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I’m guessing that Apple will start hindering web apps because the new mouse support in iPadOS is going to be such a boon to web apps. Because of sandboxing, web

I’m guessing that Apple will start hindering web apps because the new mouse support in iPadOS is going to be such a boon to web apps. Because of sandboxing, web apps are the only cross-platform apps that can run in their full versions on iPadOS. I wrote a quick summary of the situation[0]. Therefore, since native apps are more of a platform differentiator than web apps, moving forward we can expect Apple to start systemically hindering web apps, especially on ones that are good on iPadOS, in order to boost native apps. (I’m not saying this necessarily the start of this, but I am saying I'm not surprised. This is exactly the type change, targeting the exact type of app I’d expect to be targeted.) [0]: https://blog.robenkleene.com/2020/03/20/ipadoss-new-mouse-support-will-benefit-web-apps/ https://blog.robenkleene.com/2020/03/20/ipadoss-new-mouse-su...

cageface 7y ago
moving forward we can expect Apple to start systemically hindering web apps They have been doing this for quite some time now. Always ostensibly to protect users but always also conveniently putting webapps at a permanent disadvantage to native apps. For my part I'm not interested in being a user of a platform so hostile to the web that it disallows any third party browsers.
- fpoling 7y ago
  Apple disallows third-party web rendering engines. Google Chrome on iOS uses own networking stack. It is still a significant restriction, but it is rather understandable. Without it it could be just Blink everywhere at this point.
  - lern_too_spel 7y ago
    > Without it it could be just Blink everywhere at this point. In what reality-distortioned universe is that worse than having a crippled web?
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      Please don't call anything that's not Blink "a crippled web".
      - jamiesonbecker 7y ago
        I believe that OP is saying it would be preferable to have blink-everywhere than to have a deliberately-crippled Apple web browser with all other choices banned.
        soapdog 7y ago
        I'm the OP and I am a Mozilla volunteer. I prefer a web with many engines, I want it to have WebKit, Blink, Gecko and more.
        jamiesonbecker 7y ago
        Agreed. There is no choice with IOS: you choose the same WebKit that they've chosen, or Safari. One engine and version, or one browser using that one engine.
        millstone 7y ago
        Android is a web monoculture too. Non-Blink browsers on Android are at <1%.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
        searchableguy 7y ago
        You can install any browser you want from playstore or outside of playstore. There are no restrictions on what you can and cannot have on your phone on android.
        7y ago
  - cageface 7y ago
    So it's not about what's best for the user but what's best for Apple? I wouldn't call that "understandable". All this is doing is contributing to webkit monoculture.
    - Spivak 7y ago
      There's some irony that Apple forcing the use of Safari on iOS is creating a monoculture when, were the restriction lifted, everyone would be using Chrome.
      - cageface 7y ago
        If so it would be because users chose it and it would also help keep Firefox in the game which important to the long term health of the web.
      - zimpenfish 7y ago
        > everyone would be using Chrome. I'd be amazed if there were more than a tiny fraction of iOS/iPadOS users (of which there are hundreds of millions) who weren't perfectly ok with Mobile Safari for their everyday usage. [I'm probably the "target market" for Chrome (backend, occasionally frontend developer) and there's no way I'd have it on my phone. I only suffer the GMail app because they've made IMAP usage of gmail unreliable.]
        kitsunesoba 7y ago
        It doesn’t matter what users choose, devs would badger users into using Chrome for their own convenience. It’d be the return of the “viewed best in” badges from the late 90s and early 00s.
