12 ms·

Apple broke iPhone web apps in the EU for anticompetitive reasons – Tim Sweeney

286 points by anon373839 3y ago

torlok 3y ago
It sucks that the conversation always gets hijacked by people who should not be throwing stones, and ends up being a "debate" where there shouldn't be one.
- LilBytes 3y ago
  There's something to be said about Hacker News dialogue in the last few years. Where a large contingent of members discuss contraction opinions about a topic that either misunderstands or misinterprets the intent of the original message for the sake of engagement.
Gareth321 3y ago
He's right. Apple has been strangling web app progress on iOS for many years. They wanted to ensure that web apps could never compete with native apps on the App Store, because they can extract their 30% fee. Now that Apple are forced to permit third party browser engines, web apps would suddenly be a lot more powerful. Apple just won't have that, so they're disabling a useful feature for everyone. I think this will backfire on them. Downgrading their own feature offerings to spite the competition is only going to fuel more animosity by everyone: users, businesses, developers, and legislators. I feel quite firmly that their proposal to comply with the Digital Markets Act is non-compliant. The DMA requires free interoperability, and Apple has imposed a very anti-competitive fee. Once this is eliminated, developers will be free to distribute whatever native apps they wish, and at this stage there are a lot of developers who will jump to any other app store.
- steve1977 3y ago
  I’ve always been vocal against web apps and pro native apps. Actions like this and also the direction Apple is taking with SwiftUI actually makes me interested in web apps again.
  - CuriouslyC 3y ago
    Web apps will win eventually, there's only so much chrome and flash you can stuff in a native app and with WebASM/WebGPU becoming more robust the performance difference between native and webapp for things short of stuff like games is not really meaningful.
    - Towaway69 3y ago
      From a technological point of view you're quite right but there are financial interests in creating gatekeeper-based app stores. It becomes worse since the gatekeepers are also those that sell us the mobile devices to access the app stores. It comes down to marketing. As longer there isn't a largish corporation marketing alternatives to native apps, the current situation won't change much - in the short term.
  - szasamasa 3y ago
    I can assure you now it is totally possible to create the same standalone UX on iPhone from the web more securely than using a native app... if Apple is forced to allow at least other browser engines to use web capabilities securely (just like they could do this on macOS or any OS is capable) is it easy to create good web UX, not... most web desgners are not real programmers and most websites are terrible, I do not really use many web apps but plenty of them might be terrible now, too but it all comes down to the developer behind the product... if you get less native offerings in the future (there are areas where native is better, it is actually also a good bot protection to require native apps) then your good programmers simply deliver good web apps to you and it actually will be the same UX only cheaper interestingly enough, if everybody has to pay the apple tax and it is the user who pays it in the end, developers may just stay by native, no competitive pressure one area is that smaller innovative apps from even sole developers may never come to realisation because it is expensive to pay android and ios developers... I just checked lichess... it is a mixed website that is not responsive (on smaller screens terrible) but uses webassembly for stockfish, that is a plus still one of the biggest expense is 1 or 2 app developers, if they did not get 500k donations they might not even exist because of app store restrictions... that would be a loss actually they should have just invest that money to create a responsive design and maybe some offline functionality and they could deploy "apps" on iPhones and Android and actually on all desktops... but you might just want to use lichess as tabs there, one tab for analysis, one for broadcasts etc... that is a good example how we might lose great small projects like lichess... and why we only have 2 greats chess sites, one getting 100 million dollar from subscriptions... it is simply difficult to create a cross platform solution even if the stockfish ai is free and open source one monopoly creates others...
- edhelas 3y ago
  So you mean that Apple is not doing things for the Greater Good and is actually a company that tend to build gold prisons around their customers to prevent to get as much money they can from them ? Nahhh, I don't buy that. - Sent from my iPhone
- withinboredom 3y ago
  Just to make a supporting argument to this... I introduced my son to neal.fun this morning and he asked "can you make this easier for me to get to?" and I was like, "sure, there's some way to pin it to the home screen." I know this feature exists and I've even written code to support this feature ... yet I spent nearly 5 minutes looking for the button. Hiding it in the share sheet is downright stupid.
  - jasonjayr 3y ago
    Apple could choose to make the option front and center. Firefox has it as a primary option on the main menu. The reason that devs don't target or improve it is the friction Apple (and Google to a degree) they put in front of utilizing PWA/web apps.
    - jsnell 3y ago
      Chrome on Android has "Install App" in the main menu. It allows for sites to trigger an install flow without going any browser menus (you can e.g. have an "Install" button on a site, and clicking it will diredctly open a PWA installation prompt). In addition to that, Android supports PWAs in the Play Store. It supports other browsers, and doesn't restrict them from installing PWAs or providing alternate installation flows. I really don't understand the equivalency you're drawing here. Apple are a uniquely bad guy in this respect, it's not a difference of degree, it's a difference of kind.
      - jasonjayr 3y ago
        Google's implementation is nice, I agree, but I'm talking about richer APIs for PWAs, on parity with native apps. I imagine Google could, now that Apple is being forced to allow multiple browsers, have a 'Chrome launcher' for PWAs on iOS. It can't put it on the home screen, but it could present itself as a 'Folder' of apps, that are all web based.
  - interpol_p 3y ago
    It's pretty well hidden to the point of "why do they bother supporting this feature?"
- dubcanada 3y ago
  As much as I would love to agree, the general population really does not care about features like "home screen web apps". Nobody outside of HN even knows what they are. Everyone just goes on the app store and downloads random website app. Even if it is just a browser app that renders a website. Apple would have to eliminate something that people actually care about for any boycott Apple to happen.
  - lenkite 3y ago
    The same argument could have been used against the anti-competitive practices of Microsoft in 2001 for illegally monopolizing the web browser. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor.... Your analogous dismissal: The general user doesn't really care about features like the web browser. Everyone just goes to a website and browses. Microsoft would have to eliminate something that people actually care about.
  - edhelas 3y ago
    That's because... everything was made from de beginning to push people to go to the App Store.
    - formerly_proven 3y ago
      No, I use iOS and friends in part because I want good, well-made apps that work well and integrate into the OS well - and not poorly made webapps that don't have an address bar. To that end I dislike all the faux-native iOS apps that are just a webview with a menu. It's always quite obvious when people do that. So even if I would've known about HSWAs being a thing (and not just "bookmarks on the home screen", which is approximately the exact same thing, but with an address bar), I wouldn't have cared to use them. Like evidently 99.99% of people. Yes, every thread on this has one or two people saying how badly this impacts them, yet, they are always vague about what these were used for. I have yet to see a single concrete example.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
- tempodox 3y ago
