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Things I don’t want on the web: - Websites asking me for permission to send me notifications - Websites asking me to install an app to use them What other fe

Things I don’t want on the web: - Websites asking me for permission to send me notifications - Websites asking me to install an app to use them What other features are you decreeing essential? I admit curiosity if my distaste is in perfect opposition.

infamia 5y ago
Other people want different features than you. Consider businesses who want to distribute PWAs to their employees instead of going through the laborious and time-consuming process of waiting for Apple reviews, resubmitting if you get a "Monday morning cranky reviewer", etc. For these folks, the app review process is primarily just wasted time and effort.
- marcellus23 5y ago
  Apple has an enterprise distribution system for exactly that use case, instant distribution with no review required. So that’s not a valid example.
tjohns 5y ago
Off the top of my head: The web app working while offline, local storage, and background sync. The idea is to be able to build web apps that have feature parity with native apps. (Especially on mobile, where apps are expected to integrate with the system and data connectivity is intermittent.) If you don’t want that, that’s fine. But native apps are popular for a reason, and those features are a big part of that reason.
- freediver 5y ago
  > Off the top of my head: The web app working while offline, local storage, and background sync. Do you really mean the web? Or a small subset of the web (that then probably already has a native iOS app)? For example how would Google search work while offline? Even making something as "simple" as HN (only compared to Google search) work while offline would be a considerable technical challenge and a large investment for HN, for a use case that is almost non-existent. Would really appreciate your perspective.
  - gherkinnn 5y ago
    Long-term static content like documentation. Apps that can operate on local data like various text editing, notes, primitive video and audio work, etc. And the ability to continue using portions the app if you briefly loose connection. That can be quite powerful in some instances.
  - tjohns 5y ago
    I mean web apps, but not the broader web. Things that would have an analog as native mobile or desktop apps. This doesn’t really apply to content sites. Not everything makes sense offline. If you need to perform real-time lookups, or if the backing database is too large, or the data is rapidly changing, or the user just infrequently visits the site - those are all good reasons to require connectivity. But if the data is small enough, can be cached, and can be sent asynchronously, and is something the user is using consistently it’s a good candidate. Apps that work well would be things like email, productivity apps (word processing/spreadsheets/photo editing), and maybe small data feeds like weather and news headlines. Even chat is fine, since connectivity gaps are often only a couple minutes long. My litmus test is “is this something somebody would expect to work while they’re on a train as part of their daily commute.”
    - freediver 5y ago
      OK so Gmail is a perfect example then. Let's imagine a scenario where PWAs were fully possible on iOS and the user has a choice of a native iOS Gmail app or a PWA webview app. Do you not think that a native app would offer a better user experience and that 9/10 of users would prefer it?
      - tjohns 5y ago
        Yes, personally speaking, I’d prefer the native app given the choice. :) I’m not personally arguing for PWAs over native apps! That said, I also know there are some apps that will never be developed as native apps (due to cost issues), and in those cases it would be nice to give web developers the tools to at least make the experience more pleasant and native-feeling.
- floatingatoll 5y ago
  I just tested the only website I have in “Add to Home Screen” PWA mode on iOS, and it caches all of itself perfectly fine offline, but since the site is coded badly, it doesn’t recognize that it’s in offline mode and crashes instead of being a useful app. It serves the crash page locally, from cache. But it’s clear that they could have invested in this and chose not to. That’s not the OS’s fault, any more than it is when an native app decides not to implement offline support. But. Native apps are required to ship basic offline mode support, so that when launched while offline, they show something to the user. The open web has no such requirement, and tends prefers the laziest approach without regard for users. Restrictive demands upon apps is what makes me prefer them; I respect others prefer the freedom not to bother with offline or accessibility or whatever.
kitsunesoba 5y ago
The only way I could ever support these features being added to Safari on iOS is if: - Safari reports to pages that permission is given, regardless of actual permission state - Developers have no way to trigger a system prompt dialog for either, instead requiring a user action initiated from browser chrome This is so websites can’t even implement their own prompts to sidestep restriction to user actions within the page, or even have the state on which to judge if a prompt should be shown. Bottom line, those features are fine so long as they bring zero additional dickbars/dialogs/etc.
- ivarv 5y ago
  I totally agree with your second point, but your first won't work. If a PWA has been downloaded it can report back its status - any PWA developer would rely on their own status tracking implementation, not some unreliable flag provided by Safari.
  - kitsunesoba 5y ago
    Yeah I see no issue for “installed” PWAs having access to real status, I just don’t want to see any hint of a prompt while I’m in my browser. The web’s lack of intention-gating makes it too ripe for abuse, but once a PWA is installed the user has expressed interest and a higher level of consent.
jeroenhd 5y ago
In good software, disabling those prompts would be a single setting. I'm sure Apple can find a way to make it work, they've got plenty of reserves in the bank. In Firefox on Android, it's in Settings > Permissions, with the defaults to "Ask to allow" and the only alternative being "Blocked". I personally want notifications from the sites I use and I want to know if I can install websites so that they work offline. It takes the guesswork out of "will I be able to use this when I'm out and about" which is essential for the concept to work. Besides that, I just want to use my RSS reader without browser chrome. There are tons of shitty blogs and crapsites that ask for all kinds of stuff like permissions, persistent file storage and GPU access, that I agree with. Excessive use of these prompts should be a reason to drop that website, though, not to remove the feature. By the same logic, all notifications should be banned from mobile phones, because there's tons of them that push ads and other unwanted crap (including big names like Netflix). Which is something you can probably do, if you really want to, by just disabling notifications for every app you install.
- dmitriid 5y ago
  > In good software, disabling those prompts would be a single setting. There are now several dozen APIs that require prompts to work. And Chrome is busy ramming through several dozen more. It's not "a single setting to disable these prompts".
- floatingatoll 5y ago
  Your logic is not aligned with my own. I visit a thousand websites a month and never return to most of them that month, if ever. I use the same fifty apps each month. One thousand notification prompts, one for each site I visit, is unacceptable. Fifty notification prompts, one for each time I open an app for the first time on my phone, is acceptable. You’ve only addressed the single-site case, not the at-scale reality that we users face when browsing HN or Google News or any other content aggregator that links out to a near-infinite array of sites. My browser is for the open web. My phone is for native apps. I’m aware this is upsetting to proponents of PWAs, but it’s not because of technological limitations that I feel this way. It’s because websites target the lowest common denominator, and I don’t have time for that on mobile. I can barely stand to use HN on mobile, it’s so awful, it doesn’t honor my OS-wide text settings, it has a horrendous text area, it ignores system color palettes, it doesn’t support OS dark mode hints. HN consciously chooses to target browsers only and does not wish to target being an app, and so I have modified my browser to adapt the website to be tolerable to me. But HN does not deserve to exist on my phone as-is outside of my browser. Very few websites put in the level of effort to deserve to be called an “app”, and my views reflect their disregard for per-platform integration. (Similarly, I loathe apps that are just a website in a shim, and I tolerate them as minimally as necessary for banking and medical purposes, and tolerate none in my everyday use.)

