10 ms·

Context: In the essay [0], Jobs suggested mobile app development on should focus on HTML5 (which is now called Progressive Web Apps / PWA) Apple has has been

by max_ 5y ago

Context: In the essay [0], Jobs suggested mobile app development on should focus on HTML5 (which is now called Progressive Web Apps / PWA) Apple has has been recently been rolling out anti-PWA practices [1]. Probably to reinforce their "walled garden". [0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20170615060422/https://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/ https://web.archive.org/web/20170615060422/https://www.apple... [1]: https://ionicframework.com/blog/is-apple-trying-to-kill-pwas/ https://ionicframework.com/blog/is-apple-trying-to-kill-pwas...

shoto_io 5y ago
Wow. I wasn't aware that Steve Jobs wrote essays. Are there more? I think this part is interesting, because it's still true: > Our motivation is simple – we want to provide the most advanced and innovative platform to our developers, and we want them to stand directly on the shoulders of this platform and create the best apps the world has ever seen. We want to continually enhance the platform so developers can create even more amazing, powerful, fun and useful applications. Everyone wins – we sell more devices because we have the best apps, developers reach a wider and wider audience and customer base, and users are continually delighted by the best and broadest selection of apps on any platform.
- amelius 5y ago
  I don't think this is as true as you think it is. If IBM locked down their PC platform in the 80s like Apple does now, then we wouldn't have Linux nor BSD and everyone would have lost.
  - m463 5y ago
    Not that IBM didn't try... The original IBM PC had pretty open hardware and software, both a little unintentional. Hardware-wise they published everything so add-in cards and more could be developed. Sofware-wise they didn't hold Microsoft to an exclusive agreement for PC-DOS so MS-DOS could come out. Later they tried to close the barn door with very locked down hardware with the microchannel bus and IBM's own operating system OS/2. But it was too late... I actually think Apple and their customers would be more successful with open hardware. When they went from powerpc to intel with more generally compatible hardware, I think that was great. Now they're reeling it back in, and I wonder if they'll be following the same path as IBM did...
    - rob74 5y ago
      Apple already tried the "open hardware" thing once (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_clone#Licensed_Macintosh_clones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_clone#Licensed_Macin...), and it didn't go really well for them...
  - ngcc_hk 5y ago
    Computer is always sort of open in that market segment. Apple ii, cpm and IBM PC. One can try (ps2) but all failed. Apple trying but still mac is sort of open and you can still run linux and windows on m1 sort of. Phone ... smart phone opened? From Nokia, Newton, palmpilot, windows phone, ... The question is whether the phone business model can bring it to desktop and conquer there. Wonder. I like my phone is walled garden and I can take risk of my collections of pc.
  - hutzlibu 5y ago
    Yeah, but Steve Jobs isn't responsible anymore for what Apple is doing today. If he would have done much different, I don't know. I also guess his main concern with Flash was, that he couldn't control the proprietary plattform. The flash player could have been improved ... but Adobe would have been still in charge.
    - dbt00 5y ago
      The problem was, essentially, a huge chunk of code in the middle of the browser experience that apple couldn't optimize for mobile CPUs, screens and batteries.
      - hutzlibu 5y ago
        I know. Because Adobe could not bring themself to open the flash player (and still make money with selling their awesome tools). Thats why flash died, despite it was much more advanced than the web at that time.
    - livesinhel 5y ago
      > I also guess his main concern with Flash was, that he couldn't control the proprietary plattform. Oh, the irony.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- ksec 5y ago
  I think 9to5 does a great job and few on twitter looking through every single detail of the released email in court with Epic vs Apple. Those words of Steve might have been true back then. It is far from the truth today. At least Apple no longer sees selling more devices as their primary motive. Remember when the App Store started, Steve thought it would be about the size of their iTunes Store.