  > Within Apple’s explanation of why it has ended support for web apps in the EU, the company admits there’s a technical solution to the security issues problem — but it simply chose not to implement it. I think this is called malicious compliance. I hope the EU slaps Apple with severe penalties.
- Someone 3y ago
  > The DMA requires free interoperability, and Apple has imposed a very anti-competitive fee. From comments I read, quite a few people want it to require free interoperability, but I don’t see how it does. I even think it sort-of explicitly allows gatekeepers to keep charging for access. The pre-amble, point 62 starts with “For software application stores, online search engines and online social networking services listed in the designation decision, gatekeepers should publish and apply general conditions of access that should be fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory.” so that point is about application stores. Its second paragraph starts (emphasis added) “PRICING or other general access conditions should be considered unfair if they lead to an imbalance of rights and obligations imposed on business users or confer an advantage on the gatekeeper which is disproportionate to the service provided by the gatekeeper to business users or lead to a disadvantage for business users in providing the same or similar services as the gatekeeper.” To me, that points to them at least considering that. Can you point me to where https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2022/1925/oj https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2022/1925/oj “requires free interoperability”? If you think article 6.7 says that, I disagree. IMO, it only talks about access to SDKs, specs of device ports, ability to make the same system calls as the applications of the gatekeeper can make, etc. Here’s article 6.7: “The gatekeeper shall allow providers of services and providers of hardware, free of charge, effective interoperability with, and access for the purposes of interoperability to, the same hardware and software features accessed or controlled via the operating system or virtual assistant listed in the designation decision pursuant to Article 3(9) as are available to services or hardware provided by the gatekeeper. Furthermore, the gatekeeper shall allow business users and alternative providers of services provided together with, or in support of, core platform services, free of charge, effective interoperability with, and access for the purposes of interoperability to, the same operating system, hardware or software features, regardless of whether those features are part of the operating system, as are available to, or used by, that gatekeeper when providing such services.”
  - Gareth321 3y ago
    > If you think article 6.7 says that, I disagree. IMO, it only talks about access to SDKs, specs of device ports, ability to make the same system calls as the applications of the gatekeeper can make, etc. It doesn't mention "SDK" or "system call" anywhere in the text. A6.7 uses plain language, not technical, to require "effective interoperability." It doesn't place limitation on that, as you just implied there are. I've no doubt Apple will attempt to argue that "effective interoperability" is in fact "limited interoperability," but they will fail. The text is crystal clear on intent: > A1.1: The purpose of this Regulation is to contribute to the proper functioning of the internal market by laying down harmonised rules ensuring for all businesses, contestable and fair markets in the digital sector across the Union where gatekeepers are present, to the benefit of business users and end users. Charging for "effective interoperability" is clearly contrary to both the letter and spirit of this Act. It's important to remember too that the EU operates under the principle of the spirit of the law, as opposed to the U.S. which operates under the letter of the law. Judges have a very short fuse when it comes to semantic games over here. I am heartened to read that Vestager has repeatedly urged gatekeepers to test their business plans with developers prior to the March 7 deadline, suggesting she is using the feedback of competitors to form the basis for both determining suitable compliance, and further legislative changes, for which the DMA provides swift provision.
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
  > I think this will backfire on them. How? In the Apple consumer's eye, Apple can do no wrong. The Apple consumer will always blame any problem on some other company or government.
- madeofpalk 3y ago
  I don’t believe Apple “strangles” Safari to promote their App Store and protect its 30% cut. There’s a mountain of web capabilities that Apple lead the charge and either invented the specs on, or adopted before others, on to make more native-like experiences for the web. I think things like backdrop-filter, position: sticky, and css snap points do a whole lot more to make websites feel like native app than stuff like WebMIDI. I think there's plenty of 'malicious compliance' and pettiness in Apple's recent DMA stuff, but I do not think removing chromeless home screen bookmarks was one of them. I think they took a strict interpretation of the regulations and don't really care too much about them so just removed them. I think Apple just has a different philosophy and priorities for their web platform, putting a higher value on privacy, performance, and efficiency than Chrome.
  - szasamasa 3y ago
    sure :)
- turquoisevar 3y ago
  How do you reconcile this claim regarding Apple’s intent to crush web apps with their increased investment in supporting PWAs over the last four years up to and including the upcoming Safari release and recruiting top talent such as Jen Simmons to achieve this? If I were aiming to prevent web apps from competing with my App Store, I wouldn’t be telling a bunch of highly paid engineers to directly work against that goal, much less be recruiting celebrity engineers at a premium and contributing to and creating specs that help web apps provide a more native-like experience.
elpocko 3y ago
There must be people sitting at Apple HQ whose task it is to come up with ways to screw their customers. I love it.
- steve1977 3y ago
  Have you ever heard the tragedy of Darth Tim?
  - LoganDark 3y ago
    What is it?
- sambull 3y ago
  It's a prestigious job, after they invented the green bubble they've seen metoric rise in the fruit.
- dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
  Only the executives. The lower down managers are focused more on screwing the employees.
  - zer00eyz 3y ago
    I know plenty of people in Apple CS. Most of them are loyal to apple, and have worked there long term. Apple takes good care of its "regular people" in the states.
    - dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
      I know an Apple worker (don't know what you mean by CS), and he's worked there for decades and from all reports they do treat the employees they value very well. Not sure about the more expendable ones though. In any case, my comment was a little tongue in cheek.
      - zer00eyz 3y ago
sigmoid10 3y ago
It always leaves a sour taste hearing him say that. While he is undoubtedly 100% right, we all know he's not saying it because he cares about a free market. He only cares because it's eating up his share of the profit. Why can't we have other people at the forefront of this than billionaires?
- WesolyKubeczek 3y ago
  People are often right for wrong reasons. Telling they are right there doesn’t imply we are on their team (although such accusations are far too common).
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- tuna74 3y ago
  I have the exact opinions as Sweeney on this matter, but nobody cares what I think. Poeple listens to Sweeney, very few listen to me.
  - sigmoid10 3y ago
    Duh. I wasn't talking about randos, but people like politicians or the federal trade commission.
timeimp 3y ago
Sounds like Apple is building this (in time) and simply putting out pithy statements so the ilk of Tim and his "omg, why don't you let us have you built for free crowd!!11!!111!!1!!" can all pile on and reveal their hand.
Ezhik 3y ago
Let's say I want to make a little dashboard for a home server that I can view on my iPhone in full screen. If I live in the EU, how am I supposed to add it to my home screen? I can't put it on the App Store even if I wanted to - it's for a local server so it won't pass review. I can't just use a local debug build - those expire after a week or so. What can I even do here?
