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I'm curious why Apple is now putting effort behind the web when it competes with their app store distribution. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited they are. I can i

I'm curious why Apple is now putting effort behind the web when it competes with their app store distribution. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited they are. I can imagine a bright future for consumers where games with native-level graphics are distributed via the web.

rglover 3y ago
The web is getting more powerful and eventually will negate the need for native apps as the performance will be comparable or greater. I'd view moves like this to be preemptive efforts to remain competitive in the future.
- MBCook 3y ago
  > as the performance will be comparable or greater How could the performance of a web app ever be faster than a native app? That’s impossible.
JayStavis 3y ago
On the webGL/GPU side, my cynical speculation is that the Apple has slowly been amassing a nest of graphics talent for the last 5 years (Metal, Vision Pro, ARKit, list goes on), and at this point they can't resist the pressure from employees to not support some of this stuff which should be table stakes and is obviously good for the user experience. On the PWA side, best guess is anti-competition scrutiny.
jacobp100 3y ago
Safari has been improving at rapid pace for a while now. They were the first to get ES6 support (and the only to implement tail calls), they’re usually the first with CSS features
- SquareWheel 3y ago
  I wouldn't say they're the first to get most CSS features. Usually just things that are more visual, like color spaces and theming. They still drag their feet on a lot of features, but they are getting better.
- cutler 3y ago
  So why do a lot of sites I visit still fail in Safari?
  - Angostura 3y ago
    I only know of 1 where it is a current problem. What do you have?
    - recursive 3y ago
      I have reports that this sandbox is failing intermittently only in Safari. I don't have a Safari machine to test with. Reports say that the content pane on the right is empty. By default, there should be a clickable button in it, which is the sandbox output. https://mutraction.dev/sandbox/?view=normal https://mutraction.dev/sandbox/?view=normal Reports say there is some iframe load failure showing in the network monitor. Every file being loaded is a normal static file served from a CDN. Also, sometimes, when it fails there's a rare chance that a reload will make it work?
      - Angostura 3y ago
        Hmm, seems to work fine here on MacOS Sonoma and Safari 17.2.1. Happy to help you test if I can be of help.
  - alwillis 3y ago
    That’s a web developer problem, not a Safari problem.
  - nolist_policy 3y ago
    Because to test with Safari, you need to buy a Apple device.
  - dagmx 3y ago
    Because web developers aren’t adequately testing other browsers? Each browser has its own additional APIs and implementation specifics. Chrome in specific has tons of non standard additions.
boucher 3y ago
Anti-trust concerns
marban 3y ago
Even the App Store has a shelf life.
holoduke 3y ago
I expect webstores to be less relevant in 5 years from now. PWA are getting more on pair with their native sisters. Banking apps, social media etc . There is no real reason to have a native app. Only graphic demanding apps will have a slightly longer life. But the end is near for Kotlin and Swift apps. I cannot be more happy.
- vladgur 3y ago
  What’s a good site that lists current differences between native apps and PWAs? Like can PWAs run in background or respond to location changes, etc
  - holoduke 3y ago
    Native apps are restricted for backend tasks as well. Only on very rare exception native apps are allowed to run processes in the background. Now you have service workers in PWA land. They can wake up apps for i.e push notications. So all in all there is not a difference. Location changes are available in web for a long time. Just like camera and other sensor data.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  So if that’s true, why are app developers still releasing Android apps instead of just letting them use the web version? And I haven’t heard anyone say “you know I have a really great experience with web apps. I wish all of my apps were web apps on mobile and Electron on my computer”
  - jamil7 3y ago
    Because PWAs on mobile remain kind of underwhelming still. Native APIs are missing, navigation stacks are not there and performance is still quite bad even on higher end phones, although the last one is probably implementation specific. There are also only two platforms so the insensitive for businesses aren’t as strong.
  - jampekka 3y ago
