS because it is hell possible with current web capabilities and every OS including macOS is capable of supporting browser sandboxing.
THEN wait 2-3-5 years so that best programmers can study the web and migrate to create the same fantastic experiences you claim by native apps.
THEN write your above comment if still applies, thanks!
btw in teams i've worked in, the app store was never the biggest source of discovery for our app. it was way more often a direct link from our website, socials or other marketing
This is always being thrown people when mentioning web app. How about let's start educating normal people outside of HN. Mozilla, Google, dump a bunch of campaign on it. Most app can be web, and don't need to be native.
https://developers.google.com/codelabs/pwa-in-play#0
My apartment's app is just a website though on iOS that's provided as a webview app, not a PWA. I know because (a) the terms of service and privacy policy all refer to the website, not the app and (b) you can just go to the website and see it's exactly the same.
Some of them think they care because they fell for apple's manipulations but they'll get over it.
At least, FetLife users do. The default group has more than 10 million members, so that's not nothing.
I can totally see how small, and/or web-ish services would prefer the PWA route, even if violating the prude Appstore's TOS wasn't their issue. Many apps in the Appstore are just wrapped webapps anyway, so why bother with Apple's shenanigans?!
Wasn't until recently, iOS didn't support web push notifications... which are quite essential for lots of devs to even consider putting resources into a PWA, I presume. So, that may be one of the reasons we don't see them more frequently yet.
Honestly, not hard to instruct users to "install" web apps. And if they've done it once, they may explore this option with other websites on their own. I think, there is good reason for Apple to be afraid of this option, as threat to their income/extortion source - cuz maybe their infrastructure isn't that important a contribution as claimed.
Your analogous dismissal: The general user doesn't really care about features like the web browser. Everyone just goes to a website and browses. Microsoft would have to eliminate something that people actually care about.
I think this is called malicious compliance. I hope the EU slaps Apple with severe penalties.
From comments I read, quite a few people want it to require free interoperability, but I don’t see how it does. I even think it sort-of explicitly allows gatekeepers to keep charging for access. The pre-amble, point 62 starts with
“For software application stores, online search engines and online social networking services listed in the designation decision, gatekeepers should publish and apply general conditions of access that should be fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory.”
so that point is about application stores. Its second paragraph starts (emphasis added)
“PRICING or other general access conditions should be considered unfair if they lead to an imbalance of rights and obligations imposed on business users or confer an advantage on the gatekeeper which is disproportionate to the service provided by the gatekeeper to business users or lead to a disadvantage for business users in providing the same or similar services as the gatekeeper.”
To me, that points to them at least considering that.
Can you point me to where https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2022/1925/oj “requires free interoperability”?
If you think article 6.7 says that, I disagree. IMO, it only talks about access to SDKs, specs of device ports, ability to make the same system calls as the applications of the gatekeeper can make, etc.
Here’s article 6.7:
“The gatekeeper shall allow providers of services and providers of hardware, free of charge, effective interoperability with, and access for the purposes of interoperability to, the same hardware and software features accessed or controlled via the operating system or virtual assistant listed in the designation decision pursuant to Article 3(9) as are available to services or hardware provided by the gatekeeper. Furthermore, the gatekeeper shall allow business users and alternative providers of services provided together with, or in support of, core platform services, free of charge, effective interoperability with, and access for the purposes of interoperability to, the same operating system, hardware or software features, regardless of whether those features are part of the operating system, as are available to, or used by, that gatekeeper when providing such services.”
The Apple App store uses SDKs + system calls to install other apps, right? So, if you're allowed to sideload your own app store it should be able to do the same freely. So, the question then becomes about sideloading which I think you're supposed to be able to do freely as well.
Said APIs can be restricted by the platform through entitlements, which are cryptographically locked APIs that must be granted access via Apple.
Sideloading may give you access to non-entitlement private APIs, or be able to use a vulnerability to give you access to those APIs without an entitlement.
More importantly, you can argue about the interpretation of that text, but in the end, it will be how the EU interprets it, and I don’t think there’s any way they ever intended it to mean “the DMA requires free interoperability”, or that they will in the future decide that to be the case.
Of course, future legislation may say different things, but that won’t make the statement true.
It doesn't mention "SDK" or "system call" anywhere in the text. A6.7 uses plain language, not technical, to require "effective interoperability." It doesn't place limitation on that, as you just implied there are. I've no doubt Apple will attempt to argue that "effective interoperability" is in fact "limited interoperability," but they will fail. The text is crystal clear on intent:
> A1.1: The purpose of this Regulation is to contribute to the proper functioning of the internal market by laying down harmonised rules ensuring for all businesses, contestable and fair markets in the digital sector across the Union where gatekeepers are present, to the benefit of business users and end users.
