5 ms·

Apple is making the right decision here. My iOS device has never once shown me "this website requires Chrome." I get to use the mobile web without needing Goog

Apple is making the right decision here. My iOS device has never once shown me "this website requires Chrome." I get to use the mobile web without needing Google. And Apple is the only reason why. Maybe some day, web apps will become so undeniably awesome that Safari's position is untenable. But the agitation is not coming from iOS users missing out on awesome PWAs. Instead it's web developers, who are just annoyed that they have to actually respect the conventions of the platform they're building for.

Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
>My iOS device has never once shown me "this website requires Chrome." Why would any PWA say that, if Safari had proper support for PWA? >Instead it's web developers, who are just annoyed that they have to actually respect the conventions of the platform they're building for. Say the developer is from a village in India or Nigeria who has just a Raspberry Pi to develop apps - •What if the developer didn't have thousands of dollars to invest in new equipments just to develop for iOS? •What if the developer wasn't able pay $99 every year for the Apple developer license? •What if the just didn't want to give 30% cut to Apple from the revenue each time? For all the times Apple uses 'Equality' in its marketing, the Apple platform & ecosystem restrictions clearly seems to be aimed at the privileged, pushing the agenda that 'Privileged is good' and 'Everyone should aim at being privileged'. Less empathetic would respond, 'Well that's not Apple's fault that they aren't privileged'; Well then, we have to go back into colonial imperialism & American capitalism to prove why they aren't privileged in the first place and why Apple holds a responsibility every time it uses 'Equality, Human etc.' in it's marketing; which would be digressing from the topic.
- millstone 6y ago
  > Why would any PWA say that, if Safari had proper support for PWA? For the same reason that far too many desktop websites say that today. > Say the developer is from a village in India or Nigeria who has just a Raspberry Pi to develop apps Apple is not catering to this developer demographic. > For all the times Apple uses 'Equality' in its marketing, the Apple platform & ecosystem restrictions clearly seems to be aimed at the privileged You're conflating developers with users. What fraction of iPhone users are writing apps? If you wanted to prioritize users, there's much tougher questions you could ask.
  - Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
    Parent said it's the web developers who argue for PWA, I just stated why they have reasons to do that.
    - millstone 6y ago
      Yeah, agreed. The web is now the most developer-friendly platform by far.
      - sciprojguy 6y ago
        Ha. Using Foundation, Swift and SwiftUI I can write an app that doesn't require a trip to GitHub or Node.js in order to work properly. I can prototype my UI right there in Xcode, and if there's something I need that hasn't made it into SwiftUI yet I can bring in things from UIKit without very much effort. Best of all, I can build for macOS as well as iOS from the same codebase now. It's really hard to get more developer-friendly than that, unless you mean "web-developer-who-doesn't-want-to-learn-iOS-friendly".
- mihaela 6y ago
  This argument is a great example of straw man. Or, a translation, this argument is BS.
spideymans 6y ago
I couldn’t agree more. As a developer, PWAs are amazing. Write once, run more or less everywhere. Our enterprise software deployments wouldn’t have been possible if we had to target iOS, Android and Windows specifically. As an end user, I dread the days PWAs ever go mainstream. They’re horribly inefficient from a power and performance point of view, and never have I come across a PWA with a user experience half as good as native apps (especially on mobile). Until they’re indistinguishable from native apps in terms of user experience, I want nothing to do with them. Beyond that, there’s some very serious privacy concerns as well with PWAs, especially with developers abusing APIs for fingerprinting
- ex3ndr 6y ago
  What's the problem with enterprise deployments?
- the_gipsy 6y ago
  > Beyond that, there’s some very serious privacy concerns as well with PWAs, especially with developers abusing APIs for fingerprinting If TikTok was a PWA it couldn't have done a fraction of the tracking it was doing. The irony is that apple is forcing you to use a much more privacy-invasive alternative to PWAs.
  - soraminazuki 6y ago
    > If TikTok was a PWA it couldn't have done a fraction of the tracking it was doing. This is misleading when the motives of PWA is to make the web browser acquire as much capabilities as a native app. If browsers keep on expanding access to the underlying platform without any regards of the consequences, TikTok would be able to track you more without you ever having to install anything. This would kill the web as we know it because you’ll have to give websites the same trust you give to software when you install them on your computer. We won’t be able to browse the web freely as we do now.