- endisneigh 3y ago
  Open it up in safari and forgo full screen - add a header so you can scroll slightly and it’s 98% full screen. The real solution is to stop using Apple products and use android which can do what you’re asking trivially.
  - anon373839 3y ago
    If you’re going to use an app in Safari, I actually prefer to just restrict the thing to 100svh to force the full Safari UI to stick around. It’s distracting and disorienting to have the tab bar and address bar shrinking and growing at random while using an app, with the app UI wiggling all over the place.
    - postalrat 3y ago
      At least in Android when you install and get a home screen button your page uses the full height with no browser chrome like any other app.
      - lozenge 3y ago
        That's exactly the feature Apple is removing in the EU.
        postalrat 3y ago
        That, notifications, etc, anything for installed web apps.
- 3y ago
dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
Does Apple think its shenanigans are going to precipitate a backlash against EU regulation? Because every time I read about a new round of BS my blood boils and my attitude against Apple and other huge anticompetitive corporates just hardens.
- CuriouslyC 3y ago
  Apple is a shitty company that makes very good products and has very good marketing (which has basically ensorcelled a lot of people to reduce their judgment)
  - dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
    Thank you for introducing me to the word 'ensorcel'.
  - ufocia 3y ago
    I always thought so too, but I would say that they are merely relatively good products. Although I don't like the UI, the UX, and the cost, I always thought that Apple products are objectively good, i.e. they are stable. However, I've recently learned from others that that's not/no longer the case.
    - CuriouslyC 3y ago
      I think Apple hardware is excellent. Anti-consumer, but excellent. Their software is a mixed bag and I'm not impressed with the majority of it.
      - zelphirkalt 3y ago
        There is a guy on YouTube, who repairs Apple devices (or laptops?), and who shows, that not even their hardware is actually good. In one specific case they built in a part, that again and again in previous models failed, in the same function. Sent in laptops for repairs with the defect did not get a better part, but instead sloppily soldered on old parts as a replacement. If I find the link withib edit allowed time, I will update this comment.
rasengan 3y ago
The PWA was all but ready to compete directly with apps and in a decentralized way. The world was excited with Apple finally supporting web push notifications. Apple ended this excitement recently with this news. Tis a sad day for decentralization and the un censorship of mobile.
- flappyeagle 3y ago
  This is specifically for the EU market. I have a very hard time caring. I don’t think it makes much of a difference
  - rasengan 3y ago
    We cannot have apps without Apple’s approval now.
    - endisneigh 3y ago
      Don’t buy apple products
endisneigh 3y ago
I wish all of these folks complaining about Apple would go on strike and stop developing stuff on their hardware instead of whining. Even better if they could make their own hardware without any of the supposed baggage with the software. A lot of these companies whining are worth billions so they can afford it. Of course, they won’t because they want money just like Apple, but if Spotify, epic etc stopped working on iOS devices Apple would consider changing their behavior.
- amelius 3y ago
  It's a winner-takes-all market. Nobody is going to buy several pieces of hardware to access several pieces of software. Just like nobody likes to have 5 different subscriptions to access Netflix, HBO, Prime, Disney, Hulu ... The fact that we have a duopoly instead of a monopoly is already a miracle.
  - endisneigh 3y ago
    Precisely. Stop supporting iOS and watch their attitude change. Fact is these companies whine but don’t pull their apps.
    - djfdat 3y ago
      Because their hands are pretty much tied. That's called monopoly position.
      - stephen_g 3y ago
        It’s not a monopoly position by any legal (or really even useful) definition. In the EU they are 24% or so of phone shipments… This is more a “we want money from those users because they’re mostly rich” situations…
        ufocia 3y ago
        I agree that they should make it more of a luxury item in the EU and avoid all of this monopoly talk. If Apple were Bugatti we wouldn't be talking about it.
rambambram 3y ago
> Now, web apps will function as website bookmarks — without support for local storage, badges, notifications and dedicated windowing. This one is essential, at least to me. Access from the home screen is not completely blocked. I can do without notifications and local storage for my simple web apps. A lot of other people do need 'progressive' web apps, so I understand these changes are especially nasty to them. It's crystal clear this is just a d!ck move from Apple, so I guess it's time we need different hardware in our pockets to support fair and friendly software.
- szasamasa 3y ago
  in my definition an app is a standalone UX a website in standalone mode is a web "app", so web apps are not possible in Safari if the website, even if uses all the modern web capabilities, cannot get rid of the browser bar... it is a shortcut to a website in tab mode then in addition, we still not know which web capabilities Apple plans to disallow in websites, and will it be also disallowed in competing browsers? is offline website with service worker caching possible? it seems to be disabled according to some beta testers... I mean for you local storage may be not important but what a disadvantage it is for web programming if Apple clears local storage without the permission of the user as they do it in Safari tabs? the whole absence of future guarantees is one of the biggest problems, because web programming is a strategy that companies could make now to deploy good web apps in 2-3 years...
edandersen 3y ago
Presuming Apple left PWAs in just as they were with no changes, i.e. hardcoded to Safari, wouldn't Mozilla (and potentially MS) have immediately sued or complained that Apple was in violation of the DMA by not allowing their browser engines to launch from user added home screen icons? If this is the case then leaving PWAs as they stood risked bazillions in fines from the EU. No?
- SSLy 3y ago
  Nothing except lack of will stops them from making PWA's accessible to other browsers.
- makeitdouble 3y ago
  Apple had 15years to deal with alternative browser engines and they buried their head in the sand the whole time while racking in the money. Arguing it's hard to deal with all the cases within a few months is just giving them excuses for dragging their feet for so long.
- szasamasa 3y ago
  the right way would have been: 1. pay some macOS developers if iOS developers are that bad and implement necessary changes on a weekend since both OS are linux and macOS is capable (and they had years) 2. if Apple wants to play the oh-so-difficult card, they have to prove according to DMA why is it so much of a burden, which they cannot because it is not... still, they could have talked to EU to get an exemption to keep Safari web apps unbroken until they make the necessary changes that every web browser is ready to use web apps on iOS what they did is to break all iOS web apps because they were only possible in Safari, fight one additional year with EU then allow them again after they lost is not that evil? they dare this because it is only a minority of their users that uses web apps now...
gchokov 3y ago
Apple is in their right to do whatever they want with their platform. Tim Sweeney will be remembered with the guy who cries against anything Apple does, together with the guy from Ruby on rails.
- szasamasa 3y ago