    I'm wondering about the same. Vast majority of "apps" would work just as well, or better, as a website. In fact a lot of them do, e.g. this very site. I think a part of it is an "app craze", i.e. organizations want "apps" just because "an app" is something fancier and totally different than "just a website". I have done an "app" like this (implemented as an optionally installable website). Also many people, including many developers, also vastly underestimate what can be done with contemporary browsers, so they assume that "a native app" is needed if you e.g. want to take a picture or read a file.
IshKebab 3y ago
Possibly because it's looking likely that they'll be forced to allow other browsers on iOS at some point and they don't want everyone to switch to Chrome?
afavour 3y ago
Apple tends to put effort behind web APIs long after others do. WebGL, progressive web apps, etc etc… they put the effort in when it’s starting to become a competitive disadvantage not to. WebGPU feels like an outlier in that respect but then it is intended as a “better” WebGL so it makes sense that if you already have WebGL you might as well have WebGPU. It’s a lot closer to Apple’s Metal API than WebGL is so they have an interest in people switching.
modeless 3y ago
The EU's DMA law is going to force them to finally start competing with other browser engines on iOS, at least in Europe. When that became clear they started investing more in WebKit. It's been a few years now.
- hmottestad 3y ago
  I switched from Chrome to Safari on my Mac about 7 years ago. At the time Apple was promoting performance and power efficiency. I’ve been very happy. Sometimes I do run into css stuff that is missing, and PWA is still not great. Latest PWA screw up is that the app won’t switch to dark mode except if you force quit the app, and then it gets stuck on dark mode. This worked perfectly prior to iOS 17. My point is that Apple is competing with other browser implementations on MacOS, yet I’ve very rarely used anything other than Safari. Most exceptions have actually been because I need a plugin to debug the JS framework I’m using.
  - naet 3y ago
    They're competing a lot less than they could be by nature of being the default browser, and also by not allowing non-webkit based browsers on the iOS apple store. I think without those very few people would be opting in to Safari. I read that both Google and Mozilla are developing non webkit iOS browsers in anticipation of some regulatory changes, and also that Apple has been staffing up the webkit/Safari team in response.
    - idonotknowwhy 3y ago
      Lack of real Firefox is the actual blocker for me using an iPhone. But at the same time, I'm glad ios only allow safari and I hope the EU don't change this. I think the consequences would be bad if chrome works on every platform and suddenly there's no cross browser support for a lot of apps.
  - modeless 3y ago
    You are not a representative sample. According to [1] Safari has 28% market share on MacOS. [Edit: This site was wrong, the real number is 37%, see below for a link] If WebKit's market share on iOS were to drop this low, web developers would likely test for WebKit a lot less, and tolerate WebKit's missing features a lot less, and Apple would soon face much worse web compatibility problems on both platforms. To prevent that they saw that they needed to seriously step up their investment in WebKit, and from what I've observed it seems like they did. Though perhaps not yet to the level they really need. Old habits die hard. Of course they could just do what Microsoft did and give up. I'm glad they haven't. [1] [Edit: this site was wrong, see below for better numbers]
mdasen 3y ago
One could say the same for Google's browser investments as well. At this point, if Chrome and Safari don't implement something, it basically doesn't exist as a web technology. The only other engine is Firefox sitting at 3% of usage. In Apple's case, I think there's some utility behind their drive for WebGPU: it's basically Apple's Metal graphics API. If WebGPU takes off, it'll mean a lot of developers getting familiar with something very similar to Apple's Metal API. Apple seems to be pursuing a long-term strategy of bringing more games to their platform. From the Game Porting Toolkit to ray tracing in their processors to Apple Vision to simply giving gaming a lot more attention in their keynotes. And Apple might be well positioned to capitalize on gaming. A $130 Apple TV has a lot more CPU and graphics power than a Nintendo Switch. The same applies to the iPhones people are carrying around. It might not compete with giant consoles from Microsoft and Sony, but Apple has been showing that it can offer impressive gaming performance. Fast forward to 2026: does a next-gen Apple TV have hardware ray tracing? Apple put a 2021 A15 processor in the 2022 Apple TV. It seems reasonable that they could put something better than a 2023 A17 Pro in a 2026 Apple TV (a 3 year old processor at that point). Sure, Microsoft and Sony will have next-gen