ZuLuuuuuu 5y ago
The essay rather suggests HTML5 as a better alternative to Flash for web development, not app development. Having said that, I haven't read the latest PWA situation on Apple platforms, maybe it is true that they are trying to prevent PWA from getting popular. If that is the case, I hope Google and Microsoft can take advantage of this shortcoming of Apple platforms.
- irrational 5y ago
  It is true, but how could they take advantage of it? Your average person doesn’t care. I recently learned that more than 50% of phones in the USA are iPhones. How can Google and MS move anything forward on the mobile front unless Apple is on board? It’s not like you can run a different web rendering engine or JavaScript engine on an iPhone.
- midasuni 5y ago
  When the iPhone launched there were no native apps, the idea was you could do everything as webpages
  - jpalomaki 5y ago
    That was likely because they simply did not have time to implement proper support for 3rd party apps for the launch.
    - Benjamin_Dobell 5y ago
      When iOS (then known as iPhone OS) first launched, Apple were actively/publicly against opening up their devices to third-party native app development. They encouraged third-parties to use web technologies as an alternative[1][2]. However, iPhone OS 1.0 launched without encryption enabled (not sure why, iPhone OS 1.1 enabled it), so this made reverse engineering efforts a lot more straight forward. For end-users, jailbreaking was trivial, you'd literally visit jailbreakme.com and a TIFF exploit in Mobile Safari would automatically jailbreak your phone (or in my case, iPod Touch) and install Installer.app[3]. A reverse engineered SDK was used to write apps and made quite the splash. This encouraged Apple to make available an official SDK. I'm not sure whether it was public pressure, or just that Apple saw the ingenuity of what people were achieving with Apple devices. However, iPhone OS 2.0 introduced the App Store, and the rest is history. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/appsblog/2011/oct/24/steve-jobs-apps-iphone https://www.theguardian.com/technology/appsblog/2011/oct/24/... [2] https://9to5mac.com/2011/10/21/jobs-original-vision-for-the-iphone-no-third-party-native-apps/ https://9to5mac.com/2011/10/21/jobs-original-vision-for-the-... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JailbreakMe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JailbreakMe
re 5y ago
> Apple has has been recently been rolling out anti-PWA practices [1]. That article is from a year ago and the author's conclusion is more or less "no, Apple isn't trying to kill the web; it's reasonable to have some time limits in place." Safari clears some script-writable storage for a site after 7 days of Safari use without visiting that site, but home-screen installed webapps aren't affected.
- szundi 5y ago
  This is very relevant insight, thank you!
- jamil7 5y ago
  Apple investing in its own development stack has become "Apple is actively crippling PWAs" for a lot of people.
  - oblio 5y ago
    Poor company worth $2 trillion and with $275 billion in revenue / $57 billion in profit can't bring its support for PWAs up to par with other OSes.
  - feross 5y ago
    Apple recently suggested [1] to Australian authorities that Apple can't possibly have a monopoly on app distribution since they have no restrictions against PWAs which "have the look, feel and functionality of a native app". But they fail to mention that they control exactly what functionality is actually available to PWAs. And right now it's A LOT less than what is available to native apps. Also, most users are not aware that third-party iOS browsers like Chrome, Brave, and Firefox are actually just light UI "skins" on top of the Safari browser engine, Webkit. Apple refuses to allow third party browser engines on iOS. So this means that it's not possible for users to just switch to another browser in order to use more powerful web apps. They're literally prevented from doing so by Apple's policy to ban browser competition on iOS. [1]: https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Apple%20Pty%20Limited%20%2810%20February%202021%29.pdf https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Apple%20Pty%20Limited%2...
tannhaeuser 5y ago