infamia 5y ago

Other people want different features than you. Consider businesses who want to distribute PWAs to their employees instead of going through the laborious and time-consuming process of waiting for Apple reviews, resubmitting if you get a "Monday morning cranky reviewer", etc. For these folks, the app review process is primarily just wasted time and effort.

marcellus23 5y ago
Apple has an enterprise distribution system for exactly that use case, instant distribution with no review required. So that’s not a valid example.

tjohns 5y ago

Off the top of my head: The web app working while offline, local storage, and background sync. The idea is to be able to build web apps that have feature parity with native apps. (Especially on mobile, where apps are expected to integrate with the system and data connectivity is intermittent.) If you don’t want that, that’s fine. But native apps are popular for a reason, and those features are a big part of that reason.

freediver 5y ago
> Off the top of my head: The web app working while offline, local storage, and background sync. Do you really mean the web? Or a small subset of the web (that then probably already has a native iOS app)? For example how would Google search work while offline? Even making something as "simple" as HN (only compared to Google search) work while offline would be a considerable technical challenge and a large investment for HN, for a use case that is almost non-existent. Would really appreciate your perspective.
- gherkinnn 5y ago
  Long-term static content like documentation. Apps that can operate on local data like various text editing, notes, primitive video and audio work, etc. And the ability to continue using portions the app if you briefly loose connection. That can be quite powerful in some instances.
- tjohns 5y ago
  I mean web apps, but not the broader web. Things that would have an analog as native mobile or desktop apps. This doesn’t really apply to content sites. Not everything makes sense offline. If you need to perform real-time lookups, or if the backing database is too large, or the data is rapidly changing, or the user just infrequently visits the site - those are all good reasons to require connectivity. But if the data is small enough, can be cached, and can be sent asynchronously, and is something the user is using consistently it’s a good candidate. Apps that work well would be things like email, productivity apps (word processing/spreadsheets/photo editing), and maybe small data feeds like weather and news headlines. Even chat is fine, since connectivity gaps are often only a couple minutes long. My litmus test is “is this something somebody would expect to work while they’re on a train as part of their daily commute.”
  - freediver 5y ago
    OK so Gmail is a perfect example then. Let's imagine a scenario where PWAs were fully possible on iOS and the user has a choice of a native iOS Gmail app or a PWA webview app. Do you not think that a native app would offer a better user experience and that 9/10 of users would prefer it?
    - tjohns 5y ago
      Yes, personally speaking, I’d prefer the native app given the choice. :) I’m not personally arguing for PWAs over native apps! That said, I also know there are some apps that will never be developed as native apps (due to cost issues), and in those cases it would be nice to give web developers the tools to at least make the experience more pleasant and native-feeling.
floatingatoll 5y ago
I just tested the only website I have in “Add to Home Screen” PWA mode on iOS, and it caches all of itself perfectly fine offline, but since the site is coded badly, it doesn’t recognize that it’s in offline mode and crashes instead of being a useful app. It serves the crash page locally, from cache. But it’s clear that they could have invested in this and chose not to. That’s not the OS’s fault, any more than it is when an native app decides not to implement offline support. But. Native apps are required to ship basic offline mode support, so that when launched while offline, they show something to the user. The open web has no such requirement, and tends prefers the laziest approach without regard for users. Restrictive demands upon apps is what makes me prefer them; I respect others prefer the freedom not to bother with offline or accessibility or whatever.