    - osrec 6y ago
      Misleading how? You have one platform that already allows crazy privacy violations natively, and you have another platform that you suspect might some day allow similar levels of privacy violation, yet you champion the privacy stance of the first platform. Makes no sense to me.
osrec 6y ago
Not many websites explicitly require Chrome. I don't know what you mean by 'My iOS device has never once shown me "this website requires Chrome."' Why would your iOS device ever need to show such a message, unless it's implemented by the website itself? I don't understand the scenario you're describing at all.
- Jonnax 6y ago
  You missed their point. Apple only allows the Safari browser engine to run on their phone. So Google (and other web developers) can't do what they do on other platforms which is only test their website on Chrome or block users of other browsers. For example, Firefox on Android gets a crap Google search from like 2005 unless you spoof your user agent and it works perfectly. By that mandate has kept complete control over the browser space from Google.
  - osrec 6y ago
    I've very rarely seen a website block a user because of their browser in the last 10 years. If a website doesn't work in Safari, it just doesn't work. That's it. I do know that devs have to work A LOT harder to get things to work in Safari when compared to Chrome or Firefox. It's like Safari is the new Internet explorer.
    - Doctor_Fegg 6y ago
      I last had it two days ago. Zencaster: requires Firefox or Chrome, won’t work with Safari.
nikitaga 6y ago
> respect the conventions of the platform they're building for Do you mean UI conventions, or the "30% revenue cut and a gag order on even mentioning non-appstore signups" convention? Justifying blatant anticompetitive and user-hostile practices by native UI holyness is getting kinda old.
- soraminazuki 6y ago
  This is a false dichotomy. People can dislike PWAs and be critical of AppStore practices at the same time.
  - nikitaga 6y ago
    People "can" do that but that's not what either the commenter or Apple is doing. And it's a package deal anyway. As long as PWAs do not provide viable competition to App Store on iOS, you can criticize App Store till you're blue in the face and nothing will change. So if you choose to force native UI holyness on others, at least take the responsibility for what else this brings as well.
    - soraminazuki 6y ago
      > People "can" do that but that's not what either the commenter or Apple is doing. It’s not even remotely fair to pretend that HN commenters and Apple share the exact same interests. It’s not anyone besides Apple’s fault that they are doing what they’re doing in the AppStore. > So if you choose to force native UI holyness on others, at least take the responsibility for what else this brings as well. Again, what responsibility? The idea that anyone who dislikes PWA has to take “responsibility” for Apple’s actions is plain ridiculous to begin with. Another thing I’d like to mention is that there are also reasons for disliking PWAs other than worshipping “UI holiness.” Honestly, I don’t care as much for that. The main issue I have with the pro-PWA agenda is that it’s pushing for browsers to expand access to their underlying platforms. If browsers keep on doing this, we’d have to give websites the same trust we give to apps when we install them on our devices. This would mean the end of browsing as we know it because we’d have to think twice before choosing to click on a link.
cwills 6y ago
>My iOS device has never once shown me "this website requires Chrome." I get to use the mobile web without needing Google. And Apple is the only reason why. Let's be real though, Apple didn't enforce this to save user's the small annoyance of 'use browser X' popups. Instead it gives them full control over what web APIs are available on iOS devices, so they can avoid implementing those APIs that would impact on their App Store revenue. They have a clear financial benefit in not supporting the PWA technology that would move the 'simpler' apps off their app store and into web - where they wouldn't receive their developer license fees, a cut of paid apps and a cut of paid subscription fees (outrageous). Also, I believe it was Steve Jobs who first shared the vision of web applications on iPhone “that look exactly and behave exactly like native apps” ? > Instead it's web developers, who are just annoyed that they have to actually respect the conventions of the platform they're building for. Developers already get around this to some extent with cross platform tools such as React Native, Xamarin, Flutter. Native apps will always have a place, PWAs are not going to replace sufficiently complex app experiences, much like on Android or Windows.

