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iOS 16 to support Web push notifications in 2023

175 points by judge2020 4y ago

usrn 4y ago
judge2020 4y ago
I guess the hash to jump to the specific text was removed. Ctrl-f "Web push" to see the change.
phillipseamore 4y ago
Obligatory "HN post about Safari" note: Still waiting on MSE and fullscreen (for elements) API on iOS, both supported on macOS and ipadOS for years.
- dawiddr 4y ago
  WKWebView has some new APIs that suggest this might be the lucky year for fullscreen, both on iOS and iPadOS.
  - phillipseamore 4y ago
    Interesting, though fullscreen for any element (not just video) has been available on iPadOS for some years now.
- phillipseamore 4y ago
  Why do so many find it necessary to downvote my comment? MediaSourceExtensions are vital for supporting media in Safari (and already available in iPadOS and MacOS [and under the hood on iOS for VP8/9 support]) and the fullscreen API for arbitrary elements is necessary to support video + slides (or other sideloaded material) and to support captions/subtitles that need features not supported with regular textracks.
  - MBCook 4y ago
    I didn’t, but I’ll hazard a guess. “Safari is the new IE” has been the meme for years, despite the fact the situation is totally different. Any time Safari is mentioned or gets a new feature it’s just posts from people complaining Safari doesn’t support WebUSB or whatever their pet feature is. So Safari added the one I see people complaining about more than anything else. The top complaint on HN for literally years. And you just switched your complaining to something else. Most people here are celebrating they got something they’ve wanted forever. Personally I’m just tired of all the bitching. There is no escaping it, it seems. You could have framed your comments much more positively. Perhaps that would have helped. My 2¢ guess.
    - lern_too_spel 4y ago
      It doesn't help that apologists have said Apple isn't dragging their feet but just not implementing features that are bad for users. This article is about one such feature. GP points out that Apple is still dragging their feet on features important to them, features that are only not implemented because they threaten Apple's monetization of streaming services, and apologists drag them instead of Apple. The situation with Safari and IE is very different. What is not different is that they were the most damaging browsers for progress of the web platform in their respective eras.
      - WorldMaker 4y ago
        What made IE damaging was that it raced out ahead of standards and created APIs that no one else supported but companies started to rely on while it was in the lead and couldn't migrate away to standards that didn't exist. Most people today remember the era of IE stagnation and misunderstand: that wasn't the period of danger, that the was consequences of danger. Safari isn't the new IE, Safari is the new Netscape. Chrome is the new IE in that danger period. All the web developers complaining about Safari and Firefox "being slow", that's the danger signs. That's the warning flags. That's the new IE damaging browser progress by locking people into single-browser "web standards" that aren't standards. I don't know if the web will reap the same consequences this time, if there will be a Chrome stagnation to follow this Chrome danger time. I do know that the warning signs aren't what a lot of people think they are. The warning signs are the complaints about "Safari holding back the web" because they tend to imply that Chrome is the web when it isn't.
- 9999 4y ago
  It's utterly absurd that iOS on the iPhone still doesn't support Media Source Extensions.
ocdtrekkie 4y ago
I am still on team "why haven't these been deprecated by all major browsers yet". I literally get calls from people who believe their computer has "malware", and it's just dozens of notification subscriptions in their browser spewing adult content ads onto their screen. Of all the web APIs out there, this is the one most aggressively misused for spam ads, and most rarely actually useful. We literally spent a decade demanding people add a popup blocker into the web browser, and a decade later, injected a popup ad tool back into the browser.
- moritonal 4y ago
  I disagree, I think it's a great feature that let's apps like ProtonMail not require a desktop app. What it needs is a user-driven gesture restriction and a harsh penalty by Google for firing on first-load.
  - ocdtrekkie 4y ago
    If a web standard only works if Google "penalizes" people, it's a bad web standard. I hate having to express this weekly, but Google is not the web. I really don't think any mail client needs corner of screen popups to be useful: I respond to most emails within 5-10 minutes, have used web email since 2005, and I've never wanted or allowed push notifications on my desktop. It is, at best, a solution looking for a problem, and at worst, an adtech popup spec maliciously impressed upon the web with a casual justification for building it.
    - endisneigh 4y ago
      Why not disable notifications if you don’t like them? This functionality is opt in. If you don’t toggle this feature flag you’d never even know. Lol
      - dijit 4y ago
        > Why not disable notifications if you don’t like them? Lol The “Lol” at the end of your comment is misplaced, comes off as condescending. Not everyone is the same as you, maybe they had considered turning them off and it’s possible that they believe that it may not be an option. For people outside of tech who do not mess with the settings of their devices, ironically the same people who are likely to be abused by this feature, then having a toggle is not very useful overall anyway. But, I’m not happy with your tone as it brings down the whole conversation to the same tired old flame war/shit slinging that inevitably happens when someone starts it with mild condescension on the internet.