consoles, but at what point are graphics facing diminishing returns? Nintendo has the most popular console even though it's older and was low-powered to begin with. For PC games, one must assume that some people are running graphics cards that are older. I'm not saying this will happen. Companies can be fickle. However, Apple has show a reasonably consistent (if slow) move toward games over the past year or two. They're making the investments now and WebGPU's Metal-like API could be part of that strategy. Heck, maybe WebGPU is even a strategy to avoid lawsuits from companies like Epic and anti-trust action from regulators. If you don't like the App Store rules, just use WebGPU. If games with native-level graphics can be distributed via the web, then there isn't nearly as much for regulators to go after the App Store.
scarface_74 3y ago
This take doesn’t survive scrutiny. The real money from the App Store comes from play to win games. The reason those make so much money is because of the direct link to in app purchases and “whales” spending money on meaningless coins and loot boxes. This came out in the Epic Trial. Those people are much less likely to put a credit card on any random site. Candy Crush games could already be done on the web on mobile - it wouldn’t be nearly as monetizable
- megaman821 3y ago
  Candy Crush running in Safari can use Apple Pay almost as easily.
  - madeofpalk 3y ago
    I would imagine Apple Pay is used significantly less than iTunes/App Store billing. Apple Pay is only in certain counties, with supported banks/cards. iTunes/App Store supports a plethora of payment options across the world, as well as Apple Pay.
- realusername 3y ago
  Indeed, you could totally make the argument based on the store revenues that both the play store and the appstore are just in reality some type of casino/gambling industry middleman. Both companies are working very hard to remove this image though for obvious political reasons.
megaman821 3y ago
It could also be strategic. A more capable web browser along with better PWA support, could be an offering to the EU to settle app store monopoly issues. Apple could say they have made it so easy to install quality apps from the web there is no need to mandate alternative stores.
- bonestamp2 3y ago
  On this same point, if they don't keep up with PWA support, they risk getting left behind by application developers. So, they have multiple incentives to invest in Safari.
  - ComputerGuru 3y ago
    > they risk getting left behind by application developers There is literally, for now, zero risk of that. companies will have devs meet the customers where they are at. Of the largest mobile market share platform in the USA doesn’t support PWA or only supports it without features the company requires, said company will build an iOS app. As has been the case.
  - troupo 3y ago
    > if they don't keep up with PWA support, they risk getting left behind by application developers. Application developers will not go anywhere, for many reasons: - iOS is where the money's at - PWAs are not "apps". They are web apps with all the limitations it implies. You want complex functionality, rich controls, fluid animations and a billion other things? You go for native apps.
- sccxy 3y ago
  iOS PWA support is getting worse and worse with every release... iOS 16.4 added new wake lock api but it does not work in PWA. Still not fixed in iOS 17.2 iOS 17 removed dark/light mode switching in PWA. Still broken in iOS 17.2
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
madeofpalk 3y ago
Safari's always been pretty secretly good - they just got a bad rep for not supporting PWA-related technologies for a while. Because Apple uses Webkit to render a bunch of their "native" UIs, they're often first to adopt native-like interactions or css features (or proposed them themselves), like backdrop-filter or CSS Scroll Snap. Because the web can have a pretty big impact on battery life on phones and laptops, they've also always had a pretty fast and energy efficient js engine. I'm really doubtful Apple sees Safari as competition for their app store distribution. I don't think that matches reality of how most consumers use mobile devices and spend money.
- MBCook 3y ago
  I agree. I don’t think they see Safari as competing with the App Store. Even with the recent PWA additions it doesn’t seem to matter. At this point I’d say Safari is 100% a hedge against being fully dependent on Google/Chrome. It started to not be dependent on MS/IE and improve what MS didn’t care a ton about. Apple HATES being fully dependent on others for very important stuff. They’ve been burned too many times. Safari is great. I love it. But there’s no way it is ever going away even if they are forced to preload 18 different app stores and 4 browsers on every phone by the different governments of the world. It’s Apple keeping control of Apple’s destiny.