    - TheKarateKid 7y ago
      Remember, making everything a web app is Google's agenda because they benefit most from it.
      - NightlyDev 7y ago
- wildduck 7y ago
  One can always rely on cordova/phonegap type of app with a C++ plugin to address this issue. Personally, not having web app storing large amount of data is a good thing.
- tomp 7y ago
  Technically it's disallowing third-party JITs / executable data. Which is a good thing all-in-all.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    Eh, I'm not completely sold on that.
  - madeofpalk 7y ago
    Actually the guidelines specifically ban non-webkit rendering engines. > 2.5.6 Apps that browse the web must use the appropriate WebKit framework and WebKit Javascript.
    - tyree731 7y ago
      At a minimum we can be thankful that Apple's rules force web developers to care about one additional browser.
      - NightlyDev 7y ago
        Lucky us. We web developers really want to care about specific browsers like it's 2006 again. IE6 must have been a great inspiration for Apple judging by their behaviour when it comes to Web.
- TheKarateKid 7y ago
  > Always ostensibly to protect users but always also conveniently putting webapps at a permanent disadvantage to native apps. This isn't always a bad thing though. For example, Safari has prohibited some obnoxious behavior that Chrome has allowed: Autoplaying videos, tab suspension, push notifications. These hog CPU and destroy battery life, worsening the user experience. Remember, making everything a web app is Google's agenda because they benefit most from it.
  - estreeper 7y ago
    I would just point out there are very valid use cases for these things, i.e. push notifications are very useful to me (from certain apps). The problem is one of consent.
  - dzhiurgis 7y ago
    MacOS Safari autoplays YouTube videos with now way to disable...
    - Gaelan 7y ago
      Interesting. I can tell Safari to not autoplay videos on YouTube in its preferences, but that doesn't seem to do anything. Seems more like a bug on Safari's part and/or workaround on Google's part than anything deliberate.
      - dzhiurgis 7y ago
        You mean Safari team accidentally forgot to test a video feature on a largest video website?
      - TheKarateKid 7y ago
        Safari uses some sort of algorithm to determine whether you actually want the autoplay to happen. For example I've noticed that if you play a video on a website during that session, it will allow autoplay from scripts on that page (not 3rd party) for the rest of that session. Same for unmuting an autoplaying video. This is all undocumented though and through personal observations, as Apple seemed to stop posting Safari documentation years ago.
ChrisMarshallNY 7y ago
As a native app developer, I can live with this.
- OzzyB 7y ago
  As long as you start refering to the "i" in "iPhone" as Intranet and not ~Internet~ then we're cool.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 7y ago
    I have nothing against hybrid apps. In many use cases, they are the best approach, and I have often declined business, in recommending them to others, as opposed to what I can do. My post was not an attack on anyone or anything, and it was not being snarky. All I said was that I develop native apps, and that this policy does not affect me. I like developing native apps. I've been writing native Apple software for 34 years. It's not really difficult; just different. I have also been developing "Internet" software, of all kinds (full stack), since before the WWW. Using Apple stuff. It certainly can be done.
  - 72deluxe 7y ago
    My iPod Classic has no intranet or internet. What does the "i" mean in that case???
    - OzzyB 7y ago
      iPod was that Harddrive MP3 Player that piggybacked on the MP3 download craze people were doing on the internet, obviously.
      - 72deluxe 7y ago
        Ha! Thanks! I had never thought of that!! I wonder if that same idea came into naming the iMac then??
  - Macha 7y ago
    The Internet Phone was the Cisco iPhone, not the Apple iPhone