gdeglin 4y ago
This is great news. One of the biggest advantages native apps have had over websites is the ability to send notifications. This difference has disadvantaged individuals and companies that find themselves needing to invest in both having a website and a mobile app, and discouraged investment into good web experiences. As websites can finally provide experiences and leverage notifications as well as apps have been able to, I think we’ll see the quality of the web improve considerably.
- hbn 4y ago
  I think the more likely outcome of this is a bunch more grandmas with 12 ads on their lockscreen at all times because users are so conditioned to click "accept" for every prompt they see just to get it out of the way Web push notifications have basically only been used to make shitty experiences. Random websites sending you ads, every news site you just happened to click to read one article trying to trick you into letting them send notifications for new articles they publish, etc.
  - endisneigh 4y ago
    Given that it’s opt in (likely by adding the website to your Home Screen I imagine if the Safari storage expiration is any indication) - how’s this any different than apps spamming you?
    - hbn 4y ago
      Is it going to require you to add the site to your home screen, or is it gonna be like Chrome where you just get an "allow/block" button while browsing around, which all casual users will hit "allow" on because they're trying to get to the content? A website spamming you is very different from an app spamming you. Going to the app store and installing an app takes much more buy-in from a user than just clicking a link. If someone shares a news article from a random site I've never seen before, I might be willing to click it. If that same person told me to install an app to read an article, it's not happening in the first place. I've got a very short list of curated apps I installed on my device. The web is mostly garbage though and most of it shouldn't be sending notifications.
endisneigh 4y ago
Finally. Though I wonder how this will be implemented. How’s this done on android? The amount of FUD on this post is sad. People commenting on this who have no idea this has already been opt in since 15.3 via advanced safari settings.
- xbar 4y ago
  I feel like the FUD comes from battling browser-based "allow notifications" requests from websites from whom no one wants to receive notifications--to me that is learned human FUD, as opposed to bullshit-FUD from a competitor trying to manipulate a market. Notifications suck in browsers. Maybe they turn to to magic in the iOS universe because of the device-ness aspect.
  - endisneigh 4y ago
    Just disable them, no?
    - dwaite 4y ago
      The sites will render a dialog with a button to add notifications, since the browsers require a user interaction as part of the API call. Basically, you get prompted to add notifications so you can get a prompt to add notifications - while for 90%+ of sites visited, you would _never_ approve notifications.
productceo 4y ago
When will they abolish the arbitrary 50MB limit on PWAs?
- jcstryker 4y ago
  The limit does seem arbitrary, but just as a sanity check doesn't 50MB seem like a absurd size for a web application...?
  - shepherdjerred 4y ago
    It depends on the application. Something like a video game or a proper web application like Google Maps would surely want more than 50MB.
  - TheCoelacanth 4y ago
    No. It's an absurd size for a web page, but not for a web application. Many native applications are multiple GB.
diebeforei485 4y ago
Remember when everyone started getting Calendar spam because web pages abused being able to easily subscribe to a calendar? Yeah. I hope they have some safeguards here. At the very least, require an Apple Developer account so abusers can't hide behind anonymity. Also, let me pre-emptively disable this feature across all websites.
- qgin 4y ago
  My guess is all of that is why it's taking until 2023
- llbeansandrice 4y ago
  > Also, let me pre-emptively disable this feature across all websites. It's opt-in. RTFA. > Web push notifications > Adds support for opt‑in notifications on iOS. Coming in 2023.
  - teakettle42 4y ago
    > It's opt-in. RTFA. I’m assuming that they, like me, never want to even be asked. The request itself winds up being a form of spam.
    - endisneigh 4y ago
      That’s not how it will work. You’ll have to go into safari advanced settings and toggle a feature flag. It’s been there until 15.3.
      - teakettle42 4y ago
        How do you know how an unreleased and barely-discussed feature is going to work in the future release? The current mechanism of operation has no bearing on the intended mechanism, and I cannot fathom why you think it would.
        endisneigh 4y ago
devxpy 4y ago
Does anyone know how to switch off animations in iOS? Quite a pity to have to wait for slow animations on the fastest mobile chip in the market!
- rimunroe 4y ago
  You can reduce animations/motion, but I think there will always be a slight fade animation for things like switching between apps https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/motion-iph0b691d3ed/ios https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/motion-iph0b691d3ed/i...
  - devxpy 4y ago
    The reduce motion stuff also makes the swipe navigation gestures impossible to use because there’s no physical button anymore