  no, because they are gatekeepers and they operate within countries that have laws and regulations Apple is not above the law... you cannot host pedofile stuff on YOUR platform because there are laws against it heck I use a private rail company that travels on the rails built by the other state rail company thanks to EU law they are better, have self check-in, bought double decker trains and the other train company laughed at them because these trains were designed originally for smaller distances it is of course much more economical and this state rail company just ordered the same trains the device and OS of Apple is like the rail tracks, people use them not Apple, and as long as they have that big marketshare they own the rails that developers MUST use Apple would have just said no, double decker trains are not secure, everybody has to use our secure design on our rails because we protect our customers monopoly hinders not just competitive prices but innovation too
Thorrez 3y ago
What are people's thoughts on Apple's argument: >Addressing the complex security and privacy concerns associated with web apps using alternative browser engines would require building an entirely new integration architecture that does not currently exist in iOS and was not practical to undertake given the other demands of the DMA and the very low user adoption of Home Screen web apps. >In short, Apple is saying it knows how to fix the problem but because it’s been burdened by having to comply with the DMA — which it noted had required “more than 600 new APIs and a wide range of developer tools” — it decided to skip fixing this one. Would allowing web apps require apple to build 600 new APIs? Would it require other web engines to integrate with those 600 APIs before being able to launch web apps?
- cybrox 3y ago
  It's not like the EU randomly compiled a list of 600 APIs that need to be added. This should be read more as "browser developers could now finally offer PWAs 600+ APIs that Apple explicitly forbid them to offer for years".
- pornel 3y ago
  The homescreen engine has always been dodgy — it has different bugs than Safari app, so it seems to be a different version/fork of WebKit. It was always against their interest to support this feature too well, so it's probably old and full of tech debt. I believe them when they say it would require a rewrite to work safely in a browser-agnostic way, but that sounds bizarrely like "complying with the law was too much work, so we chose not to". Now they've made all App Store alternatives suck in one way or another, and fragmented between EU and non-EU markets. It's a total mess that just happens to make App Store with Apple's usual fees the best option.
  - ufocia 3y ago
    > "complying with the law was too much work, so we chose not to". Probably more like an unfunded, no value add venture.
- JoeAltmaier 3y ago
  Lots of excuses are possible. How about, folks use the web on other platforms right now. Further, they publish all sorts of apps that other people make without inserting 600 APIs. So, no issue, almost by construction.
Arch-TK 3y ago
I hate it when Tim Sweeney of all assholes is right. Honestly this just makes Epic look less awful and is clearly just good PR no matter how you look at it. But equally speaking, Tim's company heavily relies on locked down operating systems which restrict user freedoms. It's the reason their anti-cheat comes with major caveats when enabled for Linux.
pornel 3y ago
It's incredibly convenient for Apple that there's overlap between safety features and anti-competive behaviors. Every time somebody says "I don't want vendor lock-in", they flip it to "Oh, so you don't want safety?" But these are often false dichotomies created by Apple. Reviewing and rejecting apps for fraud and malware is great, but Apple bundled that with rejecting apps for using the word "Android" and whatever other curation they want. Having built-in first-party subscriptions UI is safe and convenient for users, but the mobile duopoly and their control of the platform lets them charge for it whatever they want. Apple implies that allowing other payment processors means going to a dodgy website that makes unsubscribing and refunds impossible, but that's a false dichotomy Apple has created. They could require integration with iOS's subscription management APIs to use alternative payment processors (they already support PayPal as a back-end). And this is another case where it's incredibly convenient that opening up internal APIs without safeguards to 3rd parties would be unsafe, so they haven't done it. But this is a false dichotomy – they don't have to run 3rd party browsers unsandboxed, or allow any app create homescreen icons willy-nilly. Adding to home screen is already a user gesture through the Share sheet, mediated by the OS. Browsers must be sandboxed anyway, and webapps were already allowed to run full screen. And this isn't lack of just any feature. Apple has argued for years that App Store isn't mandatory, because anybody can just make a web app instead. That was never quite true do to Safari's limitations, but now is just a farce.
- djfdat 3y ago
  This is the best-worded form of this argument I've seen. Thanks!
- tailspin2019 3y ago
  Completely agree with this. We lose some of this nuance when we follow Apple’s line of reasoning that it’s a binary choice: safety OR openness.
- jocaal 3y ago
  > Every time somebody says "I don't want vendor lock-in", they flip it to "Oh, so you don't want safety?" Sometimes you need safety from the vendors. Linux is the only OS that doesn't use dark patterns to make me create a cloud account.
AshamedCaptain 3y ago
> [...] malicious web apps could read data from other apps and gain access to a user’s camera, microphone or location with user consent, the company noted. > Since Apple is being forced to allow alternative browser engines via the DMA’s requirements, the company chose not to put users at risk and instead degraded the web app experience on iOS for users in the EU. Now, web apps will function as website bookmarks — without support for local storage, badges, notifications and dedicated windowing. But with access to a user’s camera, microphone or location. Go figure. I'm sure there is someone out there who will buy this argument.
DueDilligence 3y ago
[dead]
javajosh 3y ago
Epic doesn't make any PWAs as far as I know, so this is really just general shade thrown in Apple's direction. Despite Apple's dominant position, I empathize with the desire for less surface area and eliminating features only a tiny fraction of users ever used. PWAs occupy that weird space between an ordinary webapp (that you can still bookmark on the homescreen, AFAIK) and a full-blown app. It's not clear to me what the precise benefits are of a PWA over a regular webapp. A regular webapp can cache resources with E-Tag and Cache-Control http headers. A regular webapp has localstorage, etc. Maybe PWAs get always on server push? But what users actually want that anyway? I personally don't use any PWAs and have never built one. When I want to target native iOS (or Android) I boot up a React Native project like a sane person. I like to attack Apple monopolistic practices as much as the next guy, but this seems overblown. PWAs seem like a red-headed stepchild of web app development and it makes sense to jettison support for them to simplify the operating system and related APIs.
KronisLV 3y ago
I do wonder what the impact here might be on something like PWABuilder: https://www.pwabuilder.com/ https://www.pwabuilder.com/ It almost felt like we have a "good enough" solution for getting something running consistently across web browsers and mobile devices (when you absolutely don't have the resources for a separate mobile codebase or per-platform codebases), in a way where it could still be like an app that can be offered on the corresponding app stores.
jsnell 3y ago
Dupe, with well over 1k comments across the stories and no new information: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39388218 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39388218 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39408196 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39408196 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39418412 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39418412 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39386244 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39386244 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39371119 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39371119
nojvek 3y ago
iOS and Android pretty much have a duopoly on mobile OSs. iOS at-least cares about user privacy but extracts a huge rent for it. I’m just sad how botched their implementation of PWAs and web apps as first class citizen is. Seems like Apple has run out of ideas on how to add genuine value to their userbase, so they’re resorting to rent extraction.

