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PWAs are a collection of standards, many if which are broadly supported. E.g. service workers. Additionally they are progressive so PWAs should be designed to f

PWAs are a collection of standards, many if which are broadly supported. E.g. service workers. Additionally they are progressive so PWAs should be designed to function without the specific features.

ramesh31 4y ago
> PWAs are a collection of standards, many if which are broadly supported. Yes. Just like WebTransport. But it turns out the ones that matter, aren’t.
- abraham 4y ago
  You'd have to be more specific. As far as I know the main features service workers are supported everywhere, web manifests are supported everywhere, and as of iOS 16 this week push notifications are supported everywhere.
  - ramesh31 4y ago
    >As far as I know the main features service workers are supported everywhere, web manifests are supported everywhere, and as of iOS 16 this week push notifications are supported everywhere. Manifests are not supported by iOS in any browser, making PWAs DOA for any serious app. And service workers/push notifications were not the promise of PWAs. It was that they would allow for seamless universal apps distributable in any app store (or outside of one). That has not, and will not ever happen without the other browsers onboard with manifests, which is likely never happening.
    - jeroenhd 4y ago
      I don't think Apple disabling features that WebKit supports perfectly fine don't make PWAs nonstandard. Every other platform supports these, even Webkit-derived GNOME Web. Firefox removed support for some obscure reason and Apple doesn't want to jeopardise its billion dollar app store but that doesn't mean most devices in the world don't support them. Just throw the PWA into a free, open source, prebuilt wrapper if you must please Apple, it's a lot less work than going the other way around.
      - dmitriid 4y ago
        > don't make PWAs nonstandard. There's no such thing as a "PWA standard". There are half a dozen to a dozen various standards, and Safari supports the vast majority of them. > Firefox removed support for some obscure reason Firefox usually clearly documents the reasons > Apple doesn't want to jeopardise its billion dollar app store Ah yes, jeopardizing by ... supporting 99% of what passes for standard PWA features.
        jeroenhd 4y ago
        > There's no such thing as a "PWA standard". There are half a dozen to a dozen various standards, and Safari supports the vast majority of them. The parent talks about the webmanifest standard which is essential for PWAs (it describes the application and its package in a standard way). Safari does not support this, which is a pretty major standard to not support. > Firefox usually clearly documents the reasons I disagree. They state they have done user research (no information available on this) and that there is "little to no benefit" for a feature that was buggy and hidden behind configuration flags while at the same time enabling full support by default in their mobile browser. > Ah yes, jeopardizing by ... supporting 99% of what passes for standard PWA features. ...except for notifications on iOS (which are coming, apparently, but it's taking them until somewhere next year) or A2HS on desktop (which they do support on iOS except in alternative browsers), which are pretty major limitations. The 1% remaining is still significant, the rest of the PWA standards Apple supports are just normal web standards that PWAs happen to use.
        dmitriid 4y ago
        > which is essential for PWAs In all these discussions on HN the set of "essential standards" is always in flux, and is different for different people. > They state they have done user research (no information available on this) and that there is "little to no benefit" for a feature that was buggy and hidden behind configuration flags while at the same time enabling full support by default in their mobile browser. Because it's quite possible that it's buggy and confusing on desktop, but not so on mobile. Not so different from Safari, BTW which also has A2HS on iOS, but not on MacOS > The 1% remaining is still significant, the rest of the PWA standards Apple supports are just normal web standards that PWAs happen to use. So... The other ones are not normal web standards? Or are all web standards normal?

PWAs are a collection of standards, many if which are broadly supported. E.g. service workers. Additionally they are progressive so PWAs should be designed to function without the specific features.

ramesh31 4y ago

> PWAs are a collection of standards, many if which are broadly supported. Yes. Just like WebTransport. But it turns out the ones that matter, aren’t.

abraham 4y ago
You'd have to be more specific. As far as I know the main features service workers are supported everywhere, web manifests are supported everywhere, and as of iOS 16 this week push notifications are supported everywhere.
- ramesh31 4y ago
  >As far as I know the main features service workers are supported everywhere, web manifests are supported everywhere, and as of iOS 16 this week push notifications are supported everywhere. Manifests are not supported by iOS in any browser, making PWAs DOA for any serious app. And service workers/push notifications were not the promise of PWAs. It was that they would allow for seamless universal apps distributable in any app store (or outside of one). That has not, and will not ever happen without the other browsers onboard with manifests, which is likely never happening.
  - jeroenhd 4y ago
    I don't think Apple disabling features that WebKit supports perfectly fine don't make PWAs nonstandard. Every other platform supports these, even Webkit-derived GNOME Web. Firefox removed support for some obscure reason and Apple doesn't want to jeopardise its billion dollar app store but that doesn't mean most devices in the world don't support them. Just throw the PWA into a free, open source, prebuilt wrapper if you must please Apple, it's a lot less work than going the other way around.
    - dmitriid 4y ago
      > don't make PWAs nonstandard. There's no such thing as a "PWA standard". There are half a dozen to a dozen various standards, and Safari supports the vast majority of them. > Firefox removed support for some obscure reason Firefox usually clearly documents the reasons > Apple doesn't want to jeopardise its billion dollar app store Ah yes, jeopardizing by ... supporting 99% of what passes for standard PWA features.
      - jeroenhd 4y ago
        > There's no such thing as a "PWA standard". There are half a dozen to a dozen various standards, and Safari supports the vast majority of them. The parent talks about the webmanifest standard which is essential for PWAs (it describes the application and its package in a standard way). Safari does not support this, which is a pretty major standard to not support. > Firefox usually clearly documents the reasons I disagree. They state they have done user research (no information available on this) and that there is "little to no benefit" for a feature that was buggy and hidden behind configuration flags while at the same time enabling full support by default in their mobile browser. > Ah yes, jeopardizing by ... supporting 99% of what passes for standard PWA features. ...except for notifications on iOS (which are coming, apparently, but it's taking them until somewhere next year) or A2HS on desktop (which they do support on iOS except in alternative browsers), which are pretty major limitations. The 1% remaining is still significant, the rest of the PWA standards Apple supports are just normal web standards that PWAs happen to use.
        dmitriid 4y ago
        > which is essential for PWAs In all these discussions on HN the set of "essential standards" is always in flux, and is different for different people. > They state they have done user research (no information available on this) and that there is "little to no benefit" for a feature that was buggy and hidden behind configuration flags while at the same time enabling full support by default in their mobile browser. Because it's quite possible that it's buggy and confusing on desktop, but not so on mobile. Not so different from Safari, BTW which also has A2HS on iOS, but not on MacOS > The 1% remaining is still significant, the rest of the PWA standards Apple supports are just normal web standards that PWAs happen to use. So... The other ones are not normal web standards? Or are all web standards normal?