6 ms·

Are you sure this isn't a tech industry viewpoint? I don't know anyone who knows what the difference between an app and a PWA is. I don't think I've seen anyone

by thimp 3y ago

Are you sure this isn't a tech industry viewpoint? I don't know anyone who knows what the difference between an app and a PWA is. I don't think I've seen anyone outside of the tech industry with a PWA active. In context 99% of the users I meet don't even know what USB-C is.

tester89 3y ago
The only PWA that I think gets any use on i(Pad)OS is that for the Financial Times.
- dcow 3y ago
  It’s just iOS and macOS.
- cal85 3y ago
  I thought that was gone but you’re right, app.ft.com still works and can be installed as a full screen PWA. But the main site, ft.com, isn’t a PWA (or at least, it doesn’t install as a full screen web app). I had assumed they had shut down the PWA, because I haven’t seen any promotion/mention of it for years (and I use ft.com a lot) so I don’t know how regular people would find out about it these days.
anakaine 3y ago
Fair call on your first point about PWA knowledge level in users. Regarding your users knowledge of what USB-C is: are you sure your user group are not potato's? Most people I know, including the teenage daughters and their friends, all know what USB-C is these days.
- thimp 3y ago
  One of them was going to buy a new phone because it took a long time to charge. This was because she had a crap charger and crap cable. I am unsure if they are potatoes or not but I suspect they might be :)
  - red369 3y ago
    I don't necessarily think it applies in your example, but I've heard some very silly reasons given by people as their reason for upgrading. I think a lot of the time people give an excuse, or perhaps even a justification to themselves, when they really just want the excitement of new phone. I often catch myself inventing reasons why I should replace my perfectly fine phone.
    - thimp 3y ago
      No it was 6 months old and she doesn't care about it or phones. She thought it was broken. I charged it with my powerbank, an anker PD one and she ordered a proper charger off amazon. I gave her my spare USB-C cable. It was seen as a potential financial inconvenience having to do anything about it as well. Literally many people do not care enough to understand it. It's just a modern necessity, a tool.
      - illumin8 3y ago
        This is my wife. She purchased a bunch of USB-A to USB-c cables off Amazon and wonders why her laptop runs out of power while plugged in - it's because the laptop needs 25-30 watts and those cables can only put out 5 watts because they're limited by the USB-A port. USB-c PD is such a dumpster fire of a standard. Even with supposedly high end cables like Anker you often can't charge a Macbook Pro faster than it can drain it's own battery under load. We can't expect normal people to understand why there are a dozen different cable types that all have the same tip but charge at vastly different rates...
        seba_dos1 3y ago
        There are no USB cables that are limited to 5W, and standard non-PD USB-A ports can give you up to 15W. The only case where you may need a different (non-passive, "e-marked") cable is when going above 60W (3A).
        dhosek 3y ago
        I recently discovered that I can use my iPad and MacBook charging brick to test PD of a usb cable. If it’s low wattage, the charging brick will not provide any power to the iPad. High wattage and it will.
benguild 3y ago
Correct on it being a tech industry viewpoint— people think "apps come from the App Store" and therefore anything else that's clunky requires a fair amount of education and payoff for users to adopt. It's off balance, and it shows now that the tech has to be removed since it wasn't actually at parity despite it being an argument for it unfortunately. The worst part? This has been the case for 15 years. It's not like there wasn't enough time to fix it. That's plenty of time to hire and develop solutions, yet now look at the reasons for it being taken away.
- ric2b 3y ago
  On Android you can install PWA's from the App Store, no reason why Apple couldn't also support it.
darylteo 3y ago
Going on a slight tangent: I do get many clients inquiring about PWA because "they don't need to pay 30% per purchase". This is anecdotal, of course... they wouldn't be able to tell you what it is, but all they care about is that they save 30%. So there is definitely "interest" in PWAs.
dangus 3y ago
I think PWAs are an outright failure and a technical solution looking for a problem. I don’t even know where to find one. For one thing, if Apple is complying with the EU’s alternative App Store and browser engine mandate, they’re even less useful than before. Why do I as a user want a PWA when I could have a native app?
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  I mean, the problem is the same one introduced since the two big mobile platforms were established: "I want to publish to IOS/Android as a native app without needing to have two separate builds to manage". PWAs make that pitch to those who already have websites to triple dip. It never has to promise to be as good as a native app, just "good enough". Does it live up to that? YMMV. It's probably fine for very simple apps, probably comes apart at the seams for anything trying to look modern or have fancier functionality.
  - claytongulick 3y ago
    I've built large, complex and beautiful healthcare apps as a PWA. The only two things I've ever missed from native functionality are: - background geolocation - push notifications on ios The second one was fixed recently. In contrast, from what I've seen 90+ percent of apps I see in the app stores would be better as a web page / PWA.
