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Comment by scarface_74 | Hacker News Reader

Yes, because if Safari was as good at supporting PWAs as Android and Chrome you would see developers abandoning the App Store in droves for PWAs like how they decide not to create apps for Android and just use PWAs…

This is especially true for the pay to win games where 90% of App Store revenue comes from. That’s why most game app developers choose to use PWAs to avoid the “Google tax”.

Wait…none of that is true today. The year of the PWA is the new “year of Linux on the desktop”.

No user is asking for web apps anymore than they are clamoring for the next great Electron app on the desktop

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Electron is a useful hack with the same resource problems as Chrome rather than an ideal solution.

More the point though, PWAs are part of the existing web ecosystem. Apple has dragged its heels bringing Safari and their Webview up to spec on anything that might damage the AppStore ecosystem for years. They've also forced browser developers to use their webview instead of the browser's engines and has kept the API broken for functionality which they support in Safari - I mean try running a webrtc application in both safari and either chrome or firefox on iOS and see the problems.

By enforcing the Webview on everyone they also ensure that all web developers need to have a mac to debug Safari specific issues that happen on a level unseen since IE7.

The EU is simply telling Apple they can't leverage this anti-competitive behaviour, just like they rightly did for Microsoft in the 90s and Apple are just trying to salt the earth in the EU. It's a joke

And you still didn’t dispute anything I said. If it’s only Apple keeping the wonderful world of PWAs back, why are the same companies that create iOS apps creating Android apps instead of just creating a PWA?

Reason 1: This would confuse users.

Reason 2: it's easier to use a tool like Cordova and create an Android and iOS app.

It would confuse all of the users that have both Android and iOS phones???

> The year of the PWA is the new “year of Linux on the desktop”.

Because Apple, a large part of the market, are actively fighting to stop it.

> No user is asking for web apps

And they shouldn't. They should not have to care if their app is a PWA or not. Developers need to care so they use the right tool for the job (native if they need the benefits offered by that, such as a performance boost or device wide access, PWA in most other cases where cross-platform concerns are more important than that) but the user shouldn't have to clamour for either.

So because Apple ID fighting it, companies aren’t creating PWAs for Android to avoid the “Google tax”?

Cross platform concerns and worse performance are never a benefit to the user.

Firstly, I said absolutely nothing about any “Google Tax”. If companies are creating PWAs to avoid appstore tax are doing it to avoid Apple Tax as well as Google Tax. I ignored that straw man in your previous post.

The problem is developers who want to easily create cross-platform apps and games, who are finding it harder to do so because Apple won't let them, because the tool they want to use might reduce Apple's ability to unfairly tax developers.

Apple tax is the why. Apple potentially inconveniencing everyone by breaking existing features in a hissy-fit is the how.

It’s not a straw man at all. The main motivation according to people on HN is creating a PWA helps avoid the “Apple tax”.

If PWAs are good enough on Android, why wouldn’t developers be motivated to avoid the “Google tax” even if they couldn’t avoid the Apple tax?

On that same note, since most companies create a website anyway, why not just tell Android users to use a web app instead of also creating an Android app?

And as far as games, most game makers make money from in app purchases of loot boxes and coins for pay to win games (this came out in the various Epic vs Apple trials). As much as they whine about the “Apple tax” they love having direct access to whale’s wallets via in app purchases.

And no they aren’t just going to get users to fork over their credit cards to random sites and there are plenty of people especially kids who have access to the in app purchasing mechanism who don’t have access to credit cards.

What point are you actually trying to make? That because some people might not want to create PWAs you think it is OK for Apple to break the existing functionality for everybody in order to flip the bird at the EU?

It’s not just “some” people. Given a choice, to the first approximation, no one is leaving the Google Play store in favor of PWAs even though theoretically PWAs are so great on Android and that developers could avoid creating apps for the web and Android and avoid the “Google tax”.

Apple is not going to lose revenue even if did have perfect PWA support since most of its money from the App Store comes from pay to win games that wouldn’t monetize nearly as well.

Apple doesn’t care enough about PWAs because users don’t care.

> Apple doesn’t care enough about PWAs because users don’t care.

Maybe you are right.

But what is a PWA?

Maybe I have special website and users can configure Bluetooth devices via that page. No need to install a native App, no need for pwa.

All you need is a browser which supports the latest specs.

Most people can't image what could be possible without installing a native App.

We only know what we are used to. Much more could be possible without the need for native apps.

I am deeply relaxed, I am old. Hypes come and hypes go. The current hype for native apps will decline. The web is the only universal platform.

Well in the case of Bluetooth, both Mozilla and Apple said they wouldn’t support the API for privacy reasons.

https://caniuse.com/web-bluetooth

And even with Chrome, much of the support is behind flags.

As far as universal platform - if you’re that old, you should know how much “universal platforms” for GUI apps have sucked since Java Swing.

You should also know how every mobile platform has said at one point that you can “build great apps with web technologies” - Rim, Palm, Microsoft, Android and even Apple - and they have all failed and sucked.