More context: "Progressive Web Apps" means Chrome-only at this point. The framing of this discussion in terms of "Open Web Standards" vs "Apple's walled garden" is just hiding the fact that's Google who're paying the bills and calling the shots on the web "platform". Sent from my notebook running Chromium (for webapps) alongside with FF for the extant web such as HN.
- cerved 5y ago
  How exactly do you mean it's "Chrome only"?
  - tannhaeuser 5y ago
    Stuff only works on Chrome/Chromium if at all.
    - DocTomoe 5y ago
      As a Firefox user: I cannot confirm this. Which PWAs are you using?
  - coldtea 5y ago
    In that Chrome dictates future web standards, rushes ahead to implement whatever they want, and FF/Safari lag behind, to the point that some web apps will even say "runs on Chrome" only...
- vbezhenar 5y ago
  Safari supports PWA.
  - formerly_proven 5y ago
    This is a statement with ill-defined semantics, because there is no such thing as a "PWA standard". "Supports PWA" means, in practice, that it supports whatever new API or feature Chrome introduced five days ago.
  - 5y ago
slver 5y ago
A bit overly dramatic, don't you think? "Apple rolling out anti-PWA practices" refers to them clearing local state after 7 days of no use. How is that going to stop anyone from having a PWA app? Web browsers have to prune their cache all the time, otherwise your entire phone would be just web cache. Local storage is intended to be cache. Nothing more. If you have something worth preserving beyond 7 days of inactivity, put it on the damn server and reload it when you have to. For the record, local storage is typically limited to 5MB. Users visit hundreds, often thousands of sites each month. They open links through social media to some random meme all the time. So we never clear those 5MB, what happens? Month 1: 5GB of local storage... Month 2: 10GB of local storage... Month 3: 15GB of local storage...
- CodesInChaos 5y ago
  > "Apple rolling out anti-PWA practices" refers to them clearing local state after 7 days of no use. If they actually did that, it'd be crippling installed PWAs compared to native apps, since you couldn't persist anything without an account. However, from what I remember, they don't actually clear the state of installed PWAs for the primary domain, since the 7 days only count down if you actually open the app on that day.
- hutzlibu 5y ago
  "Local storage is intended to be cache. Nothing more. If you have something worth preserving beyond 7 days of inactivity, put it on the damn server and reload it when you have to." How about the idea that not everything must live in the cloud? I like apps that keep my data on my phone. Or when you use your phone in areas with bad connections? Say an outdoor app, you have on your phone with lots of data you specifically wanted for this area. In case you need it. But now you have to remember to use it regulary, or you have to walk up an mountain to get parts of your old state again. There is a difference between temporary cache and intentionally saved data. Even from webapps. But this just means a further push to develope a "real app" inside apples walled garden, for a proper functioning app. (assumed this auto delete of all pwa cache is actually the case, and it would be allright with me, if there are exceptions for "installed PWA's")
  - 5y ago
tobr 5y ago
> In the essay [0], Jobs suggested mobile app development on should focus on HTML5 I think you should read that essay again. In the context of the mobile web, it argues for HTML and against Flash. In the context of apps, it argues for native platform technology and against Flash. It doesn’t argue for using HTML for apps. Edit: Quite confused about why this got downvoted. If you disagree with my reading of the article, could you explain what in the essay suggests focusing on HTML5 for mobile app development?
- daveoc64 5y ago
  As others have said, Apple was strongly opposed to introducing support for native third party apps on the iPhone not long before this essay was written. Apple's preferred approach was web apps that you could "install" to the home screen on the device. While that functionality is still available, Apple has left that web app approach stagnant - not adding features that other platforms/browsers have, and reducing performance compared to running the same web page in Safari.
  - tobr 5y ago
