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Woah this is very exciting if true! I love Linux and my framework laptop, but have wanted to make simple iOS apps. That being said, PWA’s are damn capable at t

Woah this is very exciting if true! I love Linux and my framework laptop, but have wanted to make simple iOS apps. That being said, PWA’s are damn capable at this point for basic little apps. I wish more laypeople were aware of the ability to “install” PWA’s. Most non-tech people only think apps come from the iOS App Store.

Obscurity4340 1y ago
Are PWA's subject to Safari's data collection policies or is it different?
- pjmlp 1y ago
  Why bothering collecting on the client, when we can collect everything on the server?
  - c0wb0yc0d3r 1y ago
    What if there is no server? An offline first PWA could easily be served via a static web host.
gman83 1y ago
FYI, I've been making iOS apps on Linux for a while now, I just use CodeMagic to do the build step - https://codemagic.io/ https://codemagic.io/
afavour 1y ago
Yeah I do really wish PWAs got more attention. But it’s very, very difficult to do that last mile of UI polish that makes the average iOS app gleam by comparison. Fingers crossed we’ll see more browser primitive APIs in that area.
whycome 1y ago
The user flow for installing PWAs is so dumb. It’s deliberate I guess. It doesn’t align with the idea of “installing” or even a marketplace. I think the language is something like “add to home” and it’s not clear that it’s anything other than a shortcut to a website.
_fat_santa 1y ago
> PWA’s are damn capable at this point for basic little apps. I wish more laypeople were aware of the ability to “install” PWA’s. Most non-tech people only think apps come from the iOS App Store. I recently had a conversation with my business partner about our SaaS, he was pushing for us to write a full mobile app for our service and I pushed back and said lets do a PWA instead. From a technical perspective, maintaining a PWA is so much easier in my opinion than maintaining a mobile app, even if you end up writing a new codebase specifically for your PWA. Simply not having to go through Apple saves so much time. As for education the distribution channel is very different. We advertise our PWA in our website and prompt people to install it in our app if we see that they are running the right browser/device. I would say at this point if you have a "business app" that just does regular CRUD stuff and doesn't reach for any mobile API's, a PWA is perfect.
- frollogaston 1y ago
  There's always some catch to make sure you can't 100% jump to a PWA and skip the native app. At least PWAs can do push notifications finally.

Obscurity4340 1y ago

Are PWA's subject to Safari's data collection policies or is it different?

pjmlp 1y ago
Why bothering collecting on the client, when we can collect everything on the server?
- c0wb0yc0d3r 1y ago
  What if there is no server? An offline first PWA could easily be served via a static web host.

gman83 1y ago

FYI, I've been making iOS apps on Linux for a while now, I just use CodeMagic to do the build step - https://codemagic.io/ https://codemagic.io/

afavour 1y ago

Yeah I do really wish PWAs got more attention. But it’s very, very difficult to do that last mile of UI polish that makes the average iOS app gleam by comparison. Fingers crossed we’ll see more browser primitive APIs in that area.

whycome 1y ago

The user flow for installing PWAs is so dumb. It’s deliberate I guess. It doesn’t align with the idea of “installing” or even a marketplace. I think the language is something like “add to home” and it’s not clear that it’s anything other than a shortcut to a website.

_fat_santa 1y ago

> PWA’s are damn capable at this point for basic little apps. I wish more laypeople were aware of the ability to “install” PWA’s. Most non-tech people only think apps come from the iOS App Store. I recently had a conversation with my business partner about our SaaS, he was pushing for us to write a full mobile app for our service and I pushed back and said lets do a PWA instead. From a technical perspective, maintaining a PWA is so much easier in my opinion than maintaining a mobile app, even if you end up writing a new codebase specifically for your PWA. Simply not having to go through Apple saves so much time. As for education the distribution channel is very different. We advertise our PWA in our website and prompt people to install it in our app if we see that they are running the right browser/device. I would say at this point if you have a "business app" that just does regular CRUD stuff and doesn't reach for any mobile API's, a PWA is perfect.

frollogaston 1y ago
There's always some catch to make sure you can't 100% jump to a PWA and skip the native app. At least PWAs can do push notifications finally.