rglover 3y ago

The web is getting more powerful and eventually will negate the need for native apps as the performance will be comparable or greater. I'd view moves like this to be preemptive efforts to remain competitive in the future.

MBCook 3y ago
> as the performance will be comparable or greater How could the performance of a web app ever be faster than a native app? That’s impossible.

JayStavis 3y ago

On the webGL/GPU side, my cynical speculation is that the Apple has slowly been amassing a nest of graphics talent for the last 5 years (Metal, Vision Pro, ARKit, list goes on), and at this point they can't resist the pressure from employees to not support some of this stuff which should be table stakes and is obviously good for the user experience. On the PWA side, best guess is anti-competition scrutiny.

jacobp100 3y ago

Safari has been improving at rapid pace for a while now. They were the first to get ES6 support (and the only to implement tail calls), they’re usually the first with CSS features

SquareWheel 3y ago
I wouldn't say they're the first to get most CSS features. Usually just things that are more visual, like color spaces and theming. They still drag their feet on a lot of features, but they are getting better.
cutler 3y ago
So why do a lot of sites I visit still fail in Safari?
- Angostura 3y ago
  I only know of 1 where it is a current problem. What do you have?
  - recursive 3y ago
    I have reports that this sandbox is failing intermittently only in Safari. I don't have a Safari machine to test with. Reports say that the content pane on the right is empty. By default, there should be a clickable button in it, which is the sandbox output. https://mutraction.dev/sandbox/?view=normal https://mutraction.dev/sandbox/?view=normal Reports say there is some iframe load failure showing in the network monitor. Every file being loaded is a normal static file served from a CDN. Also, sometimes, when it fails there's a rare chance that a reload will make it work?
    - Angostura 3y ago
      Hmm, seems to work fine here on MacOS Sonoma and Safari 17.2.1. Happy to help you test if I can be of help.
- alwillis 3y ago
  That’s a web developer problem, not a Safari problem.
- nolist_policy 3y ago
  Because to test with Safari, you need to buy a Apple device.
- dagmx 3y ago
  Because web developers aren’t adequately testing other browsers? Each browser has its own additional APIs and implementation specifics. Chrome in specific has tons of non standard additions.

boucher 3y ago

Anti-trust concerns

marban 3y ago

Even the App Store has a shelf life.

holoduke 3y ago

I expect webstores to be less relevant in 5 years from now. PWA are getting more on pair with their native sisters. Banking apps, social media etc . There is no real reason to have a native app. Only graphic demanding apps will have a slightly longer life. But the end is near for Kotlin and Swift apps. I cannot be more happy.

vladgur 3y ago
What’s a good site that lists current differences between native apps and PWAs? Like can PWAs run in background or respond to location changes, etc
- holoduke 3y ago
  Native apps are restricted for backend tasks as well. Only on very rare exception native apps are allowed to run processes in the background. Now you have service workers in PWA land. They can wake up apps for i.e push notications. So all in all there is not a difference. Location changes are available in web for a long time. Just like camera and other sensor data.
scarface_74 3y ago
So if that’s true, why are app developers still releasing Android apps instead of just letting them use the web version? And I haven’t heard anyone say “you know I have a really great experience with web apps. I wish all of my apps were web apps on mobile and Electron on my computer”
- jamil7 3y ago
  Because PWAs on mobile remain kind of underwhelming still. Native APIs are missing, navigation stacks are not there and performance is still quite bad even on higher end phones, although the last one is probably implementation specific. There are also only two platforms so the insensitive for businesses aren’t as strong.
- jampekka 3y ago
  I'm wondering about the same. Vast majority of "apps" would work just as well, or better, as a website. In fact a lot of them do, e.g. this very site. I think a part of it is an "app craze", i.e. organizations want "apps" just because "an app" is something fancier and totally different than "just a website". I have done an "app" like this (implemented as an optionally installable website). Also many people, including many developers, also vastly underestimate what can be done with contemporary browsers, so they assume that "a native app" is needed if you e.g. want to take a picture or read a file.

