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Comment by hpen | Hacker News Reader

Hot take: Apple is keeping app quality high by pushing out PWAs (which are just a way for developers to have an easier time, but not a better product).

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And Microsoft was improving the quality of web-content with ActiveX! How dare we shun their positive influence, all they ever wanted was developers to pay them money to sign their software for them.

Ha, I mean as a user the native iOS app is far superior to whatever Microsoft was pushing

As a user, I don't think you have the right to say that for certain unless the two platforms actually compete with each other. iOS does not offer PWAs a good-faith opportunity to compete.

On Mac, where PWAs and Electron apps are also very common, there are still native Mac apps getting made. They're usually expensive, outdated, and left to die on the App Store, but they do exist. Most of them are a testament to how fragile and unsustainable native app development is, given the choice.

It's not about that. Native is a more capable platform period. More performant, more permissions, etc. I get that a PWA makes sense for a startup or whatever but it's not for a better product it's for a cheaper product.

Apple pushes out PWAs because they can't make 30% revenue from them, and would rather developers write apps for their platform where Apple can make more money. It's a total money grab, which is why they forbid any other browser engine on iOS and force Safari on every browser app.

That may be the primary reason but I'm referring to a side product

I personally find PWAs to be an objectively worse experience for even run of the mill brochureware apps. That said, i also believe consumers should be allowed to make that choice for themselves.

If this was true then why is the only way to get proper push notifications in a PWA to deploy your app to the App Store in a web view?

Safari PWAs support web push. Not only does Safari support it, but they're first-class notifications in iOS — they show on the Lock Screen, in Notification Center, and on a paired Apple Watch.

I don't see how you can call it first-class when they don't support sound or vibration? Completely useless for anything that actually relies on push notifications.

I'm surprised you'd double down before trying it, or at least Googling it first.

Web push notifications are first-class notifications. They support sound and vibration. Standard notification badges appear on their app icon. PWAs that use them appear in Settings > Notifications. Users get exactly the same controls over them that they do native apps. Etc. https://imgur.com/a/Ofg6oxo

Try it yourself: https://progressier.com/pwa-capabilities/push-notifications

I did Google it. Maybe it's changed more recently but shouldn't have ever been released like that.

There's also concerns about PWAs on iOS in the EU. For a bit of time it was looking like you would no longer be able to add websites to your home screen, so maybe no more PWA push notifications?

Not a stable foundation to build a PWA on. If it ever does get better I would love to get rid of React Native and just have a PWA.

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