4 ms·

It's not outside the realm of possibility for web apps to have as good of an experience as binary apps for most use cases. But Apple has no motivation to make "

by qgin 3y ago

It's not outside the realm of possibility for web apps to have as good of an experience as binary apps for most use cases. But Apple has no motivation to make "the good stuff" easily available to web developers. Letting a webapp capable webpage have an in-page "install this app" button that added it to the home screen would wipe out 50% of app store usage. But as it is, as an "add to home screen" option on the share menu of a webpage, which very few have noticed or understand the meaning of... it keeps web apps from taking off.

steve1977 3y ago
Web apps on Chrome suck compared to native desktop apps on both Windows and macoS, so I don’t see how this is Apple‘s fault really.
- postalrat 3y ago
  Yet somehow most native apps people use are either: a web browser, something built with a web browser.
  - DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
    Looking at Windows, we’ve got MS Office, File Explorer, Photoshop, Visual Studio, System admin/utilities, Notepad, Paint, Audacity, and so on… If all people actually used were just Facebook and Google Docs then Chromebooks would be far outselling Windows laptops; instead they’re just mildly competetive. I won’t deny that “the web”, as a platform (especially Chromium) presents a compelling platform to which a good chunk of those apps could be ported (especially the apps which don’t need low-level or low-latency hardware interfaces - but I think you’re underselling the value, and necessity, of things using Win32+WDM/NTDDK instead of HTML+JS.
  - steve1977 3y ago
    And that is very sad.
wharvle 3y ago
> It's not outside the realm of possibility for web apps to have as good of an experience as binary apps for most use cases. But Apple has no motivation to make "the good stuff" easily available to web developers. How’s Apple making web apps bad on literally every platform?
- fsflover 3y ago
  Because they don't work on iOS, the developers abandon this idea completely, since it's a huge part of the user share.
  - wharvle 3y ago
    But there are tons of web apps. We don't lack for examples.
    - fsflover 3y ago
      Which of them are popular?
      - wharvle 3y ago
        I'm... confused by the question? In the browser: a dozen or more things by Google: sheets, docs, gmail, keep, and so on. Jira, Asana, et c. Several graph or diagram-making apps. Notion. There are tons. Outside the browser: Everything that runs under Electron or is otherwise webtech-based? They're ubiquitous. Slack, Discord, Postman, VSCode, Etcher, and on and on.
        fsflover 3y ago
        I mean are they popular as actual web apps? I don't know anyone who uses them like that. And I myself do use web apps on my phone.
threeseed 3y ago
> Letting a webapp capable webpage have an in-page "install this app" button And you don't see how this would be abused by nefarious web sites ? I already can't stand browsing the web and being inundated by push notification requests.
- hobobaggins 3y ago
  > And you don't see how this would be abused by nefarious web sites ? How is this different from being inundated with requests (really, more of a demand or an absolute requirement) to install the app to view this content?
  - DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
    Speaking for myself, it’s only Reddit where I encounter this annoyance.
    - fsflover 3y ago
      Try Instagram.
hobobaggins 3y ago
Yeah, there's no way Apple has any incentive at all to make it easy to install even the (very neutered) PWA experience. Interestingly, it's a lot easier on Android than on iPhone, but Google has always been more open about outside apps and app stores.
scarface_74 3y ago
If it’s just Apoke, then why are companies bothering to create Android apps?
dwaite 3y ago
> Letting a webapp capable webpage have an in-page "install this app" button that added it to the home screen would wipe out 50% of app store usage I can hardly wait for my entire Saturday to be taken up by my father being clickjacked into installing an antivirus scam. If 'install this app ' provides any additional change in the security and privacy model beyond what setting a bookmark does, the page should have zero capability to request/demand such a thing. I know that sucks for people who want to do application distribution using web technologies. However, people do not understand the ramifications of promoting a site to an app, and those ramifications are full of abuse scenarios.
bsdpufferfish 3y ago
Yeah because mobile web apps feel like trash. HTML documents you can read is the good stuff.

by qgin 3y ago

steve1977 3y ago

Web apps on Chrome suck compared to native desktop apps on both Windows and macoS, so I don’t see how this is Apple‘s fault really.

postalrat 3y ago
Yet somehow most native apps people use are either: a web browser, something built with a web browser.
- DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
  Looking at Windows, we’ve got MS Office, File Explorer, Photoshop, Visual Studio, System admin/utilities, Notepad, Paint, Audacity, and so on… If all people actually used were just Facebook and Google Docs then Chromebooks would be far outselling Windows laptops; instead they’re just mildly competetive. I won’t deny that “the web”, as a platform (especially Chromium) presents a compelling platform to which a good chunk of those apps could be ported (especially the apps which don’t need low-level or low-latency hardware interfaces - but I think you’re underselling the value, and necessity, of things using Win32+WDM/NTDDK instead of HTML+JS.
- steve1977 3y ago
  And that is very sad.

wharvle 3y ago

> It's not outside the realm of possibility for web apps to have as good of an experience as binary apps for most use cases. But Apple has no motivation to make "the good stuff" easily available to web developers. How’s Apple making web apps bad on literally every platform?

fsflover 3y ago
Because they don't work on iOS, the developers abandon this idea completely, since it's a huge part of the user share.
- wharvle 3y ago
  But there are tons of web apps. We don't lack for examples.
  - fsflover 3y ago
    Which of them are popular?
    - wharvle 3y ago
      I'm... confused by the question? In the browser: a dozen or more things by Google: sheets, docs, gmail, keep, and so on. Jira, Asana, et c. Several graph or diagram-making apps. Notion. There are tons. Outside the browser: Everything that runs under Electron or is otherwise webtech-based? They're ubiquitous. Slack, Discord, Postman, VSCode, Etcher, and on and on.
      - fsflover 3y ago
        I mean are they popular as actual web apps? I don't know anyone who uses them like that. And I myself do use web apps on my phone.

threeseed 3y ago

> Letting a webapp capable webpage have an in-page "install this app" button And you don't see how this would be abused by nefarious web sites ? I already can't stand browsing the web and being inundated by push notification requests.

hobobaggins 3y ago
> And you don't see how this would be abused by nefarious web sites ? How is this different from being inundated with requests (really, more of a demand or an absolute requirement) to install the app to view this content?
- DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
  Speaking for myself, it’s only Reddit where I encounter this annoyance.
  - fsflover 3y ago
    Try Instagram.

hobobaggins 3y ago

Yeah, there's no way Apple has any incentive at all to make it easy to install even the (very neutered) PWA experience. Interestingly, it's a lot easier on Android than on iPhone, but Google has always been more open about outside apps and app stores.

scarface_74 3y ago

If it’s just Apoke, then why are companies bothering to create Android apps?

dwaite 3y ago

> Letting a webapp capable webpage have an in-page "install this app" button that added it to the home screen would wipe out 50% of app store usage I can hardly wait for my entire Saturday to be taken up by my father being clickjacked into installing an antivirus scam. If 'install this app ' provides any additional change in the security and privacy model beyond what setting a bookmark does, the page should have zero capability to request/demand such a thing. I know that sucks for people who want to do application distribution using web technologies. However, people do not understand the ramifications of promoting a site to an app, and those ramifications are full of abuse scenarios.

bsdpufferfish 3y ago

Yeah because mobile web apps feel like trash. HTML documents you can read is the good stuff.