Abishek_Muthian 6y ago

>My iOS device has never once shown me "this website requires Chrome." Why would any PWA say that, if Safari had proper support for PWA? >Instead it's web developers, who are just annoyed that they have to actually respect the conventions of the platform they're building for. Say the developer is from a village in India or Nigeria who has just a Raspberry Pi to develop apps - •What if the developer didn't have thousands of dollars to invest in new equipments just to develop for iOS? •What if the developer wasn't able pay $99 every year for the Apple developer license? •What if the just didn't want to give 30% cut to Apple from the revenue each time? For all the times Apple uses 'Equality' in its marketing, the Apple platform & ecosystem restrictions clearly seems to be aimed at the privileged, pushing the agenda that 'Privileged is good' and 'Everyone should aim at being privileged'. Less empathetic would respond, 'Well that's not Apple's fault that they aren't privileged'; Well then, we have to go back into colonial imperialism & American capitalism to prove why they aren't privileged in the first place and why Apple holds a responsibility every time it uses 'Equality, Human etc.' in it's marketing; which would be digressing from the topic.

millstone 6y ago
> Why would any PWA say that, if Safari had proper support for PWA? For the same reason that far too many desktop websites say that today. > Say the developer is from a village in India or Nigeria who has just a Raspberry Pi to develop apps Apple is not catering to this developer demographic. > For all the times Apple uses 'Equality' in its marketing, the Apple platform & ecosystem restrictions clearly seems to be aimed at the privileged You're conflating developers with users. What fraction of iPhone users are writing apps? If you wanted to prioritize users, there's much tougher questions you could ask.
- Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
  Parent said it's the web developers who argue for PWA, I just stated why they have reasons to do that.
  - millstone 6y ago
    Yeah, agreed. The web is now the most developer-friendly platform by far.
    - sciprojguy 6y ago
      Ha. Using Foundation, Swift and SwiftUI I can write an app that doesn't require a trip to GitHub or Node.js in order to work properly. I can prototype my UI right there in Xcode, and if there's something I need that hasn't made it into SwiftUI yet I can bring in things from UIKit without very much effort. Best of all, I can build for macOS as well as iOS from the same codebase now. It's really hard to get more developer-friendly than that, unless you mean "web-developer-who-doesn't-want-to-learn-iOS-friendly".
mihaela 6y ago
This argument is a great example of straw man. Or, a translation, this argument is BS.

spideymans 6y ago

I couldn’t agree more. As a developer, PWAs are amazing. Write once, run more or less everywhere. Our enterprise software deployments wouldn’t have been possible if we had to target iOS, Android and Windows specifically. As an end user, I dread the days PWAs ever go mainstream. They’re horribly inefficient from a power and performance point of view, and never have I come across a PWA with a user experience half as good as native apps (especially on mobile). Until they’re indistinguishable from native apps in terms of user experience, I want nothing to do with them. Beyond that, there’s some very serious privacy concerns as well with PWAs, especially with developers abusing APIs for fingerprinting

ex3ndr 6y ago
What's the problem with enterprise deployments?
the_gipsy 6y ago
> Beyond that, there’s some very serious privacy concerns as well with PWAs, especially with developers abusing APIs for fingerprinting If TikTok was a PWA it couldn't have done a fraction of the tracking it was doing. The irony is that apple is forcing you to use a much more privacy-invasive alternative to PWAs.
- soraminazuki 6y ago
  > If TikTok was a PWA it couldn't have done a fraction of the tracking it was doing. This is misleading when the motives of PWA is to make the web browser acquire as much capabilities as a native app. If browsers keep on expanding access to the underlying platform without any regards of the consequences, TikTok would be able to track you more without you ever having to install anything. This would kill the web as we know it because you’ll have to give websites the same trust you give to software when you install them on your computer. We won’t be able to browse the web freely as we do now.
  - osrec 6y ago
    Misleading how? You have one platform that already allows crazy privacy violations natively, and you have another platform that you suspect might some day allow similar levels of privacy violation, yet you champion the privacy stance of the first platform. Makes no sense to me.

osrec 6y ago

Not many websites explicitly require Chrome. I don't know what you mean by 'My iOS device has never once shown me "this website requires Chrome."' Why would your iOS device ever need to show such a message, unless it's implemented by the website itself? I don't understand the scenario you're describing at all.