Charging for "effective interoperability" is clearly contrary to both the letter and spirit of this Act. It's important to remember too that the EU operates under the principle of the spirit of the law, as opposed to the U.S. which operates under the letter of the law. Judges have a very short fuse when it comes to semantic games over here.
I am heartened to read that Vestager has repeatedly urged gatekeepers to test their business plans with developers prior to the March 7 deadline, suggesting she is using the feedback of competitors to form the basis for both determining suitable compliance, and further legislative changes, for which the DMA provides swift provision.
How?
In the Apple consumer's eye, Apple can do no wrong.
The Apple consumer will always blame any problem on some other company or government.
There’s a mountain of web capabilities that Apple lead the charge and either invented the specs on, or adopted before others, on to make more native-like experiences for the web. I think things like backdrop-filter, position: sticky, and css snap points do a whole lot more to make websites feel like native app than stuff like WebMIDI.
I think there's plenty of 'malicious compliance' and pettiness in Apple's recent DMA stuff, but I do not think removing chromeless home screen bookmarks was one of them. I think they took a strict interpretation of the regulations and don't really care too much about them so just removed them.
I think Apple just has a different philosophy and priorities for their web platform, putting a higher value on privacy, performance, and efficiency than Chrome.
If I were aiming to prevent web apps from competing with my App Store, I wouldn’t be telling a bunch of highly paid engineers to directly work against that goal, much less be recruiting celebrity engineers at a premium and contributing to and creating specs that help web apps provide a more native-like experience.
Every time somebody says "I don't want vendor lock-in", they flip it to "Oh, so you don't want safety?"
But these are often false dichotomies created by Apple. Reviewing and rejecting apps for fraud and malware is great, but Apple bundled that with rejecting apps for using the word "Android" and whatever other curation they want.
Having built-in first-party subscriptions UI is safe and convenient for users, but the mobile duopoly and their control of the platform lets them charge for it whatever they want. Apple implies that allowing other payment processors means going to a dodgy website that makes unsubscribing and refunds impossible, but that's a false dichotomy Apple has created. They could require integration with iOS's subscription management APIs to use alternative payment processors (they already support PayPal as a back-end).
And this is another case where it's incredibly convenient that opening up internal APIs without safeguards to 3rd parties would be unsafe, so they haven't done it. But this is a false dichotomy – they don't have to run 3rd party browsers unsandboxed, or allow any app create homescreen icons willy-nilly. Adding to home screen is already a user gesture through the Share sheet, mediated by the OS. Browsers must be sandboxed anyway, and webapps were already allowed to run full screen.
And this isn't lack of just any feature. Apple has argued for years that App Store isn't mandatory, because anybody can just make a web app instead. That was never quite true do to Safari's limitations, but now is just a farce.
Sometimes you need safety from the vendors. Linux is the only OS that doesn't use dark patterns to make me create a cloud account.
> Instead, the scam LassPass app tries to steer you to creating a “pro” account subscription for $2/month, $10/year, or a $50 lifetime purchase. Those are actually low prices for a scam app — a lot of scammy apps try to charge like $10/week.
(emphasis mine)
He also claims, without any way to know, that "it doesn't look like this was made to steal LastPass credentials".
The whole article is very much a "yeah it sucks and shouldn't happen, but this is no big deal, really, why are you getting all up in Apple's face about it?" vibe.
Because every time I read about a new round of BS my blood boils and my attitude against Apple and other huge anticompetitive corporates just hardens.
Why? You have the option to avoid Apple completely and not have them interfere in your life what so ever, and it's an easy choice. Just don't buy their products. Your blood should boil for things that you can not easily avoid in life. You're wasting your passion on completely meaningless things. In the end, it's just phones and computers.
I’ve noticed lots of people on here scoff at that idea but I suspect that many are not gen z
If you don't stand up for principle, you lose everything. My personal loses or gains are petty and irrelevant. It's the very opposite of meaningless.
I don't know how anyone can watch a huge corporation repeatedly thumb their nose at their laws and government and not have their blood boil. You think a huge corporation trying to assert it's above the law is kosher? Just let Apple do whatever it likes? One day you will wake up and you no longer have freedoms you previously enjoyed because they were taken by a massive corporation that asserted its power over democratic institutions.
Of course, they won’t because they want money just like Apple, but if Spotify, epic etc stopped working on iOS devices Apple would consider changing their behavior.
