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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Some of them think they care because they fell for apple's manipulations but they'll get over it.
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'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.