  - devxpy 4y ago
    Incredibly sad state of affairs :(
- jstx1 4y ago
  After the most recent update apps started opening with a from-the-right sliding animation and I hate it so much.
  - baisq 4y ago
    That's a bug I think, have you tried rebooting?
    - jstx1 4y ago
      Yep, you're right. Rebooting fixed it. Thanks :)
ChrisArchitect 4y ago
More notifications nobody is really asking for. Devs may think it's cool but when like 99% of users are disallowing webpage notifications.... It's just not newsworthy.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  No one needs them on random websites, and I agree it's really sucky when you visit a site you've never been to before and the first thing they propose is turning on notifications. (These days, invariably with a fake notification dialog so declining doesn't lock them out from asking again. Yuck.) There's a lot of web-based applications that could benefit, though.
  - ChrisArchitect 4y ago
    ya ya, having the feature/capability is a nice to have for some web apps (web, the platform apple's been restricting/hating/building against for more than a decade), and even in that space more notifications is debatably not a good thing, but trying to also say it's not newsworthy, not a feature to dwell on from WWDC etc. Apple has a habit of making flashy announcements for stuff that's either not news/been around, or could just be rolled out in updates (like for example almost all of the silly messaging updates/features?)
- brewdad 4y ago
  Yup. If this isn't allow/disallow by web site, I'll be turning off all Safari notifications. Even so, aside from messaging apps, I pretty much have notifications turned off already. I will interact with my phone on MY terms rather than have garbage pushed to me at all hours of the day.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  This is useful for legitimate apps. If I add the telegram PWA, I want to see notifications when I get a message.
nicoburns 4y ago
Finally! If they add support for persistent offline storage that doesn’t get automatically cleaned up then mobile web apps might finally be a viable alternative to native ones. Less of a need now that react-native is more mature, but the update model of mobile we is still much better.
- endisneigh 4y ago
  That’s already possible if you add the page to your Home Screen. With this the missing piece is finally added
  - phillipseamore 4y ago
    Persistent or longer than 7 days isn't guaranteed with sites added to home screen, though it rarely happens it can be cleared (has happened to me after iOS updates). My only problem with the 7day storage limit is that every and any site gets the 7-day limit with no regard to if the user has interacted or actually used it, and to me that fails the privacy test. I've posted some ideas about that here before (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30402242 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30402242)
    - endisneigh 4y ago
      Doesn’t the same problem wrt privacy exist on the desktop and android?
      - phillipseamore 4y ago
        Not sure I understand the question. Persistence isn't guaranteed in any browser, but Safari is the only one with a definite 7 day limit. All browser treat these limits the same (e.g. engagement doesn't matter), except for browsers that support persistent storage after a user gives permission for it.
        endisneigh 4y ago
dijit 4y ago
I am aware that this website is predominantly web developers. But I’m personally quite disappointed in Apple for this move. That you can turn a browser into an app platform is not a success for browsers, it’s a failing in application distribution and native application tooling. As a user I am not looking forward to the inevitable deprecation of native applications to PWAs; because when that happens I will not be able to turn off the push notification feature in the browser. The same was true of JavaScript: it’s impossible to run a browser without JavaScript, what was originally progressive enhancement is now mandatory code execution; for many web developers that is not an issue at all, as a user: I shouldn't have to trust _all_ the code in the world that my browser can potentially pull in. The sandbox, as complex as it is, is not infallible. All of this consolidation on the browser frightens me, personally, and maybe you disagree, but honestly I’d like someone to be pushing back on the “faster horse”[0] requests from web developers. 0: reference to the famous quote by Henry Ford: “If I had asked my customers what they wanted they would have said a faster horse.” Edit: expected result from the hackernews audience. But at least if I managed to convince one person that the browser shouldn’t do everything then it’s worth the karma sacrifice.
- endisneigh 4y ago
  It’s literally opt-in. Given that this will be relegated to a small niche at best. Most people aren’t going to go into Safari advanced settings and toggle a flag. Native apps will always be necessary for something that actually needs it. If anything you should be happy about this as it’ll remove control of everything from Google and Apple exclusively. Funny you talk about consolidation…
  - dijit 4y ago