The fact that we have a duopoly instead of a monopoly is already a miracle.
Fact is these companies whine but don’t pull their apps.
Yeah, because only 0.001% of people would own one.
Bugatti is orders of magnitude more luxury than Apple, if you look at ownership percentage; also there are many car brands versus very few OS brands; some Samsung flipphones are more expensive and in some ways more luxurious than iPhones; the comparison is silly.
The majority of people in the world use Android not Apple. The majority of the people in the world are also poor and not good marketing targets. These two groups have a Venn diagram that’s nearly a perfect circle.
more exciting is visionOS, I hope Netflix and co. NEVER make native apps and force Apple to support web browser based solutions
Smirk aside, yes I have tried Android devices before and I find them basically unusable so iOS it is for me.
Not in the EU so these changes don’t affect me, that may play a role.
I guess there are 10 types of people in this world. Those who like the iOS UI and those who don't.
therefore competition MUST be forced because (it is actually a deeper question, my microeconomy professor told us monopoly makes profit and it is the potential source of innovation, in perfect competition there is no innovation money)
because it favors us consumers in the long run not just because products become cheaper but monopolies also suppress innovation
I guess Apple was innovative and created monopolies but they should innovate from monopolistic profit and create new monopolies and let old ones gently fade away in competition... plenty of big companies become stagnant
actually Apple is withholding web innovation and plenty of cross platform innovations never were born in the last decade... nowadays even single developers can create great cross platform products via web tech
Apple could have innovated in web instead of withholding it and they would have the best web browser and they could deliver apple products on all OS
strategically it is a very bad decision to try to do the same over and over again (vision pro, closed walled garden)
they misjudged browsers, electric cars
I mean face id and optic id and eye tracking is great but we live in a world with chinese and south koreans who copy like hell or a company that is even called meta... apple is nobody in AI too... no cloud business
what else did they miss that steve has never had?
ALL OF THIS IS A NON ISSUE. All. Of. It.
These people won’t take one ounce of responsibility and not buy the damn thing.
This one is essential, at least to me. Access from the home screen is not completely blocked. I can do without notifications and local storage for my simple web apps.
A lot of other people do need 'progressive' web apps, so I understand these changes are especially nasty to them.
It's crystal clear this is just a d!ck move from Apple, so I guess it's time we need different hardware in our pockets to support fair and friendly software.
a website in standalone mode is a web "app", so web apps are not possible in Safari if the website, even if uses all the modern web capabilities, cannot get rid of the browser bar... it is a shortcut to a website in tab mode then
in addition, we still not know which web capabilities Apple plans to disallow in websites, and will it be also disallowed in competing browsers?
is offline website with service worker caching possible? it seems to be disabled according to some beta testers...
I mean for you local storage may be not important but what a disadvantage it is for web programming if Apple clears local storage without the permission of the user as they do it in Safari tabs?
the whole absence of future guarantees is one of the biggest problems, because web programming is a strategy that companies could make now to deploy good web apps in 2-3 years...
If this is the case then leaving PWAs as they stood risked bazillions in fines from the EU. No?
1. pay some macOS developers if iOS developers are that bad and implement necessary changes on a weekend since both OS are linux and macOS is capable (and they had years)
2. if Apple wants to play the oh-so-difficult card, they have to prove according to DMA why is it so much of a burden, which they cannot because it is not... still, they could have talked to EU to get an exemption to keep Safari web apps unbroken until they make the necessary changes that every web browser is ready to use web apps on iOS
what they did is to break all iOS web apps because they were only possible in Safari, fight one additional year with EU then allow them again after they lost
is not that evil? they dare this because it is only a minority of their users that uses web apps now...
I can't put it on the App Store even if I wanted to - it's for a local server so it won't pass review.
I can't just use a local debug build - those expire after a week or so.
What can I even do here?
The real solution is to stop using Apple products and use android which can do what you’re asking trivially.
PWAs are perfect for private and internal apps. In Europe, apparently quite a few healthcare providers are using PWAs to deliver patient care. Apple will be breaking those apps and destroying the stored user data without notice.
If you need notifications and the like, then you're out of luck I guess. If you don't, just add it to the home screen (it's nothing more than a link to a webpage anyway).
Not to argue in support of Apple here -- I disagree with many decisions which limit what I can do with hardware I purchase, including their “webkit only” policy. But there’s still a certain understanding about the current state of Apple products such that I find it a bit hard to sympathize with someone who bought an iphone expecting this sort of custom interoperability. (A non-technical user is far less likely to want this level of customization and a technical one really ought to know better.)