    First, it’s not fair to say they “strongly opposed” native apps “not long before” the essay. Every iPhone model has supported native apps through the App Store. Yes, web apps was their original plan, but they announced their intention to launch a native SDK just three months after the original iPhone release. It took another thirty months before this essay was published, so in relative terms, at that time that original plan was nothing but a historical parenthetical. Second, this is completely irrelevant to claiming that the essay in question suggests developing mobile apps with HTML5. That’s just flat-out incorrect.
    - ksec 5y ago
      >but they announced their intention to launch a native SDK just three months after the original iPhone release. All thanks to Scott Forstall, he was the only one doing heated debate with Steve Jobs. And his word "HTML5 will never be as good as native apps" is still true today, whether it is on iOS or not. I really do miss Scott Forstall.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
planb 5y ago
A bit OT, but can anyone point me to a few PWAs that are worth looking at? I don't means those "these tings are possible in the browser" sites, but real, useful tools. I just use one: "Brewfather", a fantastic home brewing (beer) app which can even use some Bluetooth API to communicate to local devices (Chrome-only of course). On my iPad, I'm using the app though.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- scambier 5y ago
  I use https://www.photopea.com/ https://www.photopea.com/ when I need to do image edition.
- Griffinsauce 5y ago
  It bears mentioning that there are a lot of apps in the AppStore that are basically PWAs in a webview wrapper. You may be using one every day.
  - scambier 5y ago
    Isn't that explicitly prohibited by Apple's guidelines?
    - ksec 5y ago
      Used to be the case but not anymore.
waon 5y ago
> HTML5 (which is now called Progressive Web Apps / PWA) This is clear gaslighting and is verifiably false. Progressive Web Apps is a Google thing, coined by a Google engineer[1] and promoted by Google[2]. The HTML living standard does not include a single mention of the term[3]. [1]: https://infrequently.org/2015/06/progressive-apps-escaping-tabs-without-losing-our-soul/ https://infrequently.org/2015/06/progressive-apps-escaping-t... [2]: https://web.dev/progressive-web-apps/ https://web.dev/progressive-web-apps/ [3]: https://github.com/whatwg/html/search?q=progressive+web+app&type= https://github.com/whatwg/html/search?q=progressive+web+app&...
- max_ 5y ago
  "Progressive Web Apps" comes from the notion of "Progressive Enhancement" [0] as opposed to "Glorious Degradation" And its a very old concept in web design. HTML5, PE & PWA is all the same thing. Just an evolution of standard practices & terminology. [0]: https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/04/progressive-enhancement-what-it-is-and-how-to-use-it/ https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/04/progressive-enhance...
- kristiandupont 5y ago
  >This is clear gaslighting Please don't destroy the term gaslighting. It means something very important and not at all what you are using it for here.
  - waon 5y ago
    It's subtle misinformation that's designed to change how people unconsciously perceive PWAs. When people bring up PWAs, they commonly refer to a particular set of APIs which has a tendency of mainly being a Google-driven effort. GP is muddying the waters by instead framing it as the HTML spec itself and implying it's official. If this isn't a clear case of gaslighting, I don't know what is.
    - kristiandupont 5y ago
      This is ridiculous. Is the term PWA also "designed" to make me question my own sanity, which is a key component in gaslighting?
tarsinge 5y ago
> Probably to reinforce their "walled garden". Or maybe because PWA is a flawed concept? At least that's my take as a consumer and a developer. As the sibling commenter noted PWA is also a Google concept, with corporate strategic interests behind, it's not as simple as it appears.
maram 5y ago
Pay close attention to the time Apple deleted the essay. Apple deleted the essay exactly a week before they stopped supporting Adobe flash. Thanks for HackerNews it's all saved here =) HN submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23652461 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23652461 My comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23654011 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23654011 Another user comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23655374 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23655374
EvilEy3 5y ago
> HTML5 (which is now called Progressive Web Apps / PWA) Since when HTML5 became PWA?