286 points by anon373839 3y ago

It sucks that the conversation always gets hijacked by people who should not be throwing stones, and ends up being a "debate" where there shouldn't be one.

LilBytes 3y ago
There's something to be said about Hacker News dialogue in the last few years. Where a large contingent of members discuss contraction opinions about a topic that either misunderstands or misinterprets the intent of the original message for the sake of engagement.

Gareth321 3y ago

He's right. Apple has been strangling web app progress on iOS for many years. They wanted to ensure that web apps could never compete with native apps on the App Store, because they can extract their 30% fee. Now that Apple are forced to permit third party browser engines, web apps would suddenly be a lot more powerful. Apple just won't have that, so they're disabling a useful feature for everyone. I think this will backfire on them. Downgrading their own feature offerings to spite the competition is only going to fuel more animosity by everyone: users, businesses, developers, and legislators. I feel quite firmly that their proposal to comply with the Digital Markets Act is non-compliant. The DMA requires free interoperability, and Apple has imposed a very anti-competitive fee. Once this is eliminated, developers will be free to distribute whatever native apps they wish, and at this stage there are a lot of developers who will jump to any other app store.

steve1977 3y ago
I’ve always been vocal against web apps and pro native apps. Actions like this and also the direction Apple is taking with SwiftUI actually makes me interested in web apps again.
- CuriouslyC 3y ago
  Web apps will win eventually, there's only so much chrome and flash you can stuff in a native app and with WebASM/WebGPU becoming more robust the performance difference between native and webapp for things short of stuff like games is not really meaningful.
  - Towaway69 3y ago
    From a technological point of view you're quite right but there are financial interests in creating gatekeeper-based app stores. It becomes worse since the gatekeepers are also those that sell us the mobile devices to access the app stores. It comes down to marketing. As longer there isn't a largish corporation marketing alternatives to native apps, the current situation won't change much - in the short term.
- szasamasa 3y ago
  I can assure you now it is totally possible to create the same standalone UX on iPhone from the web more securely than using a native app... if Apple is forced to allow at least other browser engines to use web capabilities securely (just like they could do this on macOS or any OS is capable) is it easy to create good web UX, not... most web desgners are not real programmers and most websites are terrible, I do not really use many web apps but plenty of them might be terrible now, too but it all comes down to the developer behind the product... if you get less native offerings in the future (there are areas where native is better, it is actually also a good bot protection to require native apps) then your good programmers simply deliver good web apps to you and it actually will be the same UX only cheaper interestingly enough, if everybody has to pay the apple tax and it is the user who pays it in the end, developers may just stay by native, no competitive pressure one area is that smaller innovative apps from even sole developers may never come to realisation because it is expensive to pay android and ios developers... I just checked lichess... it is a mixed website that is not responsive (on smaller screens terrible) but uses webassembly for stockfish, that is a plus still one of the biggest expense is 1 or 2 app developers, if they did not get 500k donations they might not even exist because of app store restrictions... that would be a loss actually they should have just invest that money to create a responsive design and maybe some offline functionality and they could deploy "apps" on iPhones and Android and actually on all desktops... but you might just want to use lichess as tabs there, one tab for analysis, one for broadcasts etc... that is a good example how we might lose great small projects like lichess... and why we only have 2 greats chess sites, one getting 100 million dollar from subscriptions... it is simply difficult to create a cross platform solution even if the stockfish ai is free and open source one monopoly creates others...
edhelas 3y ago
So you mean that Apple is not doing things for the Greater Good and is actually a company that tend to build gold prisons around their customers to prevent to get as much money they can from them ? Nahhh, I don't buy that. - Sent from my iPhone
withinboredom 3y ago
Just to make a supporting argument to this... I introduced my son to neal.fun this morning and he asked "can you make this easier for me to get to?" and I was like, "sure, there's some way to pin it to the home screen." I know this feature exists and I've even written code to support this feature ... yet I spent nearly 5 minutes looking for the button. Hiding it in the share sheet is downright stupid.
- jasonjayr 3y ago
  Apple could choose to make the option front and center. Firefox has it as a primary option on the main menu. The reason that devs don't target or improve it is the friction Apple (and Google to a degree) they put in front of utilizing PWA/web apps.
  - jsnell 3y ago
    Chrome on Android has "Install App" in the main menu. It allows for sites to trigger an install flow without going any browser menus (you can e.g. have an "Install" button on a site, and clicking it will diredctly open a PWA installation prompt). In addition to that, Android supports PWAs in the Play Store. It supports other browsers, and doesn't restrict them from installing PWAs or providing alternate installation flows. I really don't understand the equivalency you're drawing here. Apple are a uniquely bad guy in this respect, it's not a difference of degree, it's a difference of kind.
    - jasonjayr 3y ago
      Google's implementation is nice, I agree, but I'm talking about richer APIs for PWAs, on parity with native apps. I imagine Google could, now that Apple is being forced to allow multiple browsers, have a 'Chrome launcher' for PWAs on iOS. It can't put it on the home screen, but it could present itself as a 'Folder' of apps, that are all web based.
- interpol_p 3y ago
  It's pretty well hidden to the point of "why do they bother supporting this feature?"
dubcanada 3y ago
As much as I would love to agree, the general population really does not care about features like "home screen web apps". Nobody outside of HN even knows what they are. Everyone just goes on the app store and downloads random website app. Even if it is just a browser app that renders a website. Apple would have to eliminate something that people actually care about for any boycott Apple to happen.
- lenkite 3y ago
  The same argument could have been used against the anti-competitive practices of Microsoft in 2001 for illegally monopolizing the web browser. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor.... Your analogous dismissal: The general user doesn't really care about features like the web browser. Everyone just goes to a website and browses. Microsoft would have to eliminate something that people actually care about.
- edhelas 3y ago
  That's because... everything was made from de beginning to push people to go to the App Store.
  - formerly_proven 3y ago
    No, I use iOS and friends in part because I want good, well-made apps that work well and integrate into the OS well - and not poorly made webapps that don't have an address bar. To that end I dislike all the faux-native iOS apps that are just a webview with a menu. It's always quite obvious when people do that. So even if I would've known about HSWAs being a thing (and not just "bookmarks on the home screen", which is approximately the exact same thing, but with an address bar), I wouldn't have cared to use them. Like evidently 99.99% of people. Yes, every thread on this has one or two people saying how badly this impacts them, yet, they are always vague about what these were used for. I have yet to see a single concrete example.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
tempodox 3y ago
> Within Apple’s explanation of why it has ended support for web apps in the EU, the company admits there’s a technical solution to the security issues problem — but it simply chose not to implement it. I think this is called malicious compliance. I hope the EU slaps Apple with severe penalties.
Someone 3y ago
> The DMA requires free interoperability, and Apple has imposed a very anti-competitive fee. From comments I read, quite a few people want it to require free interoperability, but I don’t see how it does. I even think it sort-of explicitly allows gatekeepers to keep charging for access. The pre-amble, point 62 starts with “For software application stores, online search engines and online social networking services listed in the designation decision, gatekeepers should publish and apply general conditions of access that should be fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory.” so that point is about application stores. Its second paragraph starts (emphasis added) “PRICING or other general access conditions should be considered unfair if they lead to an imbalance of rights and obligations imposed on business users or confer an advantage on the gatekeeper which is disproportionate to the service provided by the gatekeeper to business users or lead to a disadvantage for business users in providing the same or similar services as the gatekeeper.” To me, that points to them at least considering that. Can you point me to where https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2022/1925/oj https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2022/1925/oj “requires free interoperability”? If you think article 6.7 says that, I disagree. IMO, it only talks about access to SDKs, specs of device ports, ability to make the same system calls as the applications of the gatekeeper can make, etc. Here’s article 6.7: “The gatekeeper shall allow providers of services and providers of hardware, free of charge, effective interoperability with, and access for the purposes of interoperability to, the same hardware and software features accessed or controlled via the operating system or virtual assistant listed in the designation decision pursuant to Article 3(9) as are available to services or hardware provided by the gatekeeper. Furthermore, the gatekeeper shall allow business users and alternative providers of services provided together with, or in support of, core platform services, free of charge, effective interoperability with, and access for the purposes of interoperability to, the same operating system, hardware or software features, regardless of whether those features are part of the operating system, as are available to, or used by, that gatekeeper when providing such services.”
- Gareth321 3y ago
  > If you think article 6.7 says that, I disagree. IMO, it only talks about access to SDKs, specs of device ports, ability to make the same system calls as the applications of the gatekeeper can make, etc. It doesn't mention "SDK" or "system call" anywhere in the text. A6.7 uses plain language, not technical, to require "effective interoperability." It doesn't place limitation on that, as you just implied there are. I've no doubt Apple will attempt to argue that "effective interoperability" is in fact "limited interoperability," but they will fail. The text is crystal clear on intent: > A1.1: The purpose of this Regulation is to contribute to the proper functioning of the internal market by laying down harmonised rules ensuring for all businesses, contestable and fair markets in the digital sector across the Union where gatekeepers are present, to the benefit of business users and end users. Charging for "effective interoperability" is clearly contrary to both the letter and spirit of this Act. It's important to remember too that the EU operates under the principle of the spirit of the law, as opposed to the U.S. which operates under the letter of the law. Judges have a very short fuse when it comes to semantic games over here. I am heartened to read that Vestager has repeatedly urged gatekeepers to test their business plans with developers prior to the March 7 deadline, suggesting she is using the feedback of competitors to form the basis for both determining suitable compliance, and further legislative changes, for which the DMA provides swift provision.
onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
> I think this will backfire on them. How? In the Apple consumer's eye, Apple can do no wrong. The Apple consumer will always blame any problem on some other company or government.
madeofpalk 3y ago
I don’t believe Apple “strangles” Safari to promote their App Store and protect its 30% cut. There’s a mountain of web capabilities that Apple lead the charge and either invented the specs on, or adopted before others, on to make more native-like experiences for the web. I think things like backdrop-filter, position: sticky, and css snap points do a whole lot more to make websites feel like native app than stuff like WebMIDI. I think there's plenty of 'malicious compliance' and pettiness in Apple's recent DMA stuff, but I do not think removing chromeless home screen bookmarks was one of them. I think they took a strict interpretation of the regulations and don't really care too much about them so just removed them. I think Apple just has a different philosophy and priorities for their web platform, putting a higher value on privacy, performance, and efficiency than Chrome.
- szasamasa 3y ago
  sure :)
turquoisevar 3y ago
How do you reconcile this claim regarding Apple’s intent to crush web apps with their increased investment in supporting PWAs over the last four years up to and including the upcoming Safari release and recruiting top talent such as Jen Simmons to achieve this? If I were aiming to prevent web apps from competing with my App Store, I wouldn’t be telling a bunch of highly paid engineers to directly work against that goal, much less be recruiting celebrity engineers at a premium and contributing to and creating specs that help web apps provide a more native-like experience.

