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> And you cannot use a third party browser, since they forbid that (all are Safari based) I think this has turned out to be the current barrier in preventing G

> And you cannot use a third party browser, since they forbid that (all are Safari based) I think this has turned out to be the current barrier in preventing Google from completing taking over the web standards space.

heavyset_go 3y ago
Apple's ban of all browsers but Safari turned out to be the main barrier preventing progressive web apps from being viable, deepening the duopoly power of themselves and Google, because Apple refuses to implement basic browser standards that are necessary for PWAs. And then when they do implement similar browser standards, they don't follow any web standards, they instead make their own proprietary bespoke web standard for Safari[1]. And they also did other fun things like wait until nearly 2021 to support WebP and let Safari be the the #1 source of one-click exploits on iOS. It's weird to see Safari trotted out in defense of web standards of all things. [1] https://developer.apple.com/notifications/safari-push-notifications/ https://developer.apple.com/notifications/safari-push-notifi...
- KyeRussell 3y ago
  You’re so dead set on “winning” that you’ve completely talked past the point that was being made. The commenter was not even saying that their point justifies Safari being the only browser engine available on iOS. They were making a specific point. If you don’t want to talk to that point, maybe try another thread.
- SXX 3y ago
  For years Google been stamping "standards" one after another even though other browser vendors were against many of them and they end up being Chrome-only. No matter what Apple itself does Safari being major non-Chromium browser helps Firefox a lot just by existing and having huge marketshare.
  - heavyset_go 3y ago
    How does Apple dragging their feet on implementing the Web Push notification standard, that is necessary for PWAs, in anyway help in that situation? Literally every browser except Safari implemented the the standard, and not out of some noble anti-Google crusade. PWAs threaten the App Store monopoly's moneyhose. How does Apple releasing proprietary web standards just for Safari, like Safari Push Notifications, help in anyway with the purported problem of companies stamping out web standards without consensus? It seems like it's only a problem when Google does it, but when Apple does it, it's Safari "helping Firefox just exist".
    - threeseed 3y ago
      Push notifications are now available in iOS. And so I will be looking forward to the magical era of PWAs replacing all mobile applications because clearly push notifications was what was holding them back all these years. Even though a tiny fraction of mobile apps use them but I guess we will ignore that.
      - lxgr 3y ago
        Every single airline app on my phone is there only because of push notifications (which work more reliably than texts when traveling internationally with different SIMs). The same goes for most food delivery apps.
        ryanianian 3y ago
        Food delivery apps seem to immediately abuse any form of push notifications in order to send spam. Lyft uses the same push stream for both driver ETA and 10% off coupons. They are indeed more reliable than SMS, yet I turn them off almost as fast as apps start to use them.
        lxgr 3y ago
        > Food delivery apps seem to immediately abuse any form of push notifications in order to send spam. Oh, definitely. But if they do (and don't at least give me a way to immediately opt out of that) the app is gone from my phone – and they have no other way of reaching me. Beats the absolute nightmare that is SMS notifications and spam, in my view.
- kiicia 3y ago
  you seem to be completely sure that everyone loves and wants pwa newsflash: many users hate pwa, they prefer native apps
  - Hamuko 3y ago
    Why? Most of those """native""" apps are a pile of HTML and JS anyways.
    - palata 3y ago
      I hate PWAs not because I like shitty native apps (it seems like it's not obvious, somehow). I hate PWAs because I like good native apps, and PWAs give an opportunity for developers to replace their native app with a cross-platform web app. And in my experience, cross-platform generally comes at the cost of app quality on a single platform. Instead of hiring developers who know iOS, you now hire web developers who debug their web app on many platforms they don't really know well.
  - heavyset_go 3y ago
    Someone's dislike of PWAs is irrelevant to whether or not someone else should be able to use them if they want to. It's also irrelevant when it comes to users who want to benefit from competition in the app distribution market. If you don't like PWAs, you're free to not use them, and you're even free to benefit from the improvements their competition brings to the whole mobile software ecosystem. It's also ironic to bring up Apple's hindering of web standards as evidence of anti-monopolization of standards, considering the fact that the lack of PWA support forces users to use the proprietary App Store monopoly to install apps instead.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - palata 3y ago