Veen 7y ago
If this were true, how would you explain the recent improvements to Safari on the iPad that make it as capable as desktop Safari. Until last year Google Docs did not work in Safari on the iPad. Now it works very well indeed. The same is true of most web apps.
- diggan 7y ago
  This particular move takes something that is possible in web applications today and makes it not possible in the future (offline capable frontend-only applications), making the gap between native applications and browser applications further, so developers who need to build apps that works offline on iPhone, will only be able to use Apples own technologies for doing so, in a non-cross-platform way. Which in general, is what Apple always been favoring. Google Docs doesn't really work offline, so it's not impacted by this change. Could also be a change of heart from Apple, since their stance on web applications have changed before.
  - Veen 7y ago
    It could also be exactly what they say it is: a way to prevent the abuse of local storage for tracking.
    - diggan 7y ago
      People who want to track users will always find a way to do so, it's a endless cat-and-mouse game. Now they will just use cookies instead... The only way to win this is to legislate away the freedom to track users by using privacy-invasive methods. That's the only way that will work long-term. But that'll make half of the internet industry disappear, along with it's shareholders, so it's unlikely to happen.
      - cwzwarich 7y ago
        > People who want to track users will always find a way to do so, it's a endless cat-and-mouse game. Now they will just use cookies instead... Isn't the new policy for local storage being copied from an existing policy for cookies? How can they switch to cookies?
madeofpalk 7y ago
> I’m guessing that Apple will start hindering web apps because the new mouse support in iPadOS is going to be such a boon to web apps. As a web developer, I've never believed Apple has hindered web development on their platform, purposefully or not. They just don't spend their resources adding in WebBluetooth or whatever new API-of-the-day Google has decided to come up with. As I see it, their focus is on the user, which is why they've been slow to adopt APIs that are privacy concerns, or drain battery, or have other negative implications.
- untog 7y ago
  That’s a very rosy way of looking at it. iOS has had bugs with its “add to home screen” webapps that kicked around literally for years. If they were being “user first” they’d support it fully or not support it at all. Instead they implemented then neglected it.
  - machello13 7y ago
    How many users even know or care about that feature?
    - untog 7y ago
      How is that relevant to the conversation? If it is so little-used as to be irrelevant then the user-first thing to do would be to remove the functionality but Apple haven’t. I can speak from personal experience that users do use it when you include specific instructions on how to use it. And it’s used in a number of corporate settings for installing webapps on an iPad.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
    - dirkgently 7y ago
      Once you take your head out of that iAss, you may see how defensive and idiotic your comment is.
saagarjha 7y ago
The people who work on making websites function better on iPad are literally a 20 second walk away from the people who work in Intelligent Tracking Prevention–do you really think that they'd seek to undermine each other in this way?
- LocalPCGuy 7y ago
  Absolutely, do you have evidence they are talking and consulting with each other? Obviously lack of evidence isn't evidence either, but departments do things all the time that are at odds with each other in companies like Apple.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    > Absolutely, do you have evidence they are talking and consulting with each other? Firsthand.
_bxg1 7y ago
Which is strange, because they're already under scrutiny for being anti-competitive WRT their app ecosystem. Having good support for web apps could've softened that case a little bit.