elpocko 3y ago

There must be people sitting at Apple HQ whose task it is to come up with ways to screw their customers. I love it.

steve1977 3y ago
Have you ever heard the tragedy of Darth Tim?
- LoganDark 3y ago
  What is it?
sambull 3y ago
It's a prestigious job, after they invented the green bubble they've seen metoric rise in the fruit.
dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
Only the executives. The lower down managers are focused more on screwing the employees.
- zer00eyz 3y ago
  I know plenty of people in Apple CS. Most of them are loyal to apple, and have worked there long term. Apple takes good care of its "regular people" in the states.
  - dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
    I know an Apple worker (don't know what you mean by CS), and he's worked there for decades and from all reports they do treat the employees they value very well. Not sure about the more expendable ones though. In any case, my comment was a little tongue in cheek.
    - zer00eyz 3y ago

sigmoid10 3y ago

It always leaves a sour taste hearing him say that. While he is undoubtedly 100% right, we all know he's not saying it because he cares about a free market. He only cares because it's eating up his share of the profit. Why can't we have other people at the forefront of this than billionaires?

WesolyKubeczek 3y ago
People are often right for wrong reasons. Telling they are right there doesn’t imply we are on their team (although such accusations are far too common).
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
tuna74 3y ago
I have the exact opinions as Sweeney on this matter, but nobody cares what I think. Poeple listens to Sweeney, very few listen to me.
- sigmoid10 3y ago
  Duh. I wasn't talking about randos, but people like politicians or the federal trade commission.

timeimp 3y ago

Sounds like Apple is building this (in time) and simply putting out pithy statements so the ilk of Tim and his "omg, why don't you let us have you built for free crowd!!11!!111!!1!!" can all pile on and reveal their hand.