Jonnax 6y ago
You missed their point. Apple only allows the Safari browser engine to run on their phone. So Google (and other web developers) can't do what they do on other platforms which is only test their website on Chrome or block users of other browsers. For example, Firefox on Android gets a crap Google search from like 2005 unless you spoof your user agent and it works perfectly. By that mandate has kept complete control over the browser space from Google.
- osrec 6y ago
  I've very rarely seen a website block a user because of their browser in the last 10 years. If a website doesn't work in Safari, it just doesn't work. That's it. I do know that devs have to work A LOT harder to get things to work in Safari when compared to Chrome or Firefox. It's like Safari is the new Internet explorer.
  - Doctor_Fegg 6y ago
    I last had it two days ago. Zencaster: requires Firefox or Chrome, won’t work with Safari.

nikitaga 6y ago

> respect the conventions of the platform they're building for Do you mean UI conventions, or the "30% revenue cut and a gag order on even mentioning non-appstore signups" convention? Justifying blatant anticompetitive and user-hostile practices by native UI holyness is getting kinda old.

soraminazuki 6y ago
This is a false dichotomy. People can dislike PWAs and be critical of AppStore practices at the same time.
- nikitaga 6y ago
  People "can" do that but that's not what either the commenter or Apple is doing. And it's a package deal anyway. As long as PWAs do not provide viable competition to App Store on iOS, you can criticize App Store till you're blue in the face and nothing will change. So if you choose to force native UI holyness on others, at least take the responsibility for what else this brings as well.
  - soraminazuki 6y ago
    > People "can" do that but that's not what either the commenter or Apple is doing. It’s not even remotely fair to pretend that HN commenters and Apple share the exact same interests. It’s not anyone besides Apple’s fault that they are doing what they’re doing in the AppStore. > So if you choose to force native UI holyness on others, at least take the responsibility for what else this brings as well. Again, what responsibility? The idea that anyone who dislikes PWA has to take “responsibility” for Apple’s actions is plain ridiculous to begin with. Another thing I’d like to mention is that there are also reasons for disliking PWAs other than worshipping “UI holiness.” Honestly, I don’t care as much for that. The main issue I have with the pro-PWA agenda is that it’s pushing for browsers to expand access to their underlying platforms. If browsers keep on doing this, we’d have to give websites the same trust we give to apps when we install them on our devices. This would mean the end of browsing as we know it because we’d have to think twice before choosing to click on a link.

cwills 6y ago

>My iOS device has never once shown me "this website requires Chrome." I get to use the mobile web without needing Google. And Apple is the only reason why. Let's be real though, Apple didn't enforce this to save user's the small annoyance of 'use browser X' popups. Instead it gives them full control over what web APIs are available on iOS devices, so they can avoid implementing those APIs that would impact on their App Store revenue. They have a clear financial benefit in not supporting the PWA technology that would move the 'simpler' apps off their app store and into web - where they wouldn't receive their developer license fees, a cut of paid apps and a cut of paid subscription fees (outrageous). Also, I believe it was Steve Jobs who first shared the vision of web applications on iPhone “that look exactly and behave exactly like native apps” ? > Instead it's web developers, who are just annoyed that they have to actually respect the conventions of the platform they're building for. Developers already get around this to some extent with cross platform tools such as React Native, Xamarin, Flutter. Native apps will always have a place, PWAs are not going to replace sufficiently complex app experiences, much like on Android or Windows.