    > It’s literally opt-in. For now, I’m not sure how that will be though, if it’s anything like adding a calendar then it’s just hitting “yes” on a prompt. > Given that this will be relegated to a small niche at best. How many apps on your phone want to send notifications? > Most people aren’t going to go into Safari advanced settings and toggle a flag. Assuming that’s how it will be enabled (and in perpetuity), I can’t see people doing that in the general case either and this the effectiveness of this feature is questionable. I think everyone in this thread assumes they can deploy PWAs in a generally available way that support push notifications over the web, if you have to go into safari settings (as in, the settings app) then people are not likely to enable it and the this you can’t use them generally. What I’m saying is: either this is easy to use for users, and it will be abused; or it’s hard for users and the actual usefulness of the feature is dubious.
physicsguy 4y ago
“We don’t need native apps, use bookmarks” “Here is the App Store! Use native apps!” “We don’t need native apps!”
tuxie_ 4y ago
Having worked with PWAs I don't get my hopes up anymore when it comes to iOS, they have added and subsequently broken support for key features in the past. I wish they would just fix the current features they claim to support rather than keep adding half-assed features that won't properly work once you install the app in the phone, for example.
- ramesh31 4y ago
  PWAs are never going to happen. I wish for a free and open app ecosystem as much as anyone else. But PWAs are not the way.
  - collaborative 4y ago
    Care to elaborate?
    - ramesh31 4y ago
      >Care to elaborate? It's been nearly a decade, and we're still talking about PWAs being the next big thing. Mozilla/Firefox has killed them off for good [0], and Safari support is tepid at best. It was ultimately just another push by Google a la AMP to corner the browser market some more, and the rest of the vendors are fed up with it. Devs by and large never bought into it because they are objectively inferior to native, while the tiny number of niche use cases where they do make sense have (rightfully) just avoided the complexity and remained as normal web apps. [0] https://9to5google.com/2021/01/27/firefox-discontinues-work-pwa-desktop/ https://9to5google.com/2021/01/27/firefox-discontinues-work-...
      - postalrat 4y ago
        What developers are you talking about that are writing native apps?
      - dmt0 4y ago
        When PWAs became possible, the biggest obstacle was that you're loosing all the iPhone users.
secondcoming 4y ago
Every website: ‘Allow notifications?’ Every answer: ‘GTFO’
rideontime 4y ago
As a developer, this just happens to solve a specific problem I'm working on right now. As a user, like hell am I ever going to enable this.
- thiht 4y ago
  Why not? If it’s a site by site authorization, it can help replace many apps.
  - michaelt 4y ago
    I have notifications disabled on my browser because for every 1 useful notification I got, I get 50 requests to send me notifications because I visited a website once.
    - selfhoster69 4y ago
      Same here, it's far too annoying.
    - ec109685 4y ago
      Don’t you get them anyway since sites usually show their own push notification prompt before burning the native one?
- postalrat 4y ago
  I assume as a user you don't have any notifications from any app enabled.
brundolf 4y ago
Here's hoping this signals a tide-shift in their general stance on PWAs. PWAs can and do put really important competitive-pressure on the walled garden, and Apple knows it, and I think that's why they've been hampered for so long. I kinda wonder if this change was motivated by the antitrust stirrings
james2doyle 4y ago
That's good news. It's about time. Personally, I like that they are adding haptic feedback to the keyboard: https://www.apple.com/ios/ios-16-preview/features/#:~:text=Keyboard%20haptics,when%20you%20type https://www.apple.com/ios/ios-16-preview/features/#:~:text=K....
- spartanatreyu 4y ago
  Is iOS only getting this feature now? Android 2 had this over a decade ago!
ratio11 4y ago
A big remaining hurdle to developing native-like PWAs on iOS is the inability to lock the screen orientation.
gruez 4y ago
Safari on mac already supports push notifications, but unlike on chrome/firefox you need a push server certificate (similar to how push notifications work for ios apps)[1] to actually push messages. That obviously requires the $100/year of a developer subscription. It's not a huge deal if you're running a business, but if you're just a hobbyist trying to push notifications to your own devices without a third party app, that sucks. [1] https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/NetworkingInternet/Conceptual/NotificationProgrammingGuideForWebsites/PushNotifications/PushNotifications.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40013225-CH3-SW1 https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Ne...
- cmeacham98 4y ago
  In other words, Apple only supports a proprietary protocol that notably differs from the standard every other browser uses in that you must pay them a yearly fee and agree to their massive developer ToS in order to use it.
  - arthurcolle 4y ago
    sounds like Apple!
- jeroenhd 4y ago
  Well, that sucks. The blogspam websites that spam notifications to make money off ads will be able to afford the certificate but getting notifications from your self-hosted services will cost you instead. Hopefully Apple revises this policy (i.e. give out free certificates limited to a certain amount of notifications or a certain amount of domains) but I wouldn't keep my hopes up. Luckily, several governments are preparing to add legislation to force Apple to allow alternative browser engines, so there's still a chance this problem might resolve itself in the future.
  - bzzzt 4y ago
    Won't the certificates be revoked when misused by those blogspam sites? I have no trouble seeing value in creating a little friction for intruding on users attention.