      > If you don't like PWAs, you're free to not use them, and you're even free to benefit from the improvements their competition brings to the whole mobile software ecosystem. IMHO, that's very naive. Look at ElectronJS apps. I hate ElectronJS, still the most used apps on my Desktop computer are ElectronJS. Why? Because I don't have a choice, because it's cheaper for the developers. Before ElectronJS, I actually had real desktop apps. So yeah, I see the case against PWAs.
- threeseed 3y ago
  > turned out to be the main barrier preventing progressive web apps from being viable Until the issue is fixed and the goal posts are moved once again. Because PWAs have been available in one form or another for 14 years. And it's always because that the UX is terrible that makes them not viable not anything Apple has done.
  - locustous 3y ago
    > And it's always because that the UX is terrible that makes them not viable not anything Apple has done. Obvious counter points. Lots of people use websites. Which have an identical UX experience to PWAs. A significant percentage of the app store is web view based apps that are near equivalents to PWAs. Been that way for years. If people love native so much, why do sites like Reddit and LinkedIn heavily push mobile web users to the app? Seems it's not a universal opinion.
    - chalst 3y ago
      > If people love native so much, why do sites like Reddit and LinkedIn heavily push mobile web users to the app? Because that's how sites can avoid the privacy features that are inherent to browsers. What proportion of visitors to the LinkedIn site use the app? I'm guessing it's pretty small.
      - locustous 3y ago
        I don't like installing apps I don't have to. I agree that the browser sandbox is superior.
- smcleod 3y ago
  I'd hate to see PWAs take hold - browser based apps are never as good on any platform. Give me native apps any day.
  - brookst 3y ago
    Depends on your priorities. For people into standards and commoditization, PWAs are awesome because they reduce the ability of HW makers to differentiate. For people who just want the best possible app/phone experiences, PWAs are awful.
    - schwartzworld 3y ago
      For lots of use cases, you'd be unlikely to notice a difference in quality. For example, I tune my guitar using a PWA, and I doubt anybody would notice the difference. The real differentiator with native vs pwa is their ability to track the user.
      - brookst 3y ago
        PWAS are pretty good for high frame rate games, then?
        schwartzworld 3y ago
        I didn't say they were perfect for every use case. I'm not a gamer, so I'll have to take your word for it. But look at your own phone. You really telling me most of your apps couldn't just be PWA?
  - sofixa 3y ago
    > Give me native apps any day. Heavens no. I do not want to be forced to install an app for every single little thing - it's wasteful, detrimental to my security and privacy. Small examples from a recent trip: in Andalusia, there's a bunch of cities with very interesting old buildings (cathedrals, castles remaining from the Muslim era converted by the Spanish monarchs later on, etc.). Each and every one has a different app for their audio guide, map, etc. to help you navigate and understand them. It's just stupid, it's a one time thing and it could easily be served by a website; instead you have to download a 30-40 MB app for each one, and then remember to delete it afterwards.
- dwaite 3y ago
  > Apple's ban of all browsers but Safari turned out to be the main barrier preventing progressive web apps from being viable, deepening the duopoly power of themselves and Google, because Apple refuses to implement basic browser standards that are necessary for PWAs. I don't know if this is substantially true. When I hear of PWA features that people complain about, they are almost always things that Google Chrome as its own app with its own web engine can't add to the underlying OS, such as: - robust background processing - background push notifications - new video codecs (on a power-constrained device) - system-wide protocol handlers - web bluetooth/webUSB/webNFC - adding their own new synthetic "app" representing the PWA to the Home Screen. Many of the things people talk about with PWAs are not anything close to a web "standard" or even a recommendation - Google implemented them, because they were pressured internally to make a web-based programming environment for Chromebooks. > [1] https://developer.apple.com/notifications/safari-push-notifi https://developer.apple.com/notifications/safari-push-notifi... Both macOS and iOS have honest-to-goodness push notification support now.
Matl 3y ago
Is Apple a significant player in proposing new standards and working with say Mozilla to get consensus as a genuine alternative to Google or are they simply not implementing much? The latter is certainly my impression.
hh3k0 3y ago
> I think this has turned out to be the current barrier in preventing Google from completing taking over the web standards space. "I used the monopoly to destroy the monopoly."
lxgr 3y ago
That may well be true, but in my view, upholding a native app monopoly for the sake of preventing a web browser one isn't a sustainable strategy (and never has been a conscious choice by anyone).

