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> Overall, I think PWA Builder is off to a good start, but they need a lot more work to be viable. I disagree. Apple needs to improve their support for PWAs,

by adam12 5y ago

> Overall, I think PWA Builder is off to a good start, but they need a lot more work to be viable. I disagree. Apple needs to improve their support for PWAs, so that PWABuilder becomes obsolete.

srcreigh 5y ago
This is tantamount to giving away their App Store revenue cut... so probably won't happen
- scarface74 5y ago
  You mean the App Store revenue that they already don’t get from free apps? The typical non game application is mostly just a front end to services where there is no money being directly charged through the website/app anyway. It came out in the Epic Trial that 70-80% of App Store revenue comes from games. Those would never be PWAs anyway.
- toastal 5y ago
  The biggest companies and most performance sensitive application would still be built native. My biggest concern is how a CRUD app from a small company has no way to release a proper PWA on iOS with its handicapped support. With one of my current contract, we have 2 people coding and ended up having to create a separate iOS app because there is no Notification support. We abandoned our proof-of-concept PWA because we had like 10% Android users and putting in the maintenance effort was not worth it. Without Android support, after a few months all Android users decided to ‘upgrade’ their phones to iOS devices. Is the the future we want? Do we want to be forced into walled gardens and implicitly guiding users into it? If your team is small should you be forced into one specific platform or should your mostly-CRUD app be viably built for a cross-platform solution like PWAs which covers the major platforms and the niche ones like Linux phones.
  - scarface74 5y ago
    As opposed to being forced to use web apps? Every website without fail that ever wanted me to allow push notifications did it just so they could spam me. Do I want a future with crummy PWAs instead of applications when appropriate? I want that about as much as I want Electron apps.
    - tata71 5y ago
      PWAs have been seen as crappy for the same reason WordPress sites have been — lowest barrier to entry for hackjob teams! Now, with installation of PWAs, it'll become the same as the "apps" of old, just without a store in between. PWA manifests etc
    - depressedpanda 5y ago
      Web apps provide stronger sandboxing, and protect the user more. There's a reason that Twitter and Reddit nag you about "installing their app" whenever you visit them in a mobile browser. > Every website without fail that ever wanted me to allow push notifications did it just so they could spam me. I think this is mostly due to iOS/Safari not supporting notifications. The more serious actors who want to provide actual value to the users have been strong armed by Apple to create a native mobile app. Conversely, if the only browser allowed on iOS actually supported push notifications, you would see more legitimate prompts for using the tech.
MBCook 5y ago
I’ve seen people on HN and elsewhere express the “Safari needs to better support PWAs” line for many years. I’ve never seen anyone explain to me why, as an iOS user, this is a good thing of preferable to a native app. I’ve seen lots of pro-developer arguments. And anti-Apple’s tight control arguments. But no one has ever explained to me why as a user I should want a PWA that isn’t some form of the arguments above.
- busymom0 5y ago
  I am an iOS and Android dev but I so agree that Safari needs better support for PWAs. App Store apps are dependant on the review teams approving your app (plus the additional delay in the review process of a day or so). Websites don't have this problem and anyone can access pretty much any website without any gatekeeper.
- streptomycin 5y ago
  Because you don't always get a choice. Not all developers have the resources to make special UIs for iOS/Android/Windows/Mac/Linux. Sometimes it's either PWA or nothing. (Well, I know there are other cross platform technologies, but IMHO they're all even worse than PWAs.) I have an app like that... I make it by myself, and I have no desire to make 5 different GUIs. And yet thousands of people on iOS use it as a PWA. That seems pretty pro-user. The downside is, my app performs worse in Safari than any other browser, so these iOS folks with high end iPhones are getting about the same experience as Android users with $100 phones. I bet I would have even more iOS users if Apple let them use a better web browser :)
- echelon 5y ago
  We, as technologists, shouldn't have gotten herded like cattle into the abusive iOS ecosystem. It's extortion. Many of us hate iOS, Apple's taxation, and Apple's asinine rules with a burning passion. But we have no choice but to develop for the OS that 50% of Americans choose. It sucks. It's as if AOL won and we had to build what Time Warner wanted and had to pay 30% of our revenues. It's as if we're living in a Steve Baller hellscape, but everyone worships it because it was from the other Steve. The modern tech ecosystem sucks.
- 5y ago

by adam12 5y ago

> Overall, I think PWA Builder is off to a good start, but they need a lot more work to be viable. I disagree. Apple needs to improve their support for PWAs, so that PWABuilder becomes obsolete.