Ezhik 3y ago

Let's say I want to make a little dashboard for a home server that I can view on my iPhone in full screen. If I live in the EU, how am I supposed to add it to my home screen? I can't put it on the App Store even if I wanted to - it's for a local server so it won't pass review. I can't just use a local debug build - those expire after a week or so. What can I even do here?

endisneigh 3y ago
Open it up in safari and forgo full screen - add a header so you can scroll slightly and it’s 98% full screen. The real solution is to stop using Apple products and use android which can do what you’re asking trivially.
- anon373839 3y ago
  If you’re going to use an app in Safari, I actually prefer to just restrict the thing to 100svh to force the full Safari UI to stick around. It’s distracting and disorienting to have the tab bar and address bar shrinking and growing at random while using an app, with the app UI wiggling all over the place.
  - postalrat 3y ago
    At least in Android when you install and get a home screen button your page uses the full height with no browser chrome like any other app.
    - lozenge 3y ago
      That's exactly the feature Apple is removing in the EU.
      - postalrat 3y ago
        That, notifications, etc, anything for installed web apps.
3y ago

dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago

Does Apple think its shenanigans are going to precipitate a backlash against EU regulation? Because every time I read about a new round of BS my blood boils and my attitude against Apple and other huge anticompetitive corporates just hardens.

CuriouslyC 3y ago
Apple is a shitty company that makes very good products and has very good marketing (which has basically ensorcelled a lot of people to reduce their judgment)
- dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
  Thank you for introducing me to the word 'ensorcel'.
- ufocia 3y ago
  I always thought so too, but I would say that they are merely relatively good products. Although I don't like the UI, the UX, and the cost, I always thought that Apple products are objectively good, i.e. they are stable. However, I've recently learned from others that that's not/no longer the case.
  - CuriouslyC 3y ago
    I think Apple hardware is excellent. Anti-consumer, but excellent. Their software is a mixed bag and I'm not impressed with the majority of it.
    - zelphirkalt 3y ago
      There is a guy on YouTube, who repairs Apple devices (or laptops?), and who shows, that not even their hardware is actually good. In one specific case they built in a part, that again and again in previous models failed, in the same function. Sent in laptops for repairs with the defect did not get a better part, but instead sloppily soldered on old parts as a replacement. If I find the link withib edit allowed time, I will update this comment.

rasengan 3y ago

The PWA was all but ready to compete directly with apps and in a decentralized way. The world was excited with Apple finally supporting web push notifications. Apple ended this excitement recently with this news. Tis a sad day for decentralization and the un censorship of mobile.

flappyeagle 3y ago
This is specifically for the EU market. I have a very hard time caring. I don’t think it makes much of a difference
- rasengan 3y ago
  We cannot have apps without Apple’s approval now.
  - endisneigh 3y ago
    Don’t buy apple products

endisneigh 3y ago

I wish all of these folks complaining about Apple would go on strike and stop developing stuff on their hardware instead of whining. Even better if they could make their own hardware without any of the supposed baggage with the software. A lot of these companies whining are worth billions so they can afford it. Of course, they won’t because they want money just like Apple, but if Spotify, epic etc stopped working on iOS devices Apple would consider changing their behavior.

amelius 3y ago
It's a winner-takes-all market. Nobody is going to buy several pieces of hardware to access several pieces of software. Just like nobody likes to have 5 different subscriptions to access Netflix, HBO, Prime, Disney, Hulu ... The fact that we have a duopoly instead of a monopoly is already a miracle.
- endisneigh 3y ago
  Precisely. Stop supporting iOS and watch their attitude change. Fact is these companies whine but don’t pull their apps.
  - djfdat 3y ago
    Because their hands are pretty much tied. That's called monopoly position.
    - stephen_g 3y ago
      It’s not a monopoly position by any legal (or really even useful) definition. In the EU they are 24% or so of phone shipments… This is more a “we want money from those users because they’re mostly rich” situations…
      - ufocia 3y ago
        I agree that they should make it more of a luxury item in the EU and avoid all of this monopoly talk. If Apple were Bugatti we wouldn't be talking about it.

rambambram 3y ago

> Now, web apps will function as website bookmarks — without support for local storage, badges, notifications and dedicated windowing. This one is essential, at least to me. Access from the home screen is not completely blocked. I can do without notifications and local storage for my simple web apps. A lot of other people do need 'progressive' web apps, so I understand these changes are especially nasty to them. It's crystal clear this is just a d!ck move from Apple, so I guess it's time we need different hardware in our pockets to support fair and friendly software.

szasamasa 3y ago
in my definition an app is a standalone UX a website in standalone mode is a web "app", so web apps are not possible in Safari if the website, even if uses all the modern web capabilities, cannot get rid of the browser bar... it is a shortcut to a website in tab mode then in addition, we still not know which web capabilities Apple plans to disallow in websites, and will it be also disallowed in competing browsers? is offline website with service worker caching possible? it seems to be disabled according to some beta testers... I mean for you local storage may be not important but what a disadvantage it is for web programming if Apple clears local storage without the permission of the user as they do it in Safari tabs? the whole absence of future guarantees is one of the biggest problems, because web programming is a strategy that companies could make now to deploy good web apps in 2-3 years...

edandersen 3y ago

Presuming Apple left PWAs in just as they were with no changes, i.e. hardcoded to Safari, wouldn't Mozilla (and potentially MS) have immediately sued or complained that Apple was in violation of the DMA by not allowing their browser engines to launch from user added home screen icons? If this is the case then leaving PWAs as they stood risked bazillions in fines from the EU. No?

SSLy 3y ago
Nothing except lack of will stops them from making PWA's accessible to other browsers.
makeitdouble 3y ago
Apple had 15years to deal with alternative browser engines and they buried their head in the sand the whole time while racking in the money. Arguing it's hard to deal with all the cases within a few months is just giving them excuses for dragging their feet for so long.
szasamasa 3y ago
the right way would have been: 1. pay some macOS developers if iOS developers are that bad and implement necessary changes on a weekend since both OS are linux and macOS is capable (and they had years) 2. if Apple wants to play the oh-so-difficult card, they have to prove according to DMA why is it so much of a burden, which they cannot because it is not... still, they could have talked to EU to get an exemption to keep Safari web apps unbroken until they make the necessary changes that every web browser is ready to use web apps on iOS what they did is to break all iOS web apps because they were only possible in Safari, fight one additional year with EU then allow them again after they lost is not that evil? they dare this because it is only a minority of their users that uses web apps now...

gchokov 3y ago

Apple is in their right to do whatever they want with their platform. Tim Sweeney will be remembered with the guy who cries against anything Apple does, together with the guy from Ruby on rails.