175 points by judge2020 4y ago

usrn 4y ago

judge2020 4y ago

I guess the hash to jump to the specific text was removed. Ctrl-f "Web push" to see the change.

phillipseamore 4y ago

Obligatory "HN post about Safari" note: Still waiting on MSE and fullscreen (for elements) API on iOS, both supported on macOS and ipadOS for years.

dawiddr 4y ago
WKWebView has some new APIs that suggest this might be the lucky year for fullscreen, both on iOS and iPadOS.
- phillipseamore 4y ago
  Interesting, though fullscreen for any element (not just video) has been available on iPadOS for some years now.
phillipseamore 4y ago
Why do so many find it necessary to downvote my comment? MediaSourceExtensions are vital for supporting media in Safari (and already available in iPadOS and MacOS [and under the hood on iOS for VP8/9 support]) and the fullscreen API for arbitrary elements is necessary to support video + slides (or other sideloaded material) and to support captions/subtitles that need features not supported with regular textracks.
- MBCook 4y ago
  I didn’t, but I’ll hazard a guess. “Safari is the new IE” has been the meme for years, despite the fact the situation is totally different. Any time Safari is mentioned or gets a new feature it’s just posts from people complaining Safari doesn’t support WebUSB or whatever their pet feature is. So Safari added the one I see people complaining about more than anything else. The top complaint on HN for literally years. And you just switched your complaining to something else. Most people here are celebrating they got something they’ve wanted forever. Personally I’m just tired of all the bitching. There is no escaping it, it seems. You could have framed your comments much more positively. Perhaps that would have helped. My 2¢ guess.
  - lern_too_spel 4y ago
    It doesn't help that apologists have said Apple isn't dragging their feet but just not implementing features that are bad for users. This article is about one such feature. GP points out that Apple is still dragging their feet on features important to them, features that are only not implemented because they threaten Apple's monetization of streaming services, and apologists drag them instead of Apple. The situation with Safari and IE is very different. What is not different is that they were the most damaging browsers for progress of the web platform in their respective eras.
    - WorldMaker 4y ago
      What made IE damaging was that it raced out ahead of standards and created APIs that no one else supported but companies started to rely on while it was in the lead and couldn't migrate away to standards that didn't exist. Most people today remember the era of IE stagnation and misunderstand: that wasn't the period of danger, that the was consequences of danger. Safari isn't the new IE, Safari is the new Netscape. Chrome is the new IE in that danger period. All the web developers complaining about Safari and Firefox "being slow", that's the danger signs. That's the warning flags. That's the new IE damaging browser progress by locking people into single-browser "web standards" that aren't standards. I don't know if the web will reap the same consequences this time, if there will be a Chrome stagnation to follow this Chrome danger time. I do know that the warning signs aren't what a lot of people think they are. The warning signs are the complaints about "Safari holding back the web" because they tend to imply that Chrome is the web when it isn't.
9999 4y ago
It's utterly absurd that iOS on the iPhone still doesn't support Media Source Extensions.

ocdtrekkie 4y ago

I am still on team "why haven't these been deprecated by all major browsers yet". I literally get calls from people who believe their computer has "malware", and it's just dozens of notification subscriptions in their browser spewing adult content ads onto their screen. Of all the web APIs out there, this is the one most aggressively misused for spam ads, and most rarely actually useful. We literally spent a decade demanding people add a popup blocker into the web browser, and a decade later, injected a popup ad tool back into the browser.

moritonal 4y ago
I disagree, I think it's a great feature that let's apps like ProtonMail not require a desktop app. What it needs is a user-driven gesture restriction and a harsh penalty by Google for firing on first-load.
- ocdtrekkie 4y ago
  If a web standard only works if Google "penalizes" people, it's a bad web standard. I hate having to express this weekly, but Google is not the web. I really don't think any mail client needs corner of screen popups to be useful: I respond to most emails within 5-10 minutes, have used web email since 2005, and I've never wanted or allowed push notifications on my desktop. It is, at best, a solution looking for a problem, and at worst, an adtech popup spec maliciously impressed upon the web with a casual justification for building it.
  - endisneigh 4y ago
    Why not disable notifications if you don’t like them? This functionality is opt in. If you don’t toggle this feature flag you’d never even know. Lol
    - dijit 4y ago
      > Why not disable notifications if you don’t like them? Lol The “Lol” at the end of your comment is misplaced, comes off as condescending. Not everyone is the same as you, maybe they had considered turning them off and it’s possible that they believe that it may not be an option. For people outside of tech who do not mess with the settings of their devices, ironically the same people who are likely to be abused by this feature, then having a toggle is not very useful overall anyway. But, I’m not happy with your tone as it brings down the whole conversation to the same tired old flame war/shit slinging that inevitably happens when someone starts it with mild condescension on the internet.