cageface 7y ago

moving forward we can expect Apple to start systemically hindering web apps They have been doing this for quite some time now. Always ostensibly to protect users but always also conveniently putting webapps at a permanent disadvantage to native apps. For my part I'm not interested in being a user of a platform so hostile to the web that it disallows any third party browsers.

fpoling 7y ago
Apple disallows third-party web rendering engines. Google Chrome on iOS uses own networking stack. It is still a significant restriction, but it is rather understandable. Without it it could be just Blink everywhere at this point.
- lern_too_spel 7y ago
  > Without it it could be just Blink everywhere at this point. In what reality-distortioned universe is that worse than having a crippled web?
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    Please don't call anything that's not Blink "a crippled web".
    - jamiesonbecker 7y ago
      I believe that OP is saying it would be preferable to have blink-everywhere than to have a deliberately-crippled Apple web browser with all other choices banned.
      - soapdog 7y ago
        I'm the OP and I am a Mozilla volunteer. I prefer a web with many engines, I want it to have WebKit, Blink, Gecko and more.
        jamiesonbecker 7y ago
        Agreed. There is no choice with IOS: you choose the same WebKit that they've chosen, or Safari. One engine and version, or one browser using that one engine.
        millstone 7y ago
        Android is a web monoculture too. Non-Blink browsers on Android are at <1%.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
        searchableguy 7y ago
        You can install any browser you want from playstore or outside of playstore. There are no restrictions on what you can and cannot have on your phone on android.
        7y ago
- cageface 7y ago
  So it's not about what's best for the user but what's best for Apple? I wouldn't call that "understandable". All this is doing is contributing to webkit monoculture.
  - Spivak 7y ago
    There's some irony that Apple forcing the use of Safari on iOS is creating a monoculture when, were the restriction lifted, everyone would be using Chrome.
    - cageface 7y ago
      If so it would be because users chose it and it would also help keep Firefox in the game which important to the long term health of the web.
    - zimpenfish 7y ago
      > everyone would be using Chrome. I'd be amazed if there were more than a tiny fraction of iOS/iPadOS users (of which there are hundreds of millions) who weren't perfectly ok with Mobile Safari for their everyday usage. [I'm probably the "target market" for Chrome (backend, occasionally frontend developer) and there's no way I'd have it on my phone. I only suffer the GMail app because they've made IMAP usage of gmail unreliable.]
      - kitsunesoba 7y ago
        It doesn’t matter what users choose, devs would badger users into using Chrome for their own convenience. It’d be the return of the “viewed best in” badges from the late 90s and early 00s.
  - TheKarateKid 7y ago
    Remember, making everything a web app is Google's agenda because they benefit most from it.
    - NightlyDev 7y ago
wildduck 7y ago
One can always rely on cordova/phonegap type of app with a C++ plugin to address this issue. Personally, not having web app storing large amount of data is a good thing.
tomp 7y ago
Technically it's disallowing third-party JITs / executable data. Which is a good thing all-in-all.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Eh, I'm not completely sold on that.
- madeofpalk 7y ago
  Actually the guidelines specifically ban non-webkit rendering engines. > 2.5.6 Apps that browse the web must use the appropriate WebKit framework and WebKit Javascript.
  - tyree731 7y ago
    At a minimum we can be thankful that Apple's rules force web developers to care about one additional browser.
    - NightlyDev 7y ago
      Lucky us. We web developers really want to care about specific browsers like it's 2006 again. IE6 must have been a great inspiration for Apple judging by their behaviour when it comes to Web.
TheKarateKid 7y ago
> Always ostensibly to protect users but always also conveniently putting webapps at a permanent disadvantage to native apps. This isn't always a bad thing though. For example, Safari has prohibited some obnoxious behavior that Chrome has allowed: Autoplaying videos, tab suspension, push notifications. These hog CPU and destroy battery life, worsening the user experience. Remember, making everything a web app is Google's agenda because they benefit most from it.
- estreeper 7y ago
  I would just point out there are very valid use cases for these things, i.e. push notifications are very useful to me (from certain apps). The problem is one of consent.
- dzhiurgis 7y ago
  MacOS Safari autoplays YouTube videos with now way to disable...
  - Gaelan 7y ago
    Interesting. I can tell Safari to not autoplay videos on YouTube in its preferences, but that doesn't seem to do anything. Seems more like a bug on Safari's part and/or workaround on Google's part than anything deliberate.
    - dzhiurgis 7y ago
      You mean Safari team accidentally forgot to test a video feature on a largest video website?
    - TheKarateKid 7y ago
      Safari uses some sort of algorithm to determine whether you actually want the autoplay to happen. For example I've noticed that if you play a video on a website during that session, it will allow autoplay from scripts on that page (not 3rd party) for the rest of that session. Same for unmuting an autoplaying video. This is all undocumented though and through personal observations, as Apple seemed to stop posting Safari documentation years ago.

ChrisMarshallNY 7y ago

As a native app developer, I can live with this.