heavyset_go 3y ago

Apple's ban of all browsers but Safari turned out to be the main barrier preventing progressive web apps from being viable, deepening the duopoly power of themselves and Google, because Apple refuses to implement basic browser standards that are necessary for PWAs. And then when they do implement similar browser standards, they don't follow any web standards, they instead make their own proprietary bespoke web standard for Safari[1]. And they also did other fun things like wait until nearly 2021 to support WebP and let Safari be the the #1 source of one-click exploits on iOS. It's weird to see Safari trotted out in defense of web standards of all things. [1] https://developer.apple.com/notifications/safari-push-notifications/ https://developer.apple.com/notifications/safari-push-notifi...

KyeRussell 3y ago
You’re so dead set on “winning” that you’ve completely talked past the point that was being made. The commenter was not even saying that their point justifies Safari being the only browser engine available on iOS. They were making a specific point. If you don’t want to talk to that point, maybe try another thread.
SXX 3y ago
For years Google been stamping "standards" one after another even though other browser vendors were against many of them and they end up being Chrome-only. No matter what Apple itself does Safari being major non-Chromium browser helps Firefox a lot just by existing and having huge marketshare.
- heavyset_go 3y ago
  How does Apple dragging their feet on implementing the Web Push notification standard, that is necessary for PWAs, in anyway help in that situation? Literally every browser except Safari implemented the the standard, and not out of some noble anti-Google crusade. PWAs threaten the App Store monopoly's moneyhose. How does Apple releasing proprietary web standards just for Safari, like Safari Push Notifications, help in anyway with the purported problem of companies stamping out web standards without consensus? It seems like it's only a problem when Google does it, but when Apple does it, it's Safari "helping Firefox just exist".
  - threeseed 3y ago
    Push notifications are now available in iOS. And so I will be looking forward to the magical era of PWAs replacing all mobile applications because clearly push notifications was what was holding them back all these years. Even though a tiny fraction of mobile apps use them but I guess we will ignore that.
    - lxgr 3y ago
      Every single airline app on my phone is there only because of push notifications (which work more reliably than texts when traveling internationally with different SIMs). The same goes for most food delivery apps.
      - ryanianian 3y ago
        Food delivery apps seem to immediately abuse any form of push notifications in order to send spam. Lyft uses the same push stream for both driver ETA and 10% off coupons. They are indeed more reliable than SMS, yet I turn them off almost as fast as apps start to use them.
        lxgr 3y ago
        > Food delivery apps seem to immediately abuse any form of push notifications in order to send spam. Oh, definitely. But if they do (and don't at least give me a way to immediately opt out of that) the app is gone from my phone – and they have no other way of reaching me. Beats the absolute nightmare that is SMS notifications and spam, in my view.
kiicia 3y ago
you seem to be completely sure that everyone loves and wants pwa newsflash: many users hate pwa, they prefer native apps
- Hamuko 3y ago
  Why? Most of those """native""" apps are a pile of HTML and JS anyways.
  - palata 3y ago
    I hate PWAs not because I like shitty native apps (it seems like it's not obvious, somehow). I hate PWAs because I like good native apps, and PWAs give an opportunity for developers to replace their native app with a cross-platform web app. And in my experience, cross-platform generally comes at the cost of app quality on a single platform. Instead of hiring developers who know iOS, you now hire web developers who debug their web app on many platforms they don't really know well.
- heavyset_go 3y ago
  Someone's dislike of PWAs is irrelevant to whether or not someone else should be able to use them if they want to. It's also irrelevant when it comes to users who want to benefit from competition in the app distribution market. If you don't like PWAs, you're free to not use them, and you're even free to benefit from the improvements their competition brings to the whole mobile software ecosystem. It's also ironic to bring up Apple's hindering of web standards as evidence of anti-monopolization of standards, considering the fact that the lack of PWA support forces users to use the proprietary App Store monopoly to install apps instead.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - palata 3y ago
