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Tiny PWAs and why they don't render until you force refresh on mobile Safari. Edit: to be slightly less snarky, that was my experience of the linked site - jus

Tiny PWAs and why they don't render until you force refresh on mobile Safari. Edit: to be slightly less snarky, that was my experience of the linked site - just one long scrolling blank page. This could be a really simple HTML / CSS page. Why do it as a PWA and add more points of failure?

oneeyedpigeon 8y ago
> why do it as a PWA? Presumably, so that it can be available in his car, when there’s no network access.
- frereubu 8y ago
  I meant the site linked to here - it's done as a PWA when there was no need to, and it fails on first load on mobile Safari for some reason.
  - oneeyedpigeon 8y ago
    Ah, right. I was confused because everything worked fine for me. Although, believe it or not, after reading this comment, I went back and saw the exact behaviour you describe! (Safari, iPad)
    - taneq 8y ago
      Oh, and here was I thinking it was just advanced snarcasm. :P
  - cuddlecake 8y ago
    PWA on Safari (iOS, MacOS) ... Is not yet as progressed as one would hope.
jeroenhd 8y ago
Is it a PWA? I didn't get the normal "add to your homescreen" popup and manually adding it to my homescreen adds a bookmark instead of opening in a separate instance. I think this is just a regular old website with strange javascript libraries. The footer says it's based on Polymer and Hugo, perhaps they don't play along well with Safari? Strange how Safari still has trouble with PWAs, web applications were one of the main selling points of the original iPhone...
- extra88 8y ago
  > I didn't get the normal "add to your homescreen" popup I thought that only happened after a PWA site had been visited a few times, not on first visit. Hugo is a static site generator so that has no bearing on the page's behavior in the browser. I don't know if it's a PWA but they used Polymer in such a way that there's no content in the HTML, which is stupid. I don't think PWAs are antithetical to PWE, Progressive Web Enhancement.
- oneeyedpigeon 8y ago
  Looks like there are OS-specific oddities at play. I see an 'Add to home screen' prompt on android, it installs with a custom icon, and then opens in a chromeless browser.

oneeyedpigeon 8y ago

> why do it as a PWA? Presumably, so that it can be available in his car, when there’s no network access.

frereubu 8y ago
I meant the site linked to here - it's done as a PWA when there was no need to, and it fails on first load on mobile Safari for some reason.
- oneeyedpigeon 8y ago
  Ah, right. I was confused because everything worked fine for me. Although, believe it or not, after reading this comment, I went back and saw the exact behaviour you describe! (Safari, iPad)
  - taneq 8y ago
    Oh, and here was I thinking it was just advanced snarcasm. :P
- cuddlecake 8y ago
  PWA on Safari (iOS, MacOS) ... Is not yet as progressed as one would hope.

jeroenhd 8y ago

Is it a PWA? I didn't get the normal "add to your homescreen" popup and manually adding it to my homescreen adds a bookmark instead of opening in a separate instance. I think this is just a regular old website with strange javascript libraries. The footer says it's based on Polymer and Hugo, perhaps they don't play along well with Safari? Strange how Safari still has trouble with PWAs, web applications were one of the main selling points of the original iPhone...

extra88 8y ago
> I didn't get the normal "add to your homescreen" popup I thought that only happened after a PWA site had been visited a few times, not on first visit. Hugo is a static site generator so that has no bearing on the page's behavior in the browser. I don't know if it's a PWA but they used Polymer in such a way that there's no content in the HTML, which is stupid. I don't think PWAs are antithetical to PWE, Progressive Web Enhancement.
oneeyedpigeon 8y ago
Looks like there are OS-specific oddities at play. I see an 'Add to home screen' prompt on android, it installs with a custom icon, and then opens in a chromeless browser.