    - dangus 3y ago
      But the real question is where most of your users live. I’d take a decent wager that most of your users are most familiar with apps and would prefer installing full apps. Doesn’t matter that most apps would be better suited to being a web page or PWA if that’s not where the users are. That’s kind of like saying that PCs are better at gaming than consoles. Yes, that’s true, but that’s not where the majority of users are.
      - johnnyanmac 3y ago
        I mean, PWAs aren't made with the goal to maximize User UX. It's a cost saving measure like any other solution that isn't making 2 dedicated native apps for IOS/Android.it won't get as much traffic as a native app, but it's almost "free" to deploy. To use the gaming console example, it's not unlike using an emulator to launch your game on PC (if you could somehow monetize an emulated rom). It's not the ideal experience, but it requires very little extra work.
afavour 3y ago
You’re right but a lot of that has to do with discoverability and the lack thereof on iOS. On Android you can show an install prompt via the browser or even package your PWA to be distributed via the Play Store. On iOS you have to do a strange incantation of “sharing” a web page to your Home Screen via a submenu. Its utterly unituitive so it’s not too surprising that most don’t.
- cal85 3y ago
  I think it's pretty feasible for a web app (assuming the user trusts it) to prompt a user and explain how to add it to homescreen from iOS Safari. I can imagine, and think I've seen in the past, a nice-enough UI flow to get people to install a PWA. After explaining the benefits, you have an "Add to Home Screen" CTA button. When the user taps that, if it's iOS Safari, you pop up a modal that visually explains the two steps required, which are (1) tapping the button at the bottom of the screen, and (2) tapping the "Add to Home Screen" menu item. (OK they need to do one final tap on 'Add' to confirm the title, but most users who've got this far would manage that on their own.) I agree that's not as good as a native install prompt but I don't think it's a strange incantation/utterly unintuitive. I know that icon originally meant 'share' but these days it means a wider range of things - basically "take this thing somewhere else".
  - afavour 3y ago
    It’s definitely possible, I’ve done it myself in the past (it’s still very annoying owing to the different position of button on iPhone vs iPad) and the analytics show some users get it. But as compared to “find us in the App Store” it’s night and day. It’s also a very inconsistent experience: some sites have set themselves up as fully featured PWAs, others have made no efforts at all. Both get the same button.
lloeki 3y ago
> In context 99% of the users I meet don't even know what USB-C is. OH (frequently): - hey I need to to up, do you have a phone charger? - yup, which kind? - not "an Apple" - oh, so USB? - yeah the "standard" one, not the "new usb" That said, I'm surprised many do know about the literal "usb-c" term. Micro USB A though flies over their head, it's "small usb" or "standard usb" every time. Of note: EU here, and while they by and large don't know about the EU standardising stuff they did notice the effect. I've seen a few refer to USB-C as "universal one" (largely coz it works the same for both phones and laptops)
- dominojab 3y ago
  [dead]
- pmontra 3y ago
  With my friends it's either "USB-C" or the "round USB". Maybe it's already too old to be referred to as the "new USB". The old one is definitely the "old USB" or the "not round USB".
JacobThreeThree 3y ago
>Are you sure this isn't a tech industry viewpoint? I don't know anyone who knows what the difference between an app and a PWA is. I don't think I've seen anyone outside of the tech industry with a PWA active. The more important context is the legal one, not what laypeople think. Apple is presenting PWAs as viable alternatives to the app store in a legal context: https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Apple%20Pty%20Limited%20%2810%20February%202021%29.pdf https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Apple%20Pty%20Limited%2...
- f1shy 3y ago
  No. It is not! The law is for the people, for the „laymen“, not for lawers.
- gtsteve 3y ago
  Companies can quite happily hold two opposing viewpoints when it suits them. Apple's products usually have some kind of pleasing consistency but that doesn't mean their corporate dealings have to be. In a similar vein, a startup will be very happy to talk about how valuable it is, except when it comes to talking to tax authorities, whereupon suddenly their shares are borderline worthless.
  - dnissley 3y ago
    Eh, this is at least a little different. Startups talk themselves up to investors where they need to convince the investors that they will be really valuable at some point in the future. This is compared to tax authorities who are only concerned about current value, which is often essentially zero when it comes to startups.
- EricHolden12 3y ago
  But now they’ve allowed alternative app stores so why are PWAs still required?
  - beeboobaa 3y ago
    Because they have already been heavily invested in and are cross platform. Sure, Apple has already been fucking over PWAs by refusing to implement certain web standards, but they still promoted them and they are heavily used in certain industries.
formerly_proven 3y ago
So what's a Home Screen Web App in this context? Is it adding a bookmark to the home screen (you open it, and it opens in the regular full iOS Safari), or something else?