by max_ 5y ago

shoto_io 5y ago

Wow. I wasn't aware that Steve Jobs wrote essays. Are there more? I think this part is interesting, because it's still true: > Our motivation is simple – we want to provide the most advanced and innovative platform to our developers, and we want them to stand directly on the shoulders of this platform and create the best apps the world has ever seen. We want to continually enhance the platform so developers can create even more amazing, powerful, fun and useful applications. Everyone wins – we sell more devices because we have the best apps, developers reach a wider and wider audience and customer base, and users are continually delighted by the best and broadest selection of apps on any platform.

amelius 5y ago
I don't think this is as true as you think it is. If IBM locked down their PC platform in the 80s like Apple does now, then we wouldn't have Linux nor BSD and everyone would have lost.
- m463 5y ago
  Not that IBM didn't try... The original IBM PC had pretty open hardware and software, both a little unintentional. Hardware-wise they published everything so add-in cards and more could be developed. Sofware-wise they didn't hold Microsoft to an exclusive agreement for PC-DOS so MS-DOS could come out. Later they tried to close the barn door with very locked down hardware with the microchannel bus and IBM's own operating system OS/2. But it was too late... I actually think Apple and their customers would be more successful with open hardware. When they went from powerpc to intel with more generally compatible hardware, I think that was great. Now they're reeling it back in, and I wonder if they'll be following the same path as IBM did...
  - rob74 5y ago
    Apple already tried the "open hardware" thing once (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_clone#Licensed_Macintosh_clones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_clone#Licensed_Macin...), and it didn't go really well for them...
- ngcc_hk 5y ago
  Computer is always sort of open in that market segment. Apple ii, cpm and IBM PC. One can try (ps2) but all failed. Apple trying but still mac is sort of open and you can still run linux and windows on m1 sort of. Phone ... smart phone opened? From Nokia, Newton, palmpilot, windows phone, ... The question is whether the phone business model can bring it to desktop and conquer there. Wonder. I like my phone is walled garden and I can take risk of my collections of pc.
- hutzlibu 5y ago
  Yeah, but Steve Jobs isn't responsible anymore for what Apple is doing today. If he would have done much different, I don't know. I also guess his main concern with Flash was, that he couldn't control the proprietary plattform. The flash player could have been improved ... but Adobe would have been still in charge.
  - dbt00 5y ago
    The problem was, essentially, a huge chunk of code in the middle of the browser experience that apple couldn't optimize for mobile CPUs, screens and batteries.
    - hutzlibu 5y ago
      I know. Because Adobe could not bring themself to open the flash player (and still make money with selling their awesome tools). Thats why flash died, despite it was much more advanced than the web at that time.
  - livesinhel 5y ago
    > I also guess his main concern with Flash was, that he couldn't control the proprietary plattform. Oh, the irony.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
ksec 5y ago
I think 9to5 does a great job and few on twitter looking through every single detail of the released email in court with Epic vs Apple. Those words of Steve might have been true back then. It is far from the truth today. At least Apple no longer sees selling more devices as their primary motive. Remember when the App Store started, Steve thought it would be about the size of their iTunes Store.

ZuLuuuuuu 5y ago

The essay rather suggests HTML5 as a better alternative to Flash for web development, not app development. Having said that, I haven't read the latest PWA situation on Apple platforms, maybe it is true that they are trying to prevent PWA from getting popular. If that is the case, I hope Google and Microsoft can take advantage of this shortcoming of Apple platforms.

irrational 5y ago
It is true, but how could they take advantage of it? Your average person doesn’t care. I recently learned that more than 50% of phones in the USA are iPhones. How can Google and MS move anything forward on the mobile front unless Apple is on board? It’s not like you can run a different web rendering engine or JavaScript engine on an iPhone.
midasuni 5y ago
When the iPhone launched there were no native apps, the idea was you could do everything as webpages
- jpalomaki 5y ago
  That was likely because they simply did not have time to implement proper support for 3rd party apps for the launch.
  - Benjamin_Dobell 5y ago
    When iOS (then known as iPhone OS) first launched, Apple were actively/publicly against opening up their devices to third-party native app development. They encouraged third-parties to use web technologies as an alternative[1][2]. However, iPhone OS 1.0 launched without encryption enabled (not sure why, iPhone OS 1.1 enabled it), so this made reverse engineering efforts a lot more straight forward. For end-users, jailbreaking was trivial, you'd literally visit jailbreakme.com and a TIFF exploit in Mobile Safari would automatically jailbreak your phone (or in my case, iPod Touch) and install Installer.app[3]. A reverse engineered SDK was used to write apps and made quite the splash. This encouraged Apple to make available an official SDK. I'm not sure whether it was public pressure, or just that Apple saw the ingenuity of what people were achieving with Apple devices. However, iPhone OS 2.0 introduced the App Store, and the rest is history. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/appsblog/2011/oct/24/steve-jobs-apps-iphone https://www.theguardian.com/technology/appsblog/2011/oct/24/... [2] https://9to5mac.com/2011/10/21/jobs-original-vision-for-the-iphone-no-third-party-native-apps/ https://9to5mac.com/2011/10/21/jobs-original-vision-for-the-... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JailbreakMe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JailbreakMe

re 5y ago

> Apple has has been recently been rolling out anti-PWA practices [1]. That article is from a year ago and the author's conclusion is more or less "no, Apple isn't trying to kill the web; it's reasonable to have some time limits in place." Safari clears some script-writable storage for a site after 7 days of Safari use without visiting that site, but home-screen installed webapps aren't affected.