szasamasa 3y ago
no, because they are gatekeepers and they operate within countries that have laws and regulations Apple is not above the law... you cannot host pedofile stuff on YOUR platform because there are laws against it heck I use a private rail company that travels on the rails built by the other state rail company thanks to EU law they are better, have self check-in, bought double decker trains and the other train company laughed at them because these trains were designed originally for smaller distances it is of course much more economical and this state rail company just ordered the same trains the device and OS of Apple is like the rail tracks, people use them not Apple, and as long as they have that big marketshare they own the rails that developers MUST use Apple would have just said no, double decker trains are not secure, everybody has to use our secure design on our rails because we protect our customers monopoly hinders not just competitive prices but innovation too

Thorrez 3y ago

What are people's thoughts on Apple's argument: >Addressing the complex security and privacy concerns associated with web apps using alternative browser engines would require building an entirely new integration architecture that does not currently exist in iOS and was not practical to undertake given the other demands of the DMA and the very low user adoption of Home Screen web apps. >In short, Apple is saying it knows how to fix the problem but because it’s been burdened by having to comply with the DMA — which it noted had required “more than 600 new APIs and a wide range of developer tools” — it decided to skip fixing this one. Would allowing web apps require apple to build 600 new APIs? Would it require other web engines to integrate with those 600 APIs before being able to launch web apps?

cybrox 3y ago
It's not like the EU randomly compiled a list of 600 APIs that need to be added. This should be read more as "browser developers could now finally offer PWAs 600+ APIs that Apple explicitly forbid them to offer for years".
pornel 3y ago
The homescreen engine has always been dodgy — it has different bugs than Safari app, so it seems to be a different version/fork of WebKit. It was always against their interest to support this feature too well, so it's probably old and full of tech debt. I believe them when they say it would require a rewrite to work safely in a browser-agnostic way, but that sounds bizarrely like "complying with the law was too much work, so we chose not to". Now they've made all App Store alternatives suck in one way or another, and fragmented between EU and non-EU markets. It's a total mess that just happens to make App Store with Apple's usual fees the best option.
- ufocia 3y ago
  > "complying with the law was too much work, so we chose not to". Probably more like an unfunded, no value add venture.
JoeAltmaier 3y ago
Lots of excuses are possible. How about, folks use the web on other platforms right now. Further, they publish all sorts of apps that other people make without inserting 600 APIs. So, no issue, almost by construction.

Arch-TK 3y ago

I hate it when Tim Sweeney of all assholes is right. Honestly this just makes Epic look less awful and is clearly just good PR no matter how you look at it. But equally speaking, Tim's company heavily relies on locked down operating systems which restrict user freedoms. It's the reason their anti-cheat comes with major caveats when enabled for Linux.

pornel 3y ago

It's incredibly convenient for Apple that there's overlap between safety features and anti-competive behaviors. Every time somebody says "I don't want vendor lock-in", they flip it to "Oh, so you don't want safety?" But these are often false dichotomies created by Apple. Reviewing and rejecting apps for fraud and malware is great, but Apple bundled that with rejecting apps for using the word "Android" and whatever other curation they want. Having built-in first-party subscriptions UI is safe and convenient for users, but the mobile duopoly and their control of the platform lets them charge for it whatever they want. Apple implies that allowing other payment processors means going to a dodgy website that makes unsubscribing and refunds impossible, but that's a false dichotomy Apple has created. They could require integration with iOS's subscription management APIs to use alternative payment processors (they already support PayPal as a back-end). And this is another case where it's incredibly convenient that opening up internal APIs without safeguards to 3rd parties would be unsafe, so they haven't done it. But this is a false dichotomy – they don't have to run 3rd party browsers unsandboxed, or allow any app create homescreen icons willy-nilly. Adding to home screen is already a user gesture through the Share sheet, mediated by the OS. Browsers must be sandboxed anyway, and webapps were already allowed to run full screen. And this isn't lack of just any feature. Apple has argued for years that App Store isn't mandatory, because anybody can just make a web app instead. That was never quite true do to Safari's limitations, but now is just a farce.

djfdat 3y ago
This is the best-worded form of this argument I've seen. Thanks!
tailspin2019 3y ago
Completely agree with this. We lose some of this nuance when we follow Apple’s line of reasoning that it’s a binary choice: safety OR openness.
jocaal 3y ago
> Every time somebody says "I don't want vendor lock-in", they flip it to "Oh, so you don't want safety?" Sometimes you need safety from the vendors. Linux is the only OS that doesn't use dark patterns to make me create a cloud account.

AshamedCaptain 3y ago

> [...] malicious web apps could read data from other apps and gain access to a user’s camera, microphone or location with user consent, the company noted. > Since Apple is being forced to allow alternative browser engines via the DMA’s requirements, the company chose not to put users at risk and instead degraded the web app experience on iOS for users in the EU. Now, web apps will function as website bookmarks — without support for local storage, badges, notifications and dedicated windowing. But with access to a user’s camera, microphone or location. Go figure. I'm sure there is someone out there who will buy this argument.

DueDilligence 3y ago

[dead]

javajosh 3y ago

Epic doesn't make any PWAs as far as I know, so this is really just general shade thrown in Apple's direction. Despite Apple's dominant position, I empathize with the desire for less surface area and eliminating features only a tiny fraction of users ever used. PWAs occupy that weird space between an ordinary webapp (that you can still bookmark on the homescreen, AFAIK) and a full-blown app. It's not clear to me what the precise benefits are of a PWA over a regular webapp. A regular webapp can cache resources with E-Tag and Cache-Control http headers. A regular webapp has localstorage, etc. Maybe PWAs get always on server push? But what users actually want that anyway? I personally don't use any PWAs and have never built one. When I want to target native iOS (or Android) I boot up a React Native project like a sane person. I like to attack Apple monopolistic practices as much as the next guy, but this seems overblown. PWAs seem like a red-headed stepchild of web app development and it makes sense to jettison support for them to simplify the operating system and related APIs.

KronisLV 3y ago

I do wonder what the impact here might be on something like PWABuilder: https://www.pwabuilder.com/ https://www.pwabuilder.com/ It almost felt like we have a "good enough" solution for getting something running consistently across web browsers and mobile devices (when you absolutely don't have the resources for a separate mobile codebase or per-platform codebases), in a way where it could still be like an app that can be offered on the corresponding app stores.

jsnell 3y ago

Dupe, with well over 1k comments across the stories and no new information: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39388218 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39388218 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39408196 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39408196 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39418412 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39418412 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39386244 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39386244 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39371119 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39371119

nojvek 3y ago

iOS and Android pretty much have a duopoly on mobile OSs. iOS at-least cares about user privacy but extracts a huge rent for it. I’m just sad how botched their implementation of PWAs and web apps as first class citizen is. Seems like Apple has run out of ideas on how to add genuine value to their userbase, so they’re resorting to rent extraction.