kitsunesoba 5y ago

The only way I could ever support these features being added to Safari on iOS is if: - Safari reports to pages that permission is given, regardless of actual permission state - Developers have no way to trigger a system prompt dialog for either, instead requiring a user action initiated from browser chrome This is so websites can’t even implement their own prompts to sidestep restriction to user actions within the page, or even have the state on which to judge if a prompt should be shown. Bottom line, those features are fine so long as they bring zero additional dickbars/dialogs/etc.

ivarv 5y ago
I totally agree with your second point, but your first won't work. If a PWA has been downloaded it can report back its status - any PWA developer would rely on their own status tracking implementation, not some unreliable flag provided by Safari.
- kitsunesoba 5y ago
  Yeah I see no issue for “installed” PWAs having access to real status, I just don’t want to see any hint of a prompt while I’m in my browser. The web’s lack of intention-gating makes it too ripe for abuse, but once a PWA is installed the user has expressed interest and a higher level of consent.

jeroenhd 5y ago

In good software, disabling those prompts would be a single setting. I'm sure Apple can find a way to make it work, they've got plenty of reserves in the bank. In Firefox on Android, it's in Settings > Permissions, with the defaults to "Ask to allow" and the only alternative being "Blocked". I personally want notifications from the sites I use and I want to know if I can install websites so that they work offline. It takes the guesswork out of "will I be able to use this when I'm out and about" which is essential for the concept to work. Besides that, I just want to use my RSS reader without browser chrome. There are tons of shitty blogs and crapsites that ask for all kinds of stuff like permissions, persistent file storage and GPU access, that I agree with. Excessive use of these prompts should be a reason to drop that website, though, not to remove the feature. By the same logic, all notifications should be banned from mobile phones, because there's tons of them that push ads and other unwanted crap (including big names like Netflix). Which is something you can probably do, if you really want to, by just disabling notifications for every app you install.

dmitriid 5y ago
> In good software, disabling those prompts would be a single setting. There are now several dozen APIs that require prompts to work. And Chrome is busy ramming through several dozen more. It's not "a single setting to disable these prompts".
floatingatoll 5y ago
Your logic is not aligned with my own. I visit a thousand websites a month and never return to most of them that month, if ever. I use the same fifty apps each month. One thousand notification prompts, one for each site I visit, is unacceptable. Fifty notification prompts, one for each time I open an app for the first time on my phone, is acceptable. You’ve only addressed the single-site case, not the at-scale reality that we users face when browsing HN or Google News or any other content aggregator that links out to a near-infinite array of sites. My browser is for the open web. My phone is for native apps. I’m aware this is upsetting to proponents of PWAs, but it’s not because of technological limitations that I feel this way. It’s because websites target the lowest common denominator, and I don’t have time for that on mobile. I can barely stand to use HN on mobile, it’s so awful, it doesn’t honor my OS-wide text settings, it has a horrendous text area, it ignores system color palettes, it doesn’t support OS dark mode hints. HN consciously chooses to target browsers only and does not wish to target being an app, and so I have modified my browser to adapt the website to be tolerable to me. But HN does not deserve to exist on my phone as-is outside of my browser. Very few websites put in the level of effort to deserve to be called an “app”, and my views reflect their disregard for per-platform integration. (Similarly, I loathe apps that are just a website in a shim, and I tolerate them as minimally as necessary for banking and medical purposes, and tolerate none in my everyday use.)