    > If you don't like PWAs, you're free to not use them, and you're even free to benefit from the improvements their competition brings to the whole mobile software ecosystem. IMHO, that's very naive. Look at ElectronJS apps. I hate ElectronJS, still the most used apps on my Desktop computer are ElectronJS. Why? Because I don't have a choice, because it's cheaper for the developers. Before ElectronJS, I actually had real desktop apps. So yeah, I see the case against PWAs.
threeseed 3y ago
> turned out to be the main barrier preventing progressive web apps from being viable Until the issue is fixed and the goal posts are moved once again. Because PWAs have been available in one form or another for 14 years. And it's always because that the UX is terrible that makes them not viable not anything Apple has done.
- locustous 3y ago
  > And it's always because that the UX is terrible that makes them not viable not anything Apple has done. Obvious counter points. Lots of people use websites. Which have an identical UX experience to PWAs. A significant percentage of the app store is web view based apps that are near equivalents to PWAs. Been that way for years. If people love native so much, why do sites like Reddit and LinkedIn heavily push mobile web users to the app? Seems it's not a universal opinion.
  - chalst 3y ago
    > If people love native so much, why do sites like Reddit and LinkedIn heavily push mobile web users to the app? Because that's how sites can avoid the privacy features that are inherent to browsers. What proportion of visitors to the LinkedIn site use the app? I'm guessing it's pretty small.
    - locustous 3y ago
      I don't like installing apps I don't have to. I agree that the browser sandbox is superior.
smcleod 3y ago
I'd hate to see PWAs take hold - browser based apps are never as good on any platform. Give me native apps any day.
- brookst 3y ago
  Depends on your priorities. For people into standards and commoditization, PWAs are awesome because they reduce the ability of HW makers to differentiate. For people who just want the best possible app/phone experiences, PWAs are awful.
  - schwartzworld 3y ago
    For lots of use cases, you'd be unlikely to notice a difference in quality. For example, I tune my guitar using a PWA, and I doubt anybody would notice the difference. The real differentiator with native vs pwa is their ability to track the user.
    - brookst 3y ago
      PWAS are pretty good for high frame rate games, then?
      - schwartzworld 3y ago
        I didn't say they were perfect for every use case. I'm not a gamer, so I'll have to take your word for it. But look at your own phone. You really telling me most of your apps couldn't just be PWA?
- sofixa 3y ago
  > Give me native apps any day. Heavens no. I do not want to be forced to install an app for every single little thing - it's wasteful, detrimental to my security and privacy. Small examples from a recent trip: in Andalusia, there's a bunch of cities with very interesting old buildings (cathedrals, castles remaining from the Muslim era converted by the Spanish monarchs later on, etc.). Each and every one has a different app for their audio guide, map, etc. to help you navigate and understand them. It's just stupid, it's a one time thing and it could easily be served by a website; instead you have to download a 30-40 MB app for each one, and then remember to delete it afterwards.
dwaite 3y ago
> Apple's ban of all browsers but Safari turned out to be the main barrier preventing progressive web apps from being viable, deepening the duopoly power of themselves and Google, because Apple refuses to implement basic browser standards that are necessary for PWAs. I don't know if this is substantially true. When I hear of PWA features that people complain about, they are almost always things that Google Chrome as its own app with its own web engine can't add to the underlying OS, such as: - robust background processing - background push notifications - new video codecs (on a power-constrained device) - system-wide protocol handlers - web bluetooth/webUSB/webNFC - adding their own new synthetic "app" representing the PWA to the Home Screen. Many of the things people talk about with PWAs are not anything close to a web "standard" or even a recommendation - Google implemented them, because they were pressured internally to make a web-based programming environment for Chromebooks. > [1] https://developer.apple.com/notifications/safari-push-notifi https://developer.apple.com/notifications/safari-push-notifi... Both macOS and iOS have honest-to-goodness push notification support now.

Matl 3y ago

Is Apple a significant player in proposing new standards and working with say Mozilla to get consensus as a genuine alternative to Google or are they simply not implementing much? The latter is certainly my impression.

hh3k0 3y ago

> I think this has turned out to be the current barrier in preventing Google from completing taking over the web standards space. "I used the monopoly to destroy the monopoly."

lxgr 3y ago

That may well be true, but in my view, upholding a native app monopoly for the sake of preventing a web browser one isn't a sustainable strategy (and never has been a conscious choice by anyone).