OzzyB 7y ago
As long as you start refering to the "i" in "iPhone" as Intranet and not ~Internet~ then we're cool.
- ChrisMarshallNY 7y ago
  I have nothing against hybrid apps. In many use cases, they are the best approach, and I have often declined business, in recommending them to others, as opposed to what I can do. My post was not an attack on anyone or anything, and it was not being snarky. All I said was that I develop native apps, and that this policy does not affect me. I like developing native apps. I've been writing native Apple software for 34 years. It's not really difficult; just different. I have also been developing "Internet" software, of all kinds (full stack), since before the WWW. Using Apple stuff. It certainly can be done.
- 72deluxe 7y ago
  My iPod Classic has no intranet or internet. What does the "i" mean in that case???
  - OzzyB 7y ago
    iPod was that Harddrive MP3 Player that piggybacked on the MP3 download craze people were doing on the internet, obviously.
    - 72deluxe 7y ago
      Ha! Thanks! I had never thought of that!! I wonder if that same idea came into naming the iMac then??
- Macha 7y ago
  The Internet Phone was the Cisco iPhone, not the Apple iPhone

Veen 7y ago

If this were true, how would you explain the recent improvements to Safari on the iPad that make it as capable as desktop Safari. Until last year Google Docs did not work in Safari on the iPad. Now it works very well indeed. The same is true of most web apps.

diggan 7y ago
This particular move takes something that is possible in web applications today and makes it not possible in the future (offline capable frontend-only applications), making the gap between native applications and browser applications further, so developers who need to build apps that works offline on iPhone, will only be able to use Apples own technologies for doing so, in a non-cross-platform way. Which in general, is what Apple always been favoring. Google Docs doesn't really work offline, so it's not impacted by this change. Could also be a change of heart from Apple, since their stance on web applications have changed before.
- Veen 7y ago
  It could also be exactly what they say it is: a way to prevent the abuse of local storage for tracking.
  - diggan 7y ago
    People who want to track users will always find a way to do so, it's a endless cat-and-mouse game. Now they will just use cookies instead... The only way to win this is to legislate away the freedom to track users by using privacy-invasive methods. That's the only way that will work long-term. But that'll make half of the internet industry disappear, along with it's shareholders, so it's unlikely to happen.
    - cwzwarich 7y ago
      > People who want to track users will always find a way to do so, it's a endless cat-and-mouse game. Now they will just use cookies instead... Isn't the new policy for local storage being copied from an existing policy for cookies? How can they switch to cookies?

madeofpalk 7y ago

> I’m guessing that Apple will start hindering web apps because the new mouse support in iPadOS is going to be such a boon to web apps. As a web developer, I've never believed Apple has hindered web development on their platform, purposefully or not. They just don't spend their resources adding in WebBluetooth or whatever new API-of-the-day Google has decided to come up with. As I see it, their focus is on the user, which is why they've been slow to adopt APIs that are privacy concerns, or drain battery, or have other negative implications.

untog 7y ago
That’s a very rosy way of looking at it. iOS has had bugs with its “add to home screen” webapps that kicked around literally for years. If they were being “user first” they’d support it fully or not support it at all. Instead they implemented then neglected it.
- machello13 7y ago
  How many users even know or care about that feature?
  - untog 7y ago
    How is that relevant to the conversation? If it is so little-used as to be irrelevant then the user-first thing to do would be to remove the functionality but Apple haven’t. I can speak from personal experience that users do use it when you include specific instructions on how to use it. And it’s used in a number of corporate settings for installing webapps on an iPad.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - dirkgently 7y ago
    Once you take your head out of that iAss, you may see how defensive and idiotic your comment is.

saagarjha 7y ago

The people who work on making websites function better on iPad are literally a 20 second walk away from the people who work in Intelligent Tracking Prevention–do you really think that they'd seek to undermine each other in this way?

LocalPCGuy 7y ago
Absolutely, do you have evidence they are talking and consulting with each other? Obviously lack of evidence isn't evidence either, but departments do things all the time that are at odds with each other in companies like Apple.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  > Absolutely, do you have evidence they are talking and consulting with each other? Firsthand.

_bxg1 7y ago

Which is strange, because they're already under scrutiny for being anti-competitive WRT their app ecosystem. Having good support for web apps could've softened that case a little bit.