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Go to any webpage/PWA, hit the share button, hit “add to home screen“. That’s it. It’s not complicated or restricted in any way.

by MBCook 3y ago

hutzlibu 3y ago
Hm, last time I checked and tried this, there were still limitations, but it has been a while and maybe something improved.
- rchaud 3y ago
  it has changed, at least on MacOS Sonoma. I can "add a website to dock" and it launches in fullscreen if the manifest.json is set up correctly.
bodantogat 3y ago
Its not intuitive for the average user. "Share" does not usually imply "Install" , and the add to home screen option for me is way down in the menu.
- MBCook 3y ago
  You’re not wrong. But at this point Apple has buried EVERYTHING inside the share sheet. Adding bookmarks, finding on the page, printing, triggering extension actions/scripts… it’s a junk drawer. It’s not hard to explain to users at least. It certainly could’ve been much worse. Not high praise but it is what it is.
  - bodantogat 3y ago
    Not on the list of Apple's priorities I guess. If you have an app, you can include a meta tag on your web page and Safari will show users an Get from app-store banner at the top of the page. (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/webkit/promoting_apps_with_smart_app_banners https://developer.apple.com/documentation/webkit/promoting_a...) Would it be nice if they did that for PWAs.
mdhb 3y ago
Absolutely nobody expects to find installation options under layers of indirection in a share menu. It’s an intentional choice by Apple that’s hostile to users but very aligned with their strategy to lock users into their own proprietary platform as much as possible.
- MBCook 3y ago
  What do you think the process should be? There are only five buttons on screen, should one of them be permanently dedicated to adding a webpage/PWA to your home screen? For the record they are the back, forward, share, history/bookmarks, and tabs buttons. As I explained in another reply, I don’t think Apple is being malicious here. I think they just shove everything that’s not a very common use in there.
  - mdhb 3y ago
    I’d be much more inclined to believe that analysis if we were to look at this as a single thing but the moment you look at the consistency of their decisions that they have made regarding the web as a platform it’s close to impossible to impartially come to that same conclusion.
persolb 3y ago
[dead]

Go to any webpage/PWA, hit the share button, hit “add to home screen“. That’s it. It’s not complicated or restricted in any way.

by MBCook 3y ago

Go to any webpage/PWA, hit the share button, hit “add to home screen“. That’s it. It’s not complicated or restricted in any way.

hutzlibu 3y ago

Hm, last time I checked and tried this, there were still limitations, but it has been a while and maybe something improved.

rchaud 3y ago
it has changed, at least on MacOS Sonoma. I can "add a website to dock" and it launches in fullscreen if the manifest.json is set up correctly.

bodantogat 3y ago

Its not intuitive for the average user. "Share" does not usually imply "Install" , and the add to home screen option for me is way down in the menu.

MBCook 3y ago
You’re not wrong. But at this point Apple has buried EVERYTHING inside the share sheet. Adding bookmarks, finding on the page, printing, triggering extension actions/scripts… it’s a junk drawer. It’s not hard to explain to users at least. It certainly could’ve been much worse. Not high praise but it is what it is.
- bodantogat 3y ago
  Not on the list of Apple's priorities I guess. If you have an app, you can include a meta tag on your web page and Safari will show users an Get from app-store banner at the top of the page. (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/webkit/promoting_apps_with_smart_app_banners https://developer.apple.com/documentation/webkit/promoting_a...) Would it be nice if they did that for PWAs.

mdhb 3y ago

Absolutely nobody expects to find installation options under layers of indirection in a share menu. It’s an intentional choice by Apple that’s hostile to users but very aligned with their strategy to lock users into their own proprietary platform as much as possible.

MBCook 3y ago
What do you think the process should be? There are only five buttons on screen, should one of them be permanently dedicated to adding a webpage/PWA to your home screen? For the record they are the back, forward, share, history/bookmarks, and tabs buttons. As I explained in another reply, I don’t think Apple is being malicious here. I think they just shove everything that’s not a very common use in there.
- mdhb 3y ago
  I’d be much more inclined to believe that analysis if we were to look at this as a single thing but the moment you look at the consistency of their decisions that they have made regarding the web as a platform it’s close to impossible to impartially come to that same conclusion.

persolb 3y ago

[dead]