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> 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 i

• 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...
    • Griffinsauce 5y ago
      > 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. IME even a lot of developers are unaware of this fact. An added annoyance flowing from this is that Apple does not allow remote debugging for webviews, so any reasonable debugging flow for those browsers is blocked. Great fun when you have a bug in iOS Chrome only.
      • jchb 5y ago
        You can remote debug webviews (from Safari on a Mac), but only web views in apps signed with a development provisioning profile (1). So to debug web content in iOS Chrome you would have to build and install Chromium for iOS yourself, rather than use the Chrome App Store version. (1) https://webkit.org/web-inspector/enabling-web-inspector/ https://webkit.org/web-inspector/enabling-web-inspector/
    • sneak 5y ago
      This statement both misunderstands skins and browser rendering engines (and javascript/jit). Apple does not prevent or refuse third party browser engines.
      • johnmaguire 5y ago
        Can you elaborate?
        • colejohnson66 5y ago
          My understanding is that third party engines are allowed. They just can’t JIT the JavaScript unless they use the builtin Safari one. So, if you want to have the same performance of the builtin Safari browser, you really need to be nothing more than a skin around it.
          • sneak 5y ago
• spiderfarmer 5y ago
  They do hold back PWA's though. They could offer opt-in push notifications for example. That's the only thing I miss as a solo web developer, and the only thing the users of my websites want (functional notifications of course, not marketing). I'm not recreating my websites in app form just to have that. But Apple sure wants me to.
  • ianai 5y ago
    As a user, I really don’t want PWAs having that ability.
    • capableweb 5y ago
      If Apple allows PWA to use notifications, you as a user will have a choice to accept or deny it. If Apple doesn't allow PWA to use notifications (current situation), then neither the developer or you as a user have a choice. Guess which one is best for the users overall? Guess which one is best for Apple overall?
      • jonathanlydall 5y ago
        While I get the utility of push notifications and part of me likes the idea, it will get abused in the same way it was on desktop where every second website asks for permission to send you notifications or install a PWA to be able to do so. I suspect Apple has internally discussed it and concluded that it would too likely be abused and result in a poor user experience. Also, Apple deliberately does not like background connections for battery saving reasons which is why everyone is required to use their push service, meaning iOS maintains a single energy efficient connection instead of each app maintaining their own TCP connection which may have no regard for energy efficiency. I acknowledge it's possible that they don't want to remove reasons for people to rather make native apps, but given the other reasons, it would not be my first guess.
        • saurik 5y ago
          So have a global switch to turn off the ability to even ask; hell: make it default disabled for all I care... solving your petty "I don't want to be bothered by pop-ups" issue isn't even remotely complicated, and that this is a continual refrain preventing the world from having fully-functional applications for software you apparently don't want to use anyway is not just ridiculous and demoralizing, it is shameful.
• feross 5y ago
  - localStorage is broken in Safari 14.1 (the latest version) on macOS [1] - Apple added support for blob.stream() in Safari 14.1 but calling the function causes a null pointer exception and crashes the renderer process [2] - Read this summary of Safari changes in iOS 14.5 (released a few weeks ago, and without an official changelog for nearly a week) and tell me that Apple isn't trying to kill PWAs through neglect [3] [1]: https://twitter.com/jaffathecake/status/1389493762129375232 https://twitter.com/jaffathecake/status/1389493762129375232 [2]: https://twitter.com/feross/status/1386835131780931587 https://twitter.com/feross/status/1386835131780931587 [3]: https://firt.dev/ios-14.5/ https://firt.dev/ios-14.5/
  • Griffinsauce 5y ago
    Also still no push notifications. That rules out a huge swathe of apps completely and kneecaps the rest.
    • ksec 5y ago
      I have been pushing for Push notification should be part of HomeScreen WebApp and not on Safari itself. No one likes them on Website, which is a valid argument. But I dont think Safari team sees the need for it.
      • joshspankit 5y ago
        Not just do they not see the need for it, they actively keep it out. Push notifications are an important and valuable differentiator. Apple does not want PWAs, they want all apps in the walled garden. The rest is just “theatre”
• echelon 5y ago
  > the author's conclusion is more or less "no, Apple isn't trying to kill the web; Allow non-Safari browsers (not just re-skins!) on iOS and I'll believe the author.
  • grishka 5y ago
    Their rationale for not allowing other browser engines is that allowing JIT (writable AND executable memory pages, in general) would make the hell break loose.
    • chj 5y ago
      This is an insult to their OS team. macOS appears to be working just fine.
      • grishka 5y ago
        Well, if there is an RCE vulnerability, that would allow the user to run arbitrary code on their own device with the same permissions that the browser process has, which is clearly unacceptable in the iOS world.
        • chj 5y ago
          I don't see how that could be acceptable in macOS world.
          • grishka 5y ago
            On macOS you as the user already have complete and unrestricted access to your computer. You don't jailbreak your mac because it already comes with root and an unlocked bootloader. Mac apps also have much more access to the underlying system than iOS apps do, and this helps with better sandboxing, I presume.
      • McTossOut 5y ago
        Different sandbox, syscalls, attack surface. You could root an iPhone from a web page back in 2012. That's what you call a disaster now.