IshKebab 3y ago

Possibly because it's looking likely that they'll be forced to allow other browsers on iOS at some point and they don't want everyone to switch to Chrome?

afavour 3y ago

Apple tends to put effort behind web APIs long after others do. WebGL, progressive web apps, etc etc… they put the effort in when it’s starting to become a competitive disadvantage not to. WebGPU feels like an outlier in that respect but then it is intended as a “better” WebGL so it makes sense that if you already have WebGL you might as well have WebGPU. It’s a lot closer to Apple’s Metal API than WebGL is so they have an interest in people switching.

modeless 3y ago

The EU's DMA law is going to force them to finally start competing with other browser engines on iOS, at least in Europe. When that became clear they started investing more in WebKit. It's been a few years now.

hmottestad 3y ago
I switched from Chrome to Safari on my Mac about 7 years ago. At the time Apple was promoting performance and power efficiency. I’ve been very happy. Sometimes I do run into css stuff that is missing, and PWA is still not great. Latest PWA screw up is that the app won’t switch to dark mode except if you force quit the app, and then it gets stuck on dark mode. This worked perfectly prior to iOS 17. My point is that Apple is competing with other browser implementations on MacOS, yet I’ve very rarely used anything other than Safari. Most exceptions have actually been because I need a plugin to debug the JS framework I’m using.
- naet 3y ago
  They're competing a lot less than they could be by nature of being the default browser, and also by not allowing non-webkit based browsers on the iOS apple store. I think without those very few people would be opting in to Safari. I read that both Google and Mozilla are developing non webkit iOS browsers in anticipation of some regulatory changes, and also that Apple has been staffing up the webkit/Safari team in response.
  - idonotknowwhy 3y ago
    Lack of real Firefox is the actual blocker for me using an iPhone. But at the same time, I'm glad ios only allow safari and I hope the EU don't change this. I think the consequences would be bad if chrome works on every platform and suddenly there's no cross browser support for a lot of apps.
- modeless 3y ago
  You are not a representative sample. According to [1] Safari has 28% market share on MacOS. [Edit: This site was wrong, the real number is 37%, see below for a link] If WebKit's market share on iOS were to drop this low, web developers would likely test for WebKit a lot less, and tolerate WebKit's missing features a lot less, and Apple would soon face much worse web compatibility problems on both platforms. To prevent that they saw that they needed to seriously step up their investment in WebKit, and from what I've observed it seems like they did. Though perhaps not yet to the level they really need. Old habits die hard. Of course they could just do what Microsoft did and give up. I'm glad they haven't. [1] [Edit: this site was wrong, see below for better numbers]

mdasen 3y ago

One could say the same for Google's browser investments as well. At this point, if Chrome and Safari don't implement something, it basically doesn't exist as a web technology. The only other engine is Firefox sitting at 3% of usage. In Apple's case, I think there's some utility behind their drive for WebGPU: it's basically Apple's Metal graphics API. If WebGPU takes off, it'll mean a lot of developers getting familiar with something very similar to Apple's Metal API. Apple seems to be pursuing a long-term strategy of bringing more games to their platform. From the Game Porting Toolkit to ray tracing in their processors to Apple Vision to simply giving gaming a lot more attention in their keynotes. And Apple might be well positioned to capitalize on gaming. A $130 Apple TV has a lot more CPU and graphics power than a Nintendo Switch. The same applies to the iPhones people are carrying around. It might not compete with giant consoles from Microsoft and Sony, but Apple has been showing that it can offer impressive gaming performance. Fast forward to 2026: does a next-gen Apple TV have hardware ray tracing? Apple put a 2021 A15 processor in the 2022 Apple TV. It seems reasonable that they could put something better than a 2023 A17 Pro in a 2026 Apple TV (a 3 year old processor at that point). Sure, Microsoft and Sony will have next-gen consoles, but at what point are graphics facing diminishing returns? Nintendo has the most popular console even though it's older and was low-powered to begin with. For PC games, one must assume that some people are running graphics cards that are older. I'm not saying this will happen. Companies can be fickle. However, Apple has show a reasonably consistent (if slow) move toward games over the past year or two. They're making the investments now and WebGPU's Metal-like API could be part of that strategy. Heck, maybe WebGPU is even a strategy to avoid lawsuits from companies like Epic and anti-trust action from regulators. If you don't like the App Store rules, just use WebGPU. If games with native-level graphics can be distributed via the web, then there isn't nearly as much for regulators to go after the App Store.