To your point, however, I do certainly hope that changes. It’d be really nice to be able to reasonably consider general purpose hardware to be practically useful for... ahem general purposes.
I don’t get this comment - why not just open the webpage in Safari? HTML / JS API do allow full screen.
A PWA will no longer open full screen and appear as a native app, it will now open as a bookmark in the browser, is my understanding.
But it should still "work" right, if it's just a webpage.
No notifications if apple have broken the notification API, but lots of sites use notifications, e.g. the pop up to enable desktop notifications for WhatsApp web, is this now broken?
And no local storage, is this referring to JavaScript session / local storage? Surely that would break lots of websites? What about cookie storage, that's not something they can just break?
Your PWA isn't going to be asleep polished, but for a simple personal dashboard I don't see the issue.
> Since Apple is being forced to allow alternative browser engines via the DMA’s requirements, the company chose not to put users at risk and instead degraded the web app experience on iOS for users in the EU. Now, web apps will function as website bookmarks — without support for local storage, badges, notifications and dedicated windowing.
But with access to a user’s camera, microphone or location. Go figure.
I'm sure there is someone out there who will buy this argument.
I personally don't use any PWAs and have never built one. When I want to target native iOS (or Android) I boot up a React Native project like a sane person. I like to attack Apple monopolistic practices as much as the next guy, but this seems overblown. PWAs seem like a red-headed stepchild of web app development and it makes sense to jettison support for them to simplify the operating system and related APIs.
Apple is not above the law... you cannot host pedofile stuff on YOUR platform because there are laws against it
heck I use a private rail company that travels on the rails built by the other state rail company thanks to EU law
they are better, have self check-in, bought double decker trains and the other train company laughed at them because these trains were designed originally for smaller distances
it is of course much more economical and this state rail company just ordered the same trains
the device and OS of Apple is like the rail tracks, people use them not Apple, and as long as they have that big marketshare they own the rails that developers MUST use
Apple would have just said no, double decker trains are not secure, everybody has to use our secure design on our rails because we protect our customers
monopoly hinders not just competitive prices but innovation too
>Addressing the complex security and privacy concerns associated with web apps using alternative browser engines would require building an entirely new integration architecture that does not currently exist in iOS and was not practical to undertake given the other demands of the DMA and the very low user adoption of Home Screen web apps.
>In short, Apple is saying it knows how to fix the problem but because it’s been burdened by having to comply with the DMA — which it noted had required “more than 600 new APIs and a wide range of developer tools” — it decided to skip fixing this one.
Would allowing web apps require apple to build 600 new APIs? Would it require other web engines to integrate with those 600 APIs before being able to launch web apps?
This should be read more as "browser developers could now finally offer PWAs 600+ APIs that Apple explicitly forbid them to offer for years".
I believe them when they say it would require a rewrite to work safely in a browser-agnostic way, but that sounds bizarrely like "complying with the law was too much work, so we chose not to".
Now they've made all App Store alternatives suck in one way or another, and fragmented between EU and non-EU markets. It's a total mess that just happens to make App Store with Apple's usual fees the best option.
Probably more like an unfunded, no value add venture.
Further, they publish all sorts of apps that other people make without inserting 600 APIs. So, no issue, almost by construction.
Apple ended this excitement recently with this news.
Tis a sad day for decentralization and the un censorship of mobile.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39388218
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39408196
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39418412
It almost felt like we have a "good enough" solution for getting something running consistently across web browsers and mobile devices (when you absolutely don't have the resources for a separate mobile codebase or per-platform codebases), in a way where it could still be like an app that can be offered on the corresponding app stores.
iOS at-least cares about user privacy but extracts a huge rent for it.
I’m just sad how botched their implementation of PWAs and web apps as first class citizen is.
Seems like Apple has run out of ideas on how to add genuine value to their userbase, so they’re resorting to rent extraction.
Honestly this just makes Epic look less awful and is clearly just good PR no matter how you look at it.
But equally speaking, Tim's company heavily relies on locked down operating systems which restrict user freedoms.
It's the reason their anti-cheat comes with major caveats when enabled for Linux.
Most of them are loyal to apple, and have worked there long term.
Apple takes good care of its "regular people" in the states.
In any case, my comment was a little tongue in cheek.
Not only are they loyal, they are sharp and know their stuff.
Apple taxes everyone (devs', users etc) and pays staff well, (living wage all that) and makes a ton of money.
It's a tragedy of biblical proportions.