srcreigh 5y ago

This is tantamount to giving away their App Store revenue cut... so probably won't happen

scarface74 5y ago
You mean the App Store revenue that they already don’t get from free apps? The typical non game application is mostly just a front end to services where there is no money being directly charged through the website/app anyway. It came out in the Epic Trial that 70-80% of App Store revenue comes from games. Those would never be PWAs anyway.
toastal 5y ago
The biggest companies and most performance sensitive application would still be built native. My biggest concern is how a CRUD app from a small company has no way to release a proper PWA on iOS with its handicapped support. With one of my current contract, we have 2 people coding and ended up having to create a separate iOS app because there is no Notification support. We abandoned our proof-of-concept PWA because we had like 10% Android users and putting in the maintenance effort was not worth it. Without Android support, after a few months all Android users decided to ‘upgrade’ their phones to iOS devices. Is the the future we want? Do we want to be forced into walled gardens and implicitly guiding users into it? If your team is small should you be forced into one specific platform or should your mostly-CRUD app be viably built for a cross-platform solution like PWAs which covers the major platforms and the niche ones like Linux phones.
- scarface74 5y ago
  As opposed to being forced to use web apps? Every website without fail that ever wanted me to allow push notifications did it just so they could spam me. Do I want a future with crummy PWAs instead of applications when appropriate? I want that about as much as I want Electron apps.
  - tata71 5y ago
    PWAs have been seen as crappy for the same reason WordPress sites have been — lowest barrier to entry for hackjob teams! Now, with installation of PWAs, it'll become the same as the "apps" of old, just without a store in between. PWA manifests etc
  - depressedpanda 5y ago
    Web apps provide stronger sandboxing, and protect the user more. There's a reason that Twitter and Reddit nag you about "installing their app" whenever you visit them in a mobile browser. > Every website without fail that ever wanted me to allow push notifications did it just so they could spam me. I think this is mostly due to iOS/Safari not supporting notifications. The more serious actors who want to provide actual value to the users have been strong armed by Apple to create a native mobile app. Conversely, if the only browser allowed on iOS actually supported push notifications, you would see more legitimate prompts for using the tech.

MBCook 5y ago

I’ve seen people on HN and elsewhere express the “Safari needs to better support PWAs” line for many years. I’ve never seen anyone explain to me why, as an iOS user, this is a good thing of preferable to a native app. I’ve seen lots of pro-developer arguments. And anti-Apple’s tight control arguments. But no one has ever explained to me why as a user I should want a PWA that isn’t some form of the arguments above.

busymom0 5y ago
I am an iOS and Android dev but I so agree that Safari needs better support for PWAs. App Store apps are dependant on the review teams approving your app (plus the additional delay in the review process of a day or so). Websites don't have this problem and anyone can access pretty much any website without any gatekeeper.
streptomycin 5y ago
Because you don't always get a choice. Not all developers have the resources to make special UIs for iOS/Android/Windows/Mac/Linux. Sometimes it's either PWA or nothing. (Well, I know there are other cross platform technologies, but IMHO they're all even worse than PWAs.) I have an app like that... I make it by myself, and I have no desire to make 5 different GUIs. And yet thousands of people on iOS use it as a PWA. That seems pretty pro-user. The downside is, my app performs worse in Safari than any other browser, so these iOS folks with high end iPhones are getting about the same experience as Android users with $100 phones. I bet I would have even more iOS users if Apple let them use a better web browser :)
echelon 5y ago
We, as technologists, shouldn't have gotten herded like cattle into the abusive iOS ecosystem. It's extortion. Many of us hate iOS, Apple's taxation, and Apple's asinine rules with a burning passion. But we have no choice but to develop for the OS that 50% of Americans choose. It sucks. It's as if AOL won and we had to build what Time Warner wanted and had to pay 30% of our revenues. It's as if we're living in a Steve Baller hellscape, but everyone worships it because it was from the other Steve. The modern tech ecosystem sucks.
5y ago