3 ms·

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 m

by 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.
withinboredom 3y ago
You can do what I did... disable sign-ups after releasing to the app store. It's private to you, but they'll never know that.
anon373839 3y ago
You’re out of luck. PWAs are perfect for private and internal apps. In Europe, apparently quite a few healthcare providers are using PWAs to deliver patient care. Apple will be breaking those apps and destroying the stored user data without notice.
rambambram 3y ago
> Now, web apps will function as website bookmarks — without support for local storage, badges, notifications and dedicated windowing. If you need notifications and the like, then you're out of luck I guess. If you don't, just add it to the home screen (it's nothing more than a link to a webpage anyway).
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
Taking the question literally, don’t buy Apple products in the future (or do, assuming regulations effect change in Apple’s APIs). Not to argue in support of Apple here -- I disagree with many decisions which limit what I can do with hardware I purchase, including their “webkit only” policy. But there’s still a certain understanding about the current state of Apple products such that I find it a bit hard to sympathize with someone who bought an iphone expecting this sort of custom interoperability. (A non-technical user is far less likely to want this level of customization and a technical one really ought to know better.) To your point, however, I do certainly hope that changes. It’d be really nice to be able to reasonably consider general purpose hardware to be practically useful for... ahem general purposes.
lozenge 3y ago
Open a developer account with Apple. Get your app Notarized (not the same as App Store review). List your app on an alternative app marketplace, agreeing to their terms of service. Download it from there.
- djfdat 3y ago
  Have you seen the terms for alternative app stores and terms for listing your app on an alternative app store? I don't think there will be many options there either, and if they are, they will not be good due to the policies Apple chose to set forth.
  - lozenge 3y ago
    The question was for a home server app- literally for them and their family. I doubt the terms would be that onerous.
nozzlegear 3y ago
Taking your question in good faith, you can create an iOS Shortcut using the Shortcuts app that just opens up your dashboard. Then you pin the shortcut to your Home Screen instead.
- Ezhik 3y ago
  Shortcuts seems like a nice approach. On iPhone the sheet is almost full screen. The main disadvantage seems to be that the page won't show up in the app switcher.
bromuro 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. I don’t get this comment - why not just open the webpage in Safari? HTML / JS API do allow full screen.
jcul 3y ago
I've been wondering the same thing. I'd like to know exactly what this breaks. I haven't implemented a PWA and I'm not an apple user, so I may be missing context here. Though they seem like a great way to develop a simple cross platform app. A PWA will no longer open full screen and appear as a native app, it will now open as a bookmark in the browser, is my understanding. But it should still "work" right, if it's just a webpage. No notifications if apple have broken the notification API, but lots of sites use notifications, e.g. the pop up to enable desktop notifications for WhatsApp web, is this now broken? And no local storage, is this referring to JavaScript session / local storage? Surely that would break lots of websites? What about cookie storage, that's not something they can just break? Your PWA isn't going to be asleep polished, but for a simple personal dashboard I don't see the issue.

by Ezhik 3y ago

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.

withinboredom 3y ago

You can do what I did... disable sign-ups after releasing to the app store. It's private to you, but they'll never know that.

anon373839 3y ago

You’re out of luck. PWAs are perfect for private and internal apps. In Europe, apparently quite a few healthcare providers are using PWAs to deliver patient care. Apple will be breaking those apps and destroying the stored user data without notice.

rambambram 3y ago

> Now, web apps will function as website bookmarks — without support for local storage, badges, notifications and dedicated windowing. If you need notifications and the like, then you're out of luck I guess. If you don't, just add it to the home screen (it's nothing more than a link to a webpage anyway).

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago

Taking the question literally, don’t buy Apple products in the future (or do, assuming regulations effect change in Apple’s APIs). Not to argue in support of Apple here -- I disagree with many decisions which limit what I can do with hardware I purchase, including their “webkit only” policy. But there’s still a certain understanding about the current state of Apple products such that I find it a bit hard to sympathize with someone who bought an iphone expecting this sort of custom interoperability. (A non-technical user is far less likely to want this level of customization and a technical one really ought to know better.) To your point, however, I do certainly hope that changes. It’d be really nice to be able to reasonably consider general purpose hardware to be practically useful for... ahem general purposes.

lozenge 3y ago

Open a developer account with Apple. Get your app Notarized (not the same as App Store review). List your app on an alternative app marketplace, agreeing to their terms of service. Download it from there.

djfdat 3y ago
Have you seen the terms for alternative app stores and terms for listing your app on an alternative app store? I don't think there will be many options there either, and if they are, they will not be good due to the policies Apple chose to set forth.
- lozenge 3y ago
  The question was for a home server app- literally for them and their family. I doubt the terms would be that onerous.

nozzlegear 3y ago

Taking your question in good faith, you can create an iOS Shortcut using the Shortcuts app that just opens up your dashboard. Then you pin the shortcut to your Home Screen instead.

Ezhik 3y ago
Shortcuts seems like a nice approach. On iPhone the sheet is almost full screen. The main disadvantage seems to be that the page won't show up in the app switcher.

bromuro 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. I don’t get this comment - why not just open the webpage in Safari? HTML / JS API do allow full screen.

jcul 3y ago

I've been wondering the same thing. I'd like to know exactly what this breaks. I haven't implemented a PWA and I'm not an apple user, so I may be missing context here. Though they seem like a great way to develop a simple cross platform app. A PWA will no longer open full screen and appear as a native app, it will now open as a bookmark in the browser, is my understanding. But it should still "work" right, if it's just a webpage. No notifications if apple have broken the notification API, but lots of sites use notifications, e.g. the pop up to enable desktop notifications for WhatsApp web, is this now broken? And no local storage, is this referring to JavaScript session / local storage? Surely that would break lots of websites? What about cookie storage, that's not something they can just break? Your PWA isn't going to be asleep polished, but for a simple personal dashboard I don't see the issue.