szundi 5y ago
This is very relevant insight, thank you!
jamil7 5y ago
Apple investing in its own development stack has become "Apple is actively crippling PWAs" for a lot of people.
- oblio 5y ago
  Poor company worth $2 trillion and with $275 billion in revenue / $57 billion in profit can't bring its support for PWAs up to par with other OSes.
- feross 5y ago
  Apple recently suggested [1] to Australian authorities that Apple can't possibly have a monopoly on app distribution since they have no restrictions against PWAs which "have the look, feel and functionality of a native app". But they fail to mention that they control exactly what functionality is actually available to PWAs. And right now it's A LOT less than what is available to native apps. Also, most users are not aware that third-party iOS browsers like Chrome, Brave, and Firefox are actually just light UI "skins" on top of the Safari browser engine, Webkit. Apple refuses to allow third party browser engines on iOS. So this means that it's not possible for users to just switch to another browser in order to use more powerful web apps. They're literally prevented from doing so by Apple's policy to ban browser competition on iOS. [1]: https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Apple%20Pty%20Limited%20%2810%20February%202021%29.pdf https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Apple%20Pty%20Limited%2...

tannhaeuser 5y ago

More context: "Progressive Web Apps" means Chrome-only at this point. The framing of this discussion in terms of "Open Web Standards" vs "Apple's walled garden" is just hiding the fact that's Google who're paying the bills and calling the shots on the web "platform". Sent from my notebook running Chromium (for webapps) alongside with FF for the extant web such as HN.

cerved 5y ago
How exactly do you mean it's "Chrome only"?
- tannhaeuser 5y ago
  Stuff only works on Chrome/Chromium if at all.
  - DocTomoe 5y ago
    As a Firefox user: I cannot confirm this. Which PWAs are you using?
- coldtea 5y ago
  In that Chrome dictates future web standards, rushes ahead to implement whatever they want, and FF/Safari lag behind, to the point that some web apps will even say "runs on Chrome" only...
vbezhenar 5y ago
Safari supports PWA.
- formerly_proven 5y ago
  This is a statement with ill-defined semantics, because there is no such thing as a "PWA standard". "Supports PWA" means, in practice, that it supports whatever new API or feature Chrome introduced five days ago.
- 5y ago

slver 5y ago

A bit overly dramatic, don't you think? "Apple rolling out anti-PWA practices" refers to them clearing local state after 7 days of no use. How is that going to stop anyone from having a PWA app? Web browsers have to prune their cache all the time, otherwise your entire phone would be just web cache. Local storage is intended to be cache. Nothing more. If you have something worth preserving beyond 7 days of inactivity, put it on the damn server and reload it when you have to. For the record, local storage is typically limited to 5MB. Users visit hundreds, often thousands of sites each month. They open links through social media to some random meme all the time. So we never clear those 5MB, what happens? Month 1: 5GB of local storage... Month 2: 10GB of local storage... Month 3: 15GB of local storage...

CodesInChaos 5y ago
> "Apple rolling out anti-PWA practices" refers to them clearing local state after 7 days of no use. If they actually did that, it'd be crippling installed PWAs compared to native apps, since you couldn't persist anything without an account. However, from what I remember, they don't actually clear the state of installed PWAs for the primary domain, since the 7 days only count down if you actually open the app on that day.
hutzlibu 5y ago
"Local storage is intended to be cache. Nothing more. If you have something worth preserving beyond 7 days of inactivity, put it on the damn server and reload it when you have to." How about the idea that not everything must live in the cloud? I like apps that keep my data on my phone. Or when you use your phone in areas with bad connections? Say an outdoor app, you have on your phone with lots of data you specifically wanted for this area. In case you need it. But now you have to remember to use it regulary, or you have to walk up an mountain to get parts of your old state again. There is a difference between temporary cache and intentionally saved data. Even from webapps. But this just means a further push to develope a "real app" inside apples walled garden, for a proper functioning app. (assumed this auto delete of all pwa cache is actually the case, and it would be allright with me, if there are exceptions for "installed PWA's")
- 5y ago

tobr 5y ago

> In the essay [0], Jobs suggested mobile app development on should focus on HTML5 I think you should read that essay again. In the context of the mobile web, it argues for HTML and against Flash. In the context of apps, it argues for native platform technology and against Flash. It doesn’t argue for using HTML for apps. Edit: Quite confused about why this got downvoted. If you disagree with my reading of the article, could you explain what in the essay suggests focusing on HTML5 for mobile app development?

