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> It’s the expectation in 2024 that you should be able to use an app across devices and keep your state. Device sync is a solved problem on quite literally ev

> It’s the expectation in 2024 that you should be able to use an app across devices and keep your state. Device sync is a solved problem on quite literally every single major platform, including iOS. There's no reason Apple couldn't sync PWA storage using the same mechanisms. > And you act as if setting up accounts on a server is hard. It objectively increases attack surface, decreases privacy, adds user friction, and is unnecessary for the majority of apps. Most users (myself included) don't want online accounts. I don't need an online account for an alarm. I don't need to log in with Facebook or Github or whatever just to do basic things on my phone. This is just unbelievably silly at this point. Of course reliable offline storage matters for app development, are you seriously going to try and argue that it doesn't? If Apple got rid of reliable offline storage for native applications, nobody would say that didn't matter or that it wasn't a big deal. Some of us actually like that we can do things like type into a text editor and know the text document will still be there when we come back to our computers, and that it doesn't have to get synced to somebody else's servers to guarantee that. The solution to app storage is not to completely abandon privacy, require an Internet connection for every app, and then put all of our information on somebody else's server.

scarface_74 3y ago
Every single app on the App Store gets device sync for free via iCloud. I can drop my iPhone in the ocean, buy a new iPhone and and my new iPhone will have all of the data that my old iPhone had within the last 24 hours. How exactly do you do “device sync” without an account somewhere? > It objectively increases attack surface and is unnecessary for the majority of apps, and most users (myself included) don't want one. Because for the majority of users - they don’t need a separate account because all of their state can either be saved by the app just saving locally and letting iCloud take care of it. By logging the state in Game Center or some apps like Overcast use the users app specific iCloud token (each app gets a unique token per user not shared across apps) and stores state server side. I can guarantee you that most users expect to have everything backed up automatically and expect to be able to move between devices. > Some of us actually like that we can do things like type into a text editor and know the text document will still be there when we come back to our computers, and that it doesn't have to get synced to somebody else's servers to guarantee that. That must be why no one uses Google apps so their data is accessible across devices, Office 365 and why Chromebooks are so unpopular because people don’t like cloud backup….
- danShumway 3y ago
  > Every single app on the App Store gets device sync for free via iCloud. I can drop my iPhone in the ocean, buy a new iPhone and and my new iPhone will have all of the data that my old iPhone had within the last 24 hours. Do PWAs? Like holy crud, it's like you're not reading anything I'm saying. This is what everyone is telling you, PWAs lack critical capabilities. And you keep saying, "no, it's fine, why don't they just [insert capability that isn't available to them]." > Because for the majority of users - they don’t need a separate account because all of their state can either be saved by the app just saving locally and letting iCloud take care of it. By logging the state in Game Center or some apps like Overcast use the users app specific iCloud token (each app gets a unique token per user not shared across apps) and stores state server side. Which isn't available to PWAs. > I can guarantee you that most users expect to have everything backed up automatically and expect to be able to move between devices. Which isn't available to PWAs. It's not even available to PWAs that do use an online account. iOS has unreliable background sync for PWAs, so if you use a PWA without an Internet connection, you can't rely on that data getting synced in the background once you do get an Internet connection. You have to remember to re-open the app to make sure that the sync happened. > That must be why no one uses Google apps so their data is accessible across devices, Office 365 and why Chromebooks are so unpopular because people don’t like cloud backup…. I'm sorry, are you seriously going to try and argue that users don't care about the ability to have offline storage? This is unbelievably out of touch. This must be why nobody complained about Windows requiring a Microsoft account to install, why nobody uses Sublime or Notepad because they don't have online accounts, why nobody ever downloads DRM free games, and why nobody uses a computer offline /s It's just absurd. Of course users like having the option of reliable offline storage. The inability to integrate with iOS backup and the inability to store data reliably without an internet connection and a separately managed user account or online storage service is very, very obviously a barrier to using PWAs for serious work. If Apple turned iOS into a Chromebook-style service tomorrow, everyone would be up in arms about it. Most Apple users don't want that. And in fact, even Apple devices do not require an Apple account to use because Apple recognizes that having that be optional is important to users.
  - scarface_74 3y ago

scarface_74 3y ago

Every single app on the App Store gets device sync for free via iCloud. I can drop my iPhone in the ocean, buy a new iPhone and and my new iPhone will have all of the data that my old iPhone had within the last 24 hours. How exactly do you do “device sync” without an account somewhere? > It objectively increases attack surface and is unnecessary for the majority of apps, and most users (myself included) don't want one. Because for the majority of users - they don’t need a separate account because all of their state can either be saved by the app just saving locally and letting iCloud take care of it. By logging the state in Game Center or some apps like Overcast use the users app specific iCloud token (each app gets a unique token per user not shared across apps) and stores state server side. I can guarantee you that most users expect to have everything backed up automatically and expect to be able to move between devices. > Some of us actually like that we can do things like type into a text editor and know the text document will still be there when we come back to our computers, and that it doesn't have to get synced to somebody else's servers to guarantee that. That must be why no one uses Google apps so their data is accessible across devices, Office 365 and why Chromebooks are so unpopular because people don’t like cloud backup….

danShumway 3y ago
> Every single app on the App Store gets device sync for free via iCloud. I can drop my iPhone in the ocean, buy a new iPhone and and my new iPhone will have all of the data that my old iPhone had within the last 24 hours. Do PWAs? Like holy crud, it's like you're not reading anything I'm saying. This is what everyone is telling you, PWAs lack critical capabilities. And you keep saying, "no, it's fine, why don't they just [insert capability that isn't available to them]." > Because for the majority of users - they don’t need a separate account because all of their state can either be saved by the app just saving locally and letting iCloud take care of it. By logging the state in Game Center or some apps like Overcast use the users app specific iCloud token (each app gets a unique token per user not shared across apps) and stores state server side. Which isn't available to PWAs. > I can guarantee you that most users expect to have everything backed up automatically and expect to be able to move between devices. Which isn't available to PWAs. It's not even available to PWAs that do use an online account. iOS has unreliable background sync for PWAs, so if you use a PWA without an Internet connection, you can't rely on that data getting synced in the background once you do get an Internet connection. You have to remember to re-open the app to make sure that the sync happened. > That must be why no one uses Google apps so their data is accessible across devices, Office 365 and why Chromebooks are so unpopular because people don’t like cloud backup…. I'm sorry, are you seriously going to try and argue that users don't care about the ability to have offline storage? This is unbelievably out of touch. This must be why nobody complained about Windows requiring a Microsoft account to install, why nobody uses Sublime or Notepad because they don't have online accounts, why nobody ever downloads DRM free games, and why nobody uses a computer offline /s It's just absurd. Of course users like having the option of reliable offline storage. The inability to integrate with iOS backup and the inability to store data reliably without an internet connection and a separately managed user account or online storage service is very, very obviously a barrier to using PWAs for serious work. If Apple turned iOS into a Chromebook-style service tomorrow, everyone would be up in arms about it. Most Apple users don't want that. And in fact, even Apple devices do not require an Apple account to use because Apple recognizes that having that be optional is important to users.
- scarface_74 3y ago