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I have a contrarian point of view regarding Safari and app installation in iOS. It will be cool if Apple opens the browser and app installation options allowin
by diegof79 4y ago
I have a contrarian point of view regarding Safari and app installation in iOS.
It will be cool if Apple opens the browser and app installation options allowing PWAs to run like iOS Apps (and all the people working with web apps will be happy).
My biggest concern with PWAs is that only ads are a viable business model for small utility apps.
The App Store rules are terrible (and give Apple too much power). But, it allows selling small utilities. In a world of PWAs, your monetization options are subscription, donation, or ads.
A subscription for a small tool doesn't make sense. Donations don't scale. Hence, the most probable option will be ads.
I agree with you. Having Safari as the only option for iOS is anti-competitive. But, honestly, the competition (Google) will love to have a world of apps relying on their ads infra. The first thing I'll do if I were Google is to add all the missing APIs to Chrome PWAs, so devs don't have a good reason to continue using the App Store. I don't love the idea of having ads and tracking in every little app.
- heavyset_go 4y agoThen don't use them instead of telling everyone else what they can or cannot use. There are plenty of apps that never get made because of anti-competitive App Store policies and fees. Nobody is forcing you to use any competition that flourishes when anti-competitive app distribution policies that artificially restrict consumer choice are dropped. I always find it interesting that Facebook and Google get trotted out as potential boogeymen whenever the topic of greater consumer choice on all computing platforms is brought up, because such arguments conveniently downplay the very real and actually present enemy to user freedom that is Apple literally dictating what products consumers are allowed to use on their own devices.