by thimp 3y ago

tester89 3y ago

The only PWA that I think gets any use on i(Pad)OS is that for the Financial Times.

dcow 3y ago
It’s just iOS and macOS.
cal85 3y ago
I thought that was gone but you’re right, app.ft.com still works and can be installed as a full screen PWA. But the main site, ft.com, isn’t a PWA (or at least, it doesn’t install as a full screen web app). I had assumed they had shut down the PWA, because I haven’t seen any promotion/mention of it for years (and I use ft.com a lot) so I don’t know how regular people would find out about it these days.

anakaine 3y ago

Fair call on your first point about PWA knowledge level in users. Regarding your users knowledge of what USB-C is: are you sure your user group are not potato's? Most people I know, including the teenage daughters and their friends, all know what USB-C is these days.

thimp 3y ago
One of them was going to buy a new phone because it took a long time to charge. This was because she had a crap charger and crap cable. I am unsure if they are potatoes or not but I suspect they might be :)
- red369 3y ago
  I don't necessarily think it applies in your example, but I've heard some very silly reasons given by people as their reason for upgrading. I think a lot of the time people give an excuse, or perhaps even a justification to themselves, when they really just want the excitement of new phone. I often catch myself inventing reasons why I should replace my perfectly fine phone.
  - thimp 3y ago
    No it was 6 months old and she doesn't care about it or phones. She thought it was broken. I charged it with my powerbank, an anker PD one and she ordered a proper charger off amazon. I gave her my spare USB-C cable. It was seen as a potential financial inconvenience having to do anything about it as well. Literally many people do not care enough to understand it. It's just a modern necessity, a tool.
    - illumin8 3y ago
      This is my wife. She purchased a bunch of USB-A to USB-c cables off Amazon and wonders why her laptop runs out of power while plugged in - it's because the laptop needs 25-30 watts and those cables can only put out 5 watts because they're limited by the USB-A port. USB-c PD is such a dumpster fire of a standard. Even with supposedly high end cables like Anker you often can't charge a Macbook Pro faster than it can drain it's own battery under load. We can't expect normal people to understand why there are a dozen different cable types that all have the same tip but charge at vastly different rates...
      - seba_dos1 3y ago
        There are no USB cables that are limited to 5W, and standard non-PD USB-A ports can give you up to 15W. The only case where you may need a different (non-passive, "e-marked") cable is when going above 60W (3A).
      - dhosek 3y ago
        I recently discovered that I can use my iPad and MacBook charging brick to test PD of a usb cable. If it’s low wattage, the charging brick will not provide any power to the iPad. High wattage and it will.

benguild 3y ago

Correct on it being a tech industry viewpoint— people think "apps come from the App Store" and therefore anything else that's clunky requires a fair amount of education and payoff for users to adopt. It's off balance, and it shows now that the tech has to be removed since it wasn't actually at parity despite it being an argument for it unfortunately. The worst part? This has been the case for 15 years. It's not like there wasn't enough time to fix it. That's plenty of time to hire and develop solutions, yet now look at the reasons for it being taken away.

ric2b 3y ago
On Android you can install PWA's from the App Store, no reason why Apple couldn't also support it.

darylteo 3y ago

Going on a slight tangent: I do get many clients inquiring about PWA because "they don't need to pay 30% per purchase". This is anecdotal, of course... they wouldn't be able to tell you what it is, but all they care about is that they save 30%. So there is definitely "interest" in PWAs.

dangus 3y ago

I think PWAs are an outright failure and a technical solution looking for a problem. I don’t even know where to find one. For one thing, if Apple is complying with the EU’s alternative App Store and browser engine mandate, they’re even less useful than before. Why do I as a user want a PWA when I could have a native app?