gdeglin 4y ago

This is great news. One of the biggest advantages native apps have had over websites is the ability to send notifications. This difference has disadvantaged individuals and companies that find themselves needing to invest in both having a website and a mobile app, and discouraged investment into good web experiences. As websites can finally provide experiences and leverage notifications as well as apps have been able to, I think we’ll see the quality of the web improve considerably.

hbn 4y ago
I think the more likely outcome of this is a bunch more grandmas with 12 ads on their lockscreen at all times because users are so conditioned to click "accept" for every prompt they see just to get it out of the way Web push notifications have basically only been used to make shitty experiences. Random websites sending you ads, every news site you just happened to click to read one article trying to trick you into letting them send notifications for new articles they publish, etc.
- endisneigh 4y ago
  Given that it’s opt in (likely by adding the website to your Home Screen I imagine if the Safari storage expiration is any indication) - how’s this any different than apps spamming you?
  - hbn 4y ago
    Is it going to require you to add the site to your home screen, or is it gonna be like Chrome where you just get an "allow/block" button while browsing around, which all casual users will hit "allow" on because they're trying to get to the content? A website spamming you is very different from an app spamming you. Going to the app store and installing an app takes much more buy-in from a user than just clicking a link. If someone shares a news article from a random site I've never seen before, I might be willing to click it. If that same person told me to install an app to read an article, it's not happening in the first place. I've got a very short list of curated apps I installed on my device. The web is mostly garbage though and most of it shouldn't be sending notifications.

endisneigh 4y ago

Finally. Though I wonder how this will be implemented. How’s this done on android? The amount of FUD on this post is sad. People commenting on this who have no idea this has already been opt in since 15.3 via advanced safari settings.

xbar 4y ago
I feel like the FUD comes from battling browser-based "allow notifications" requests from websites from whom no one wants to receive notifications--to me that is learned human FUD, as opposed to bullshit-FUD from a competitor trying to manipulate a market. Notifications suck in browsers. Maybe they turn to to magic in the iOS universe because of the device-ness aspect.
- endisneigh 4y ago
  Just disable them, no?
  - dwaite 4y ago
    The sites will render a dialog with a button to add notifications, since the browsers require a user interaction as part of the API call. Basically, you get prompted to add notifications so you can get a prompt to add notifications - while for 90%+ of sites visited, you would _never_ approve notifications.

productceo 4y ago

When will they abolish the arbitrary 50MB limit on PWAs?

jcstryker 4y ago
The limit does seem arbitrary, but just as a sanity check doesn't 50MB seem like a absurd size for a web application...?
- shepherdjerred 4y ago
  It depends on the application. Something like a video game or a proper web application like Google Maps would surely want more than 50MB.
- TheCoelacanth 4y ago
  No. It's an absurd size for a web page, but not for a web application. Many native applications are multiple GB.

diebeforei485 4y ago

Remember when everyone started getting Calendar spam because web pages abused being able to easily subscribe to a calendar? Yeah. I hope they have some safeguards here. At the very least, require an Apple Developer account so abusers can't hide behind anonymity. Also, let me pre-emptively disable this feature across all websites.

qgin 4y ago
My guess is all of that is why it's taking until 2023
llbeansandrice 4y ago
> Also, let me pre-emptively disable this feature across all websites. It's opt-in. RTFA. > Web push notifications > Adds support for opt‑in notifications on iOS. Coming in 2023.
- teakettle42 4y ago
  > It's opt-in. RTFA. I’m assuming that they, like me, never want to even be asked. The request itself winds up being a form of spam.
  - endisneigh 4y ago
    That’s not how it will work. You’ll have to go into safari advanced settings and toggle a feature flag. It’s been there until 15.3.
    - teakettle42 4y ago
      How do you know how an unreleased and barely-discussed feature is going to work in the future release? The current mechanism of operation has no bearing on the intended mechanism, and I cannot fathom why you think it would.
      - endisneigh 4y ago

devxpy 4y ago

Does anyone know how to switch off animations in iOS? Quite a pity to have to wait for slow animations on the fastest mobile chip in the market!

rimunroe 4y ago
You can reduce animations/motion, but I think there will always be a slight fade animation for things like switching between apps https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/motion-iph0b691d3ed/ios https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/motion-iph0b691d3ed/i...
- devxpy 4y ago
  The reduce motion stuff also makes the swipe navigation gestures impossible to use because there’s no physical button anymore
- devxpy 4y ago
  Incredibly sad state of affairs :(
jstx1 4y ago
After the most recent update apps started opening with a from-the-right sliding animation and I hate it so much.
- baisq 4y ago
  That's a bug I think, have you tried rebooting?
  - jstx1 4y ago
    Yep, you're right. Rebooting fixed it. Thanks :)