scarface_74 3y ago

This take doesn’t survive scrutiny. The real money from the App Store comes from play to win games. The reason those make so much money is because of the direct link to in app purchases and “whales” spending money on meaningless coins and loot boxes. This came out in the Epic Trial. Those people are much less likely to put a credit card on any random site. Candy Crush games could already be done on the web on mobile - it wouldn’t be nearly as monetizable

megaman821 3y ago
Candy Crush running in Safari can use Apple Pay almost as easily.
- madeofpalk 3y ago
  I would imagine Apple Pay is used significantly less than iTunes/App Store billing. Apple Pay is only in certain counties, with supported banks/cards. iTunes/App Store supports a plethora of payment options across the world, as well as Apple Pay.
realusername 3y ago
Indeed, you could totally make the argument based on the store revenues that both the play store and the appstore are just in reality some type of casino/gambling industry middleman. Both companies are working very hard to remove this image though for obvious political reasons.

megaman821 3y ago

It could also be strategic. A more capable web browser along with better PWA support, could be an offering to the EU to settle app store monopoly issues. Apple could say they have made it so easy to install quality apps from the web there is no need to mandate alternative stores.

bonestamp2 3y ago
On this same point, if they don't keep up with PWA support, they risk getting left behind by application developers. So, they have multiple incentives to invest in Safari.
- ComputerGuru 3y ago
  > they risk getting left behind by application developers There is literally, for now, zero risk of that. companies will have devs meet the customers where they are at. Of the largest mobile market share platform in the USA doesn’t support PWA or only supports it without features the company requires, said company will build an iOS app. As has been the case.
- troupo 3y ago
  > if they don't keep up with PWA support, they risk getting left behind by application developers. Application developers will not go anywhere, for many reasons: - iOS is where the money's at - PWAs are not "apps". They are web apps with all the limitations it implies. You want complex functionality, rich controls, fluid animations and a billion other things? You go for native apps.
sccxy 3y ago
iOS PWA support is getting worse and worse with every release... iOS 16.4 added new wake lock api but it does not work in PWA. Still not fixed in iOS 17.2 iOS 17 removed dark/light mode switching in PWA. Still broken in iOS 17.2

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

madeofpalk 3y ago

Safari's always been pretty secretly good - they just got a bad rep for not supporting PWA-related technologies for a while. Because Apple uses Webkit to render a bunch of their "native" UIs, they're often first to adopt native-like interactions or css features (or proposed them themselves), like backdrop-filter or CSS Scroll Snap. Because the web can have a pretty big impact on battery life on phones and laptops, they've also always had a pretty fast and energy efficient js engine. I'm really doubtful Apple sees Safari as competition for their app store distribution. I don't think that matches reality of how most consumers use mobile devices and spend money.

MBCook 3y ago
I agree. I don’t think they see Safari as competing with the App Store. Even with the recent PWA additions it doesn’t seem to matter. At this point I’d say Safari is 100% a hedge against being fully dependent on Google/Chrome. It started to not be dependent on MS/IE and improve what MS didn’t care a ton about. Apple HATES being fully dependent on others for very important stuff. They’ve been burned too many times. Safari is great. I love it. But there’s no way it is ever going away even if they are forced to preload 18 different app stores and 4 browsers on every phone by the different governments of the world. It’s Apple keeping control of Apple’s destiny.