johnnyanmac 3y ago
I mean, the problem is the same one introduced since the two big mobile platforms were established: "I want to publish to IOS/Android as a native app without needing to have two separate builds to manage". PWAs make that pitch to those who already have websites to triple dip. It never has to promise to be as good as a native app, just "good enough". Does it live up to that? YMMV. It's probably fine for very simple apps, probably comes apart at the seams for anything trying to look modern or have fancier functionality.
- claytongulick 3y ago
  I've built large, complex and beautiful healthcare apps as a PWA. The only two things I've ever missed from native functionality are: - background geolocation - push notifications on ios The second one was fixed recently. In contrast, from what I've seen 90+ percent of apps I see in the app stores would be better as a web page / PWA.
  - dangus 3y ago
    But the real question is where most of your users live. I’d take a decent wager that most of your users are most familiar with apps and would prefer installing full apps. Doesn’t matter that most apps would be better suited to being a web page or PWA if that’s not where the users are. That’s kind of like saying that PCs are better at gaming than consoles. Yes, that’s true, but that’s not where the majority of users are.
    - johnnyanmac 3y ago
      I mean, PWAs aren't made with the goal to maximize User UX. It's a cost saving measure like any other solution that isn't making 2 dedicated native apps for IOS/Android.it won't get as much traffic as a native app, but it's almost "free" to deploy. To use the gaming console example, it's not unlike using an emulator to launch your game on PC (if you could somehow monetize an emulated rom). It's not the ideal experience, but it requires very little extra work.

afavour 3y ago

You’re right but a lot of that has to do with discoverability and the lack thereof on iOS. On Android you can show an install prompt via the browser or even package your PWA to be distributed via the Play Store. On iOS you have to do a strange incantation of “sharing” a web page to your Home Screen via a submenu. Its utterly unituitive so it’s not too surprising that most don’t.

cal85 3y ago
I think it's pretty feasible for a web app (assuming the user trusts it) to prompt a user and explain how to add it to homescreen from iOS Safari. I can imagine, and think I've seen in the past, a nice-enough UI flow to get people to install a PWA. After explaining the benefits, you have an "Add to Home Screen" CTA button. When the user taps that, if it's iOS Safari, you pop up a modal that visually explains the two steps required, which are (1) tapping the button at the bottom of the screen, and (2) tapping the "Add to Home Screen" menu item. (OK they need to do one final tap on 'Add' to confirm the title, but most users who've got this far would manage that on their own.) I agree that's not as good as a native install prompt but I don't think it's a strange incantation/utterly unintuitive. I know that icon originally meant 'share' but these days it means a wider range of things - basically "take this thing somewhere else".
- afavour 3y ago
  It’s definitely possible, I’ve done it myself in the past (it’s still very annoying owing to the different position of button on iPhone vs iPad) and the analytics show some users get it. But as compared to “find us in the App Store” it’s night and day. It’s also a very inconsistent experience: some sites have set themselves up as fully featured PWAs, others have made no efforts at all. Both get the same button.

lloeki 3y ago

> In context 99% of the users I meet don't even know what USB-C is. OH (frequently): - hey I need to to up, do you have a phone charger? - yup, which kind? - not "an Apple" - oh, so USB? - yeah the "standard" one, not the "new usb" That said, I'm surprised many do know about the literal "usb-c" term. Micro USB A though flies over their head, it's "small usb" or "standard usb" every time. Of note: EU here, and while they by and large don't know about the EU standardising stuff they did notice the effect. I've seen a few refer to USB-C as "universal one" (largely coz it works the same for both phones and laptops)

dominojab 3y ago
[dead]
pmontra 3y ago
With my friends it's either "USB-C" or the "round USB". Maybe it's already too old to be referred to as the "new USB". The old one is definitely the "old USB" or the "not round USB".

JacobThreeThree 3y ago

>Are you sure this isn't a tech industry viewpoint? I don't know anyone who knows what the difference between an app and a PWA is. I don't think I've seen anyone outside of the tech industry with a PWA active. The more important context is the legal one, not what laypeople think. Apple is presenting PWAs as viable alternatives to the app store in a legal context: https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Apple%20Pty%20Limited%20%2810%20February%202021%29.pdf https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Apple%20Pty%20Limited%2...

f1shy 3y ago
No. It is not! The law is for the people, for the „laymen“, not for lawers.
gtsteve 3y ago
Companies can quite happily hold two opposing viewpoints when it suits them. Apple's products usually have some kind of pleasing consistency but that doesn't mean their corporate dealings have to be. In a similar vein, a startup will be very happy to talk about how valuable it is, except when it comes to talking to tax authorities, whereupon suddenly their shares are borderline worthless.
- dnissley 3y ago
  Eh, this is at least a little different. Startups talk themselves up to investors where they need to convince the investors that they will be really valuable at some point in the future. This is compared to tax authorities who are only concerned about current value, which is often essentially zero when it comes to startups.
EricHolden12 3y ago
But now they’ve allowed alternative app stores so why are PWAs still required?
- beeboobaa 3y ago
  Because they have already been heavily invested in and are cross platform. Sure, Apple has already been fucking over PWAs by refusing to implement certain web standards, but they still promoted them and they are heavily used in certain industries.

formerly_proven 3y ago

So what's a Home Screen Web App in this context? Is it adding a bookmark to the home screen (you open it, and it opens in the regular full iOS Safari), or something else?