daveoc64 5y ago
As others have said, Apple was strongly opposed to introducing support for native third party apps on the iPhone not long before this essay was written. Apple's preferred approach was web apps that you could "install" to the home screen on the device. While that functionality is still available, Apple has left that web app approach stagnant - not adding features that other platforms/browsers have, and reducing performance compared to running the same web page in Safari.
- tobr 5y ago
  First, it’s not fair to say they “strongly opposed” native apps “not long before” the essay. Every iPhone model has supported native apps through the App Store. Yes, web apps was their original plan, but they announced their intention to launch a native SDK just three months after the original iPhone release. It took another thirty months before this essay was published, so in relative terms, at that time that original plan was nothing but a historical parenthetical. Second, this is completely irrelevant to claiming that the essay in question suggests developing mobile apps with HTML5. That’s just flat-out incorrect.
  - ksec 5y ago
    >but they announced their intention to launch a native SDK just three months after the original iPhone release. All thanks to Scott Forstall, he was the only one doing heated debate with Steve Jobs. And his word "HTML5 will never be as good as native apps" is still true today, whether it is on iOS or not. I really do miss Scott Forstall.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

planb 5y ago

A bit OT, but can anyone point me to a few PWAs that are worth looking at? I don't means those "these tings are possible in the browser" sites, but real, useful tools. I just use one: "Brewfather", a fantastic home brewing (beer) app which can even use some Bluetooth API to communicate to local devices (Chrome-only of course). On my iPad, I'm using the app though.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
scambier 5y ago
I use https://www.photopea.com/ https://www.photopea.com/ when I need to do image edition.
Griffinsauce 5y ago
It bears mentioning that there are a lot of apps in the AppStore that are basically PWAs in a webview wrapper. You may be using one every day.
- scambier 5y ago
  Isn't that explicitly prohibited by Apple's guidelines?
  - ksec 5y ago
    Used to be the case but not anymore.

waon 5y ago

> HTML5 (which is now called Progressive Web Apps / PWA) This is clear gaslighting and is verifiably false. Progressive Web Apps is a Google thing, coined by a Google engineer[1] and promoted by Google[2]. The HTML living standard does not include a single mention of the term[3]. [1]: https://infrequently.org/2015/06/progressive-apps-escaping-tabs-without-losing-our-soul/ https://infrequently.org/2015/06/progressive-apps-escaping-t... [2]: https://web.dev/progressive-web-apps/ https://web.dev/progressive-web-apps/ [3]: https://github.com/whatwg/html/search?q=progressive+web+app&type= https://github.com/whatwg/html/search?q=progressive+web+app&...

max_ 5y ago
"Progressive Web Apps" comes from the notion of "Progressive Enhancement" [0] as opposed to "Glorious Degradation" And its a very old concept in web design. HTML5, PE & PWA is all the same thing. Just an evolution of standard practices & terminology. [0]: https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/04/progressive-enhancement-what-it-is-and-how-to-use-it/ https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/04/progressive-enhance...
kristiandupont 5y ago
>This is clear gaslighting Please don't destroy the term gaslighting. It means something very important and not at all what you are using it for here.
- waon 5y ago
  It's subtle misinformation that's designed to change how people unconsciously perceive PWAs. When people bring up PWAs, they commonly refer to a particular set of APIs which has a tendency of mainly being a Google-driven effort. GP is muddying the waters by instead framing it as the HTML spec itself and implying it's official. If this isn't a clear case of gaslighting, I don't know what is.
  - kristiandupont 5y ago
    This is ridiculous. Is the term PWA also "designed" to make me question my own sanity, which is a key component in gaslighting?

tarsinge 5y ago

> Probably to reinforce their "walled garden". Or maybe because PWA is a flawed concept? At least that's my take as a consumer and a developer. As the sibling commenter noted PWA is also a Google concept, with corporate strategic interests behind, it's not as simple as it appears.

maram 5y ago

Pay close attention to the time Apple deleted the essay. Apple deleted the essay exactly a week before they stopped supporting Adobe flash. Thanks for HackerNews it's all saved here =) HN submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23652461 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23652461 My comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23654011 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23654011 Another user comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23655374 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23655374

EvilEy3 5y ago

> HTML5 (which is now called Progressive Web Apps / PWA) Since when HTML5 became PWA?