ChrisArchitect 4y ago

More notifications nobody is really asking for. Devs may think it's cool but when like 99% of users are disallowing webpage notifications.... It's just not newsworthy.

ceejayoz 4y ago
No one needs them on random websites, and I agree it's really sucky when you visit a site you've never been to before and the first thing they propose is turning on notifications. (These days, invariably with a fake notification dialog so declining doesn't lock them out from asking again. Yuck.) There's a lot of web-based applications that could benefit, though.
- ChrisArchitect 4y ago
  ya ya, having the feature/capability is a nice to have for some web apps (web, the platform apple's been restricting/hating/building against for more than a decade), and even in that space more notifications is debatably not a good thing, but trying to also say it's not newsworthy, not a feature to dwell on from WWDC etc. Apple has a habit of making flashy announcements for stuff that's either not news/been around, or could just be rolled out in updates (like for example almost all of the silly messaging updates/features?)
brewdad 4y ago
Yup. If this isn't allow/disallow by web site, I'll be turning off all Safari notifications. Even so, aside from messaging apps, I pretty much have notifications turned off already. I will interact with my phone on MY terms rather than have garbage pushed to me at all hours of the day.
Gigachad 4y ago
This is useful for legitimate apps. If I add the telegram PWA, I want to see notifications when I get a message.

nicoburns 4y ago

Finally! If they add support for persistent offline storage that doesn’t get automatically cleaned up then mobile web apps might finally be a viable alternative to native ones. Less of a need now that react-native is more mature, but the update model of mobile we is still much better.

endisneigh 4y ago
That’s already possible if you add the page to your Home Screen. With this the missing piece is finally added
- phillipseamore 4y ago
  Persistent or longer than 7 days isn't guaranteed with sites added to home screen, though it rarely happens it can be cleared (has happened to me after iOS updates). My only problem with the 7day storage limit is that every and any site gets the 7-day limit with no regard to if the user has interacted or actually used it, and to me that fails the privacy test. I've posted some ideas about that here before (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30402242 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30402242)
  - endisneigh 4y ago
    Doesn’t the same problem wrt privacy exist on the desktop and android?
    - phillipseamore 4y ago
      Not sure I understand the question. Persistence isn't guaranteed in any browser, but Safari is the only one with a definite 7 day limit. All browser treat these limits the same (e.g. engagement doesn't matter), except for browsers that support persistent storage after a user gives permission for it.
      - endisneigh 4y ago

dijit 4y ago

I am aware that this website is predominantly web developers. But I’m personally quite disappointed in Apple for this move. That you can turn a browser into an app platform is not a success for browsers, it’s a failing in application distribution and native application tooling. As a user I am not looking forward to the inevitable deprecation of native applications to PWAs; because when that happens I will not be able to turn off the push notification feature in the browser. The same was true of JavaScript: it’s impossible to run a browser without JavaScript, what was originally progressive enhancement is now mandatory code execution; for many web developers that is not an issue at all, as a user: I shouldn't have to trust _all_ the code in the world that my browser can potentially pull in. The sandbox, as complex as it is, is not infallible. All of this consolidation on the browser frightens me, personally, and maybe you disagree, but honestly I’d like someone to be pushing back on the “faster horse”[0] requests from web developers. 0: reference to the famous quote by Henry Ford: “If I had asked my customers what they wanted they would have said a faster horse.” Edit: expected result from the hackernews audience. But at least if I managed to convince one person that the browser shouldn’t do everything then it’s worth the karma sacrifice.

endisneigh 4y ago
It’s literally opt-in. Given that this will be relegated to a small niche at best. Most people aren’t going to go into Safari advanced settings and toggle a flag. Native apps will always be necessary for something that actually needs it. If anything you should be happy about this as it’ll remove control of everything from Google and Apple exclusively. Funny you talk about consolidation…
- dijit 4y ago
  > It’s literally opt-in. For now, I’m not sure how that will be though, if it’s anything like adding a calendar then it’s just hitting “yes” on a prompt. > Given that this will be relegated to a small niche at best. How many apps on your phone want to send notifications? > Most people aren’t going to go into Safari advanced settings and toggle a flag. Assuming that’s how it will be enabled (and in perpetuity), I can’t see people doing that in the general case either and this the effectiveness of this feature is questionable. I think everyone in this thread assumes they can deploy PWAs in a generally available way that support push notifications over the web, if you have to go into safari settings (as in, the settings app) then people are not likely to enable it and the this you can’t use them generally. What I’m saying is: either this is easy to use for users, and it will be abused; or it’s hard for users and the actual usefulness of the feature is dubious.

