6 ms·

Didn't Apple pretty much kill PWAs due to lack of/slow support in Safari?

by scubadude 4y ago

CharlieDigital 4y ago
This is a different use case it seems as it wraps the PWA.
- scubadude 4y ago
  If it's the same thing I did with Android/Play store, it wraps the PWA into an app for submission to the store and deployment to the device, but that's all.
re-thc 4y ago
It's improved with some recent Changes e.g. notifications.
- hot_gril 4y ago
  iPhones support PWA notifications finally?! I always cited this as a big and intentional limitation. Time to update my apps.
  - Andrex 4y ago
    Yes. https://www.izooto.com/blog/ios-safari-push-notifications https://www.izooto.com/blog/ios-safari-push-notifications
  - jeroenhd 4y ago
    If you use standard web push, you shouldn't even need to update your apps. All you need to do is convince your users to install the app to their home screen.
    - hot_gril 4y ago
      That's what I figured, but I never setup standard web push because it wasn't worthwhile before.
weq 4y ago
Apple took a very long time to implement HTML5 standards in safari. I think it was 1-2years ago when i found a bug in their indexDb.get call. been deploying native apps cross compiled from c# with PWA interfaces to app stores for years, so they are possible, u just got to work within the guidelines.
- scarface74 4y ago
  And they suck.
- illiarian 4y ago
  > Apple took a very long time to implement HTML5 standards in safari. Make sure you don't confuse HTML5 and Chrome-only non-standards. The former is implemented by Safari to a much larger degree than people would have you believe. The latter they have no intention of implementing even if people pretend they are standards.
hot_gril 4y ago
Google's support wasn't great either. Besides that, the PWA standards are unnecessarily complicated and tricky to implement correctly.
illiarian 4y ago
1. They didn't. Because ask three people, and they will give you five answers on what exactly PWA support means (every time it's a different set of random APIs) 2. There's Android that holds 70% of world's market share and none of the imagined "killing" that Apple does. Unsurprisingly, there's still not a single mind-bending paradigm-shifting PWA that would show the world just how great PWAs is and just how exactly "Apple is killing PWAs"
- deminature 4y ago
  Maybe unpopular opinion but PWAs generally just suck compared to their native counterparts. There's always something perceptibly 'wrong' that makes them an inferior user experience, even if only marginally so. I worked on PWAs for a while and users complained endlessly even if they can't articulate exactly why. Technologists are enticed by the cost and development time savings of PWAs over native, but users resent the diminished user experience that almost always comes with it and repay you with poor ratings/reviews.
  - thrashh 4y ago
    PWAs could be made to not suck. But Apple and Google don’t exactly have a huge incentive to do that. Plus pushing users through an app store at least enforces a minimum standard of app quality, which as a user, I like.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      “This time we can make an app based on web technologies for real!” - it failed when Palm tried it - it failed when Microsoft tried it - it failed when RIM tried it - the “sweet solution” that Steve Jobs called web apps when the iPhone was introduced was called a “shit sandwich” by potential developers who wanted native apps. On another note, in the history of computing, all cross platform GUI apps have always sucked.
      - orange8 4y ago
        > “This time we can make an app based on web technologies for real!” > - it failed when Microsoft tried it VS Code is one of the most successful open source cross platform GUI apps of all time. Who would have thought that good ol' HTML would finally fulfill the promise of "build once, run everywhere".

Didn't Apple pretty much kill PWAs due to lack of/slow support in Safari?

CharlieDigital 4y ago

This is a different use case it seems as it wraps the PWA.

scubadude 4y ago
If it's the same thing I did with Android/Play store, it wraps the PWA into an app for submission to the store and deployment to the device, but that's all.

re-thc 4y ago

It's improved with some recent Changes e.g. notifications.

hot_gril 4y ago
iPhones support PWA notifications finally?! I always cited this as a big and intentional limitation. Time to update my apps.
- Andrex 4y ago
  Yes. https://www.izooto.com/blog/ios-safari-push-notifications https://www.izooto.com/blog/ios-safari-push-notifications
- jeroenhd 4y ago
  If you use standard web push, you shouldn't even need to update your apps. All you need to do is convince your users to install the app to their home screen.
  - hot_gril 4y ago
    That's what I figured, but I never setup standard web push because it wasn't worthwhile before.

weq 4y ago

Apple took a very long time to implement HTML5 standards in safari. I think it was 1-2years ago when i found a bug in their indexDb.get call. been deploying native apps cross compiled from c# with PWA interfaces to app stores for years, so they are possible, u just got to work within the guidelines.

scarface74 4y ago
And they suck.
illiarian 4y ago
> Apple took a very long time to implement HTML5 standards in safari. Make sure you don't confuse HTML5 and Chrome-only non-standards. The former is implemented by Safari to a much larger degree than people would have you believe. The latter they have no intention of implementing even if people pretend they are standards.

hot_gril 4y ago

Google's support wasn't great either. Besides that, the PWA standards are unnecessarily complicated and tricky to implement correctly.

illiarian 4y ago

1. They didn't. Because ask three people, and they will give you five answers on what exactly PWA support means (every time it's a different set of random APIs) 2. There's Android that holds 70% of world's market share and none of the imagined "killing" that Apple does. Unsurprisingly, there's still not a single mind-bending paradigm-shifting PWA that would show the world just how great PWAs is and just how exactly "Apple is killing PWAs"

deminature 4y ago
Maybe unpopular opinion but PWAs generally just suck compared to their native counterparts. There's always something perceptibly 'wrong' that makes them an inferior user experience, even if only marginally so. I worked on PWAs for a while and users complained endlessly even if they can't articulate exactly why. Technologists are enticed by the cost and development time savings of PWAs over native, but users resent the diminished user experience that almost always comes with it and repay you with poor ratings/reviews.
- thrashh 4y ago
  PWAs could be made to not suck. But Apple and Google don’t exactly have a huge incentive to do that. Plus pushing users through an app store at least enforces a minimum standard of app quality, which as a user, I like.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    “This time we can make an app based on web technologies for real!” - it failed when Palm tried it - it failed when Microsoft tried it - it failed when RIM tried it - the “sweet solution” that Steve Jobs called web apps when the iPhone was introduced was called a “shit sandwich” by potential developers who wanted native apps. On another note, in the history of computing, all cross platform GUI apps have always sucked.
    - orange8 4y ago
      > “This time we can make an app based on web technologies for real!” > - it failed when Microsoft tried it VS Code is one of the most successful open source cross platform GUI apps of all time. Who would have thought that good ol' HTML would finally fulfill the promise of "build once, run everywhere".