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This was what Jobs initially claimed to want, and Apple several times acted to enforce. For a while they were really negative on apps that were simply wrappers

This was what Jobs initially claimed to want, and Apple several times acted to enforce. For a while they were really negative on apps that were simply wrappers around websites. But the market spoke, and now Apple seems to be very much on the other side of things along with nearly every company out there. Some possible reasons: Bookmarks to websites get buried in long ever-growing lists of bookmarks, while installed apps take up precious visual screen space. Users are generally more tolerant of an app taking a couple of seconds to load than a website, and less tolerant of subsequent navigation taking time, and apps tend to match those expectations more closely than web pages. And maybe apps still deliver functionality that websites can't, or can't as easily. Oh, and an app, once downloaded, usually keeps working consistently, while websites often are updated or completely disappear. For whatever reason, people seem to prefer apps to websites, and I'm not sure I see that changing much.

cglong 6y ago
Almost all of those have been solved by Android's PWA implementation. I can go to an enabled site and add it to my apps list. After that, it looks and acts like any other app on the device [except that it doesn't take up any space on my phone :)]
- egfx 6y ago
  iOS has PWA too although severely limited, notably in the areas of webcam and push support. And other proprietary phone features like contact lists.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  It might take if distributed as TWA, given that then it gets FFI access to Android APIs. :) However PWAs still fail short of stuff like 3D capabilities, given how limited they are versus the actual APIs, e.g. WebGL 2.0 vs OpenGL ES 3.2.
- pwinnski 6y ago
  I keep hearing this, but it is not as if native applications are sitting still while PWAs catch up. By the time PWAs hit current native application levels of functionality--if they ever do--native applications will be operating at a higher level of functionality yet again. I've got some PWAs on my phone, and they're great. They're also very simple compared to many native apps I use. And I think that will likely be the case for some time to come, and maybe forever on iOS for security reasons.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
phone8675309 6y ago
Another possible reason: being able to take a cut of every transaction that goes through the app ecosystem

cglong 6y ago

Almost all of those have been solved by Android's PWA implementation. I can go to an enabled site and add it to my apps list. After that, it looks and acts like any other app on the device [except that it doesn't take up any space on my phone :)]

egfx 6y ago
iOS has PWA too although severely limited, notably in the areas of webcam and push support. And other proprietary phone features like contact lists.
pjmlp 6y ago
It might take if distributed as TWA, given that then it gets FFI access to Android APIs. :) However PWAs still fail short of stuff like 3D capabilities, given how limited they are versus the actual APIs, e.g. WebGL 2.0 vs OpenGL ES 3.2.
pwinnski 6y ago
I keep hearing this, but it is not as if native applications are sitting still while PWAs catch up. By the time PWAs hit current native application levels of functionality--if they ever do--native applications will be operating at a higher level of functionality yet again. I've got some PWAs on my phone, and they're great. They're also very simple compared to many native apps I use. And I think that will likely be the case for some time to come, and maybe forever on iOS for security reasons.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

phone8675309 6y ago

Another possible reason: being able to take a cut of every transaction that goes through the app ecosystem