physicsguy 4y ago

“We don’t need native apps, use bookmarks” “Here is the App Store! Use native apps!” “We don’t need native apps!”

tuxie_ 4y ago

Having worked with PWAs I don't get my hopes up anymore when it comes to iOS, they have added and subsequently broken support for key features in the past. I wish they would just fix the current features they claim to support rather than keep adding half-assed features that won't properly work once you install the app in the phone, for example.

ramesh31 4y ago
PWAs are never going to happen. I wish for a free and open app ecosystem as much as anyone else. But PWAs are not the way.
- collaborative 4y ago
  Care to elaborate?
  - ramesh31 4y ago
    >Care to elaborate? It's been nearly a decade, and we're still talking about PWAs being the next big thing. Mozilla/Firefox has killed them off for good [0], and Safari support is tepid at best. It was ultimately just another push by Google a la AMP to corner the browser market some more, and the rest of the vendors are fed up with it. Devs by and large never bought into it because they are objectively inferior to native, while the tiny number of niche use cases where they do make sense have (rightfully) just avoided the complexity and remained as normal web apps. [0] https://9to5google.com/2021/01/27/firefox-discontinues-work-pwa-desktop/ https://9to5google.com/2021/01/27/firefox-discontinues-work-...
    - postalrat 4y ago
      What developers are you talking about that are writing native apps?
    - dmt0 4y ago
      When PWAs became possible, the biggest obstacle was that you're loosing all the iPhone users.

secondcoming 4y ago

Every website: ‘Allow notifications?’ Every answer: ‘GTFO’

rideontime 4y ago

As a developer, this just happens to solve a specific problem I'm working on right now. As a user, like hell am I ever going to enable this.

thiht 4y ago
Why not? If it’s a site by site authorization, it can help replace many apps.
- michaelt 4y ago
  I have notifications disabled on my browser because for every 1 useful notification I got, I get 50 requests to send me notifications because I visited a website once.
  - selfhoster69 4y ago
    Same here, it's far too annoying.
  - ec109685 4y ago
    Don’t you get them anyway since sites usually show their own push notification prompt before burning the native one?
postalrat 4y ago
I assume as a user you don't have any notifications from any app enabled.

brundolf 4y ago

Here's hoping this signals a tide-shift in their general stance on PWAs. PWAs can and do put really important competitive-pressure on the walled garden, and Apple knows it, and I think that's why they've been hampered for so long. I kinda wonder if this change was motivated by the antitrust stirrings

james2doyle 4y ago

That's good news. It's about time. Personally, I like that they are adding haptic feedback to the keyboard: https://www.apple.com/ios/ios-16-preview/features/#:~:text=Keyboard%20haptics,when%20you%20type https://www.apple.com/ios/ios-16-preview/features/#:~:text=K....

spartanatreyu 4y ago
Is iOS only getting this feature now? Android 2 had this over a decade ago!

ratio11 4y ago

A big remaining hurdle to developing native-like PWAs on iOS is the inability to lock the screen orientation.

gruez 4y ago

Safari on mac already supports push notifications, but unlike on chrome/firefox you need a push server certificate (similar to how push notifications work for ios apps)[1] to actually push messages. That obviously requires the $100/year of a developer subscription. It's not a huge deal if you're running a business, but if you're just a hobbyist trying to push notifications to your own devices without a third party app, that sucks. [1] https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/NetworkingInternet/Conceptual/NotificationProgrammingGuideForWebsites/PushNotifications/PushNotifications.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40013225-CH3-SW1 https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Ne...

cmeacham98 4y ago
In other words, Apple only supports a proprietary protocol that notably differs from the standard every other browser uses in that you must pay them a yearly fee and agree to their massive developer ToS in order to use it.
- arthurcolle 4y ago
  sounds like Apple!
jeroenhd 4y ago
Well, that sucks. The blogspam websites that spam notifications to make money off ads will be able to afford the certificate but getting notifications from your self-hosted services will cost you instead. Hopefully Apple revises this policy (i.e. give out free certificates limited to a certain amount of notifications or a certain amount of domains) but I wouldn't keep my hopes up. Luckily, several governments are preparing to add legislation to force Apple to allow alternative browser engines, so there's still a chance this problem might resolve itself in the future.
- bzzzt 4y ago
  Won't the certificates be revoked when misused by those blogspam sites? I have no trouble seeing value in creating a little friction for intruding on users attention.