You seem very determined to make this matter of Apple breaking existing features and accepted standards, into an issue about Google…

Again you have failed to state what relevance one set of devs not wanting to use PWAs has on anyone else who might want to use them, you've just restated your previous case that some people don't want to use them.

> Apple doesn’t care enough about PWAs because users don’t care.

As already stated in response to your previous statement about users not caring: the users shouldn't need to care if the developers are free to choose the right tool for their task (native application or PWA) and platforms implement those options well.

Apple should care about PWAs if it cares at all about providing a standards compliant environment. It certainly seems to care enough to try to derail them as a petty consequence of being told to do something they don't want to do.

It’s not an issue for Google at all. It’s an issue that as I said to a first approximation no one cares about PWAs. If PWAs were so compelling and if it were only Apple holding adoption back, why aren’t they more popular on Android - 70% of the market?

If absolutely no one cares about PWAs, is this entirely thread, and those elsewhere, a figment of my imagination?

> as I said to a first approximation no one cares about PWAs

What you said was that no users care. That is fine: users shouldn't need to care. Users don't need to care about such implementation details if developers are free to choose the best tool for the job.

> why aren’t they more popular on Android - 70% of the market?

Largely because the apps have already been developed and there is no point rewriting for new tech just for its own sake. And for things like games (the main thing that has been mentioned here as not being done as PWAs ATM) a PWA might not be the best tool for the job as native can give better performance in some areas.

PWAs are more attractive for new projects, and those that don't need to take advantage of being closer to the hardware.

Apple is attempting to leverage its position as a platform holder, as it always has, by threatening the open web. It's APIs to support the web platform are shockingly, even purposely, terrible and it uses it's app developer licence to ensure that open development cannot happen on its closed OS. Worse, it doesn't even play on an even playing field, as it ensures that the WebView that developers are required to use is less up to date than the already poor Safari browser on iOS. This is anti-competitive and is the way Apple has always operated.

The EU has enacted its laws to protect users and developers working with the platform from these limitations. PWAs are just a part of it (see per install charges, WebView limitations, Apple malicious compliance). It's pretty obvious that Apple will not allow its AppStore cash cow to be tampered with so they will need to be strongarmed.

Well, first it came out in the Epic trial that 90% of App Store revenue comes from games and in app purchases. Those companies aren’t going to move to the web because they want the direct access to users wallets that they get from the in app purchase mechanisms.

People aren’t as willing to put their credit card on random sites and people have access to pay via in app purchases that don’t have access to credit cards.

But you still didn’t answer the question, if it were just Apple, then why aren’t companies abandoning the Google Plau Store in droves and just creating PWAs that will work on Android devices and PCs and avoid the “Google tax”?

It isn't about abandoning the app stores, it's about offering reasonable alternatives, whether they be alternative app stores or first class web apps. There's definitely reasons to create native apps, which is why Apple created the AppStore in the first place (we all know that when the iPhone launched, it was only web apps), heavy graphics games being a big one, but simply removing existing functionality in response to being forced to allow these alternatives is just Apple throwing the dummy out of the pram.

For the record, Google has always allowed alternative app stores, browser engines and PWAs and has not suffered much in terms of financial loss but they are used to playing on the open web whereas Apple's financial model is more like Microsoft's (at least in software)

Well, there is an existence proof by the lack of PWA adoption on Android and that companies aren’t forgoing the expense of creating native Android apps, that PWAs aren’t a “reasonable alternative” today on either platform.

Every single person I know with an Android phone has a webapp bookmark on their homescreen.

Your experiences are not everyone else's.

So you are going to compare “every person you know” to the fact that hardly any company or app developer is exclusively creating an iOS app and telling Android users just use the web since PWA support is so good?

You really don't get how the human emotion plays into this, huh?

Happy to break it down.

iOS user installs your service's app. Android user wants to then install one-click Google Play Store, feels like a second-class citizen if they're instead directed to find a URL to log in, forced to create their own bookmark....

By focusing marketing on the App Store, and "Apps", which led to those goofy badges (App Store, Play Store, now Samsung/Amazon App Store sometimes), Apple made native apps "the thing". If you don't have those badges on your site or in your ad, you're not signaling you're "real".

But it's just a social trend, at the end of the day.

We can make the app's functionality the same, or better, wherever we want. Even in Safari gulp.

So you’re saying that the PWA experience isn’t as good as a native app and conversion isn’t as high even on Android….

Neither platform has really given the concept a fair shake, though the Android and Google side are much fairer.

I'm saying there's adoption of these features regardless. Because it's still better than not having those three status pages as homescreen bookmarks.

Link, bookmark, and to home screen not needed. Pwas can be installed from the store... Native has zero arguments except if ya really need something the web can't do or if you're a bad dev.

Users don't know or care where they get their apps from. Web vs native, they don't care.

If letting PWAs be made better and cheaper... users will benefit.

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