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The fact that iOS safari supports SO many lifecycle features except BeforeInstallPrompt is just so frustrating. You can feel the dev team trying to get as clos

The fact that iOS safari supports SO many lifecycle features except BeforeInstallPrompt is just so frustrating. You can feel the dev team trying to get as close as they can without shooting their golden goose App Store. So many apps could be PWA…and we could expect so much more from the median PWA.

twism 1y ago
This. PWA is the end of 75% of apps being in the app store
- consumer451 1y ago
  That would be the interesting thing for an EU regulation to try to cover, maybe more than the app store regs. PWAs are just websites, so Apple can't really make same security argument, right? That would be a nicer world.
- TulliusCicero 1y ago
  Seems doubtful to me. Native apps just tend to feel better. This scorecard says that Chrome for Android already does pretty well, but how many users use PWAs on Android?
  - kelthuzad 1y ago
    >Seems doubtful to me. Native apps just tend to feel better. I'm really tired of hearing this quite frankly, because the reasons as to why that happens to be the case in some scenarios is not "just" a coincidence, which has been explained ad nauseam. >This scorecard says that Chrome for Android already does pretty well, but how many users use PWAs on Android? While I've not seen any stats, I personally use them where possible. Interestingly, my boomer Dad, who is completely clueless when it comes to technology, independently discovered them. He has no idea what a "PWA" is, but he always asks me to "make this website an app for me".
  - zenmac 1y ago
    >Seems doubtful to me. Native apps just tend to feel better. That may have being true a few years ago, but now days unless you are really pushing for very specific stuff GPU stuff. With CSS GPU acceleration its barely noticeable for normal UIs. Now there are tons and tons of PWA that is done in a very in efficient way, then you get a really laggy app.
    - _23sd 1y ago
      If the theory is that if you do everything perfectly, you can reach the performance of a mediocre native app, then obviously most PWAs are going to suck and opinions will form accordingly.
      - kelthuzad 1y ago
        You don't have to do everything perfectly. Both web apps and "native" apps will be similarly affected by a dev who is terrible at coding. Most people use web apps every day and are not even aware that they are using web apps. Some special interest groups are just very persistent in perpetuating falsehoods and myths in this matter.
JimDabell 1y ago
> The fact that iOS safari supports SO many lifecycle features except BeforeInstallPrompt is just so frustrating. BeforeInstallPrompt is non-standard. They removed it from the specification because Mozilla had no plans to support it and Apple wouldn’t commit either. Here’s the discussion: > There is also some disagreement on the a `BeforeInstallPrompt()` event (BIP). Despite BIP having been in the spec for a few years, neither Safari nor Firefox have opted to support it. As it stands, Mozilla does not plan to support BIP. We are unsure what WebKit's plans are - @hober maybe could let us know? If WebKit doesn't plan to support it, then we should probably remove it from the spec. — https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webapps-github/2019Sep/0256.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webapps-github/2... So yet again, this is a case of Google wanting something, Google implementing it unilaterally, Google not being able to convince any other rendering engine to implement it, then the non-standard, Blink-only behaviour is being presented in situations like this as if Safari alone is failing to support a standard. Web standards are not whatever Google wants. They are arrived at through consensus.
- kelthuzad 1y ago
  You're absolutely right about BeforeInstallPrompt. It never achieved consensus, Mozilla declined to implement it, and this is exactly how standards should work. But here's the thing, this actually makes the broader argument stronger, not weaker. The issue isn't any one feature rejection, it's the pattern. Remember the iOS 17.4 thing from February 2024. Apple completely disabled PWAs in the EU, claiming alternative browser engines created insurmountable security problems that would require building "an entirely new integration architecture" that wasn't practical given DMA timelines. Then after two weeks of backlash they reversed it. If the technical barriers were real, how did they solve them in 14 days? That looks less like a technical limitation and more like testing how much they could get away with. Or push notifications, Safari on macOS got them in 2013. Safari on iOS got them in 2023. Same WebKit engine, same APNs infrastructure, 10 years apart. What's the technical explanation for that gap? And even after iOS finally got push notifications, they only work for PWAs installed to home screen, not in Safari itself. That's a restriction that doesn't exist anywhere else. Android Chrome has had this working in the browser since 2015. That's the genius of plausible deniability, every individual decision has some technical justification you can point to. BeforeInstallPrompt lacks consensus (true). Safari has limited resources (as has Chrome). Security is hard (definitely true). But the cumulative effect of all these decisions, year after year, is that PWAs on iOS are hobbled compared to native apps in ways that just happen to protect a $20B+ App Store business. Your fact-check on BeforeInstallPrompt actually demonstrates why the other patterns are harder to explain away. It shows Apple can legitimately decline features through proper standards processes, which makes the decade-long notification delay and the iOS 17.4 reversal look even more suspicious by comparison.

twism 1y ago

This. PWA is the end of 75% of apps being in the app store

consumer451 1y ago
That would be the interesting thing for an EU regulation to try to cover, maybe more than the app store regs. PWAs are just websites, so Apple can't really make same security argument, right? That would be a nicer world.
TulliusCicero 1y ago
Seems doubtful to me. Native apps just tend to feel better. This scorecard says that Chrome for Android already does pretty well, but how many users use PWAs on Android?
- kelthuzad 1y ago
  >Seems doubtful to me. Native apps just tend to feel better. I'm really tired of hearing this quite frankly, because the reasons as to why that happens to be the case in some scenarios is not "just" a coincidence, which has been explained ad nauseam. >This scorecard says that Chrome for Android already does pretty well, but how many users use PWAs on Android? While I've not seen any stats, I personally use them where possible. Interestingly, my boomer Dad, who is completely clueless when it comes to technology, independently discovered them. He has no idea what a "PWA" is, but he always asks me to "make this website an app for me".
- zenmac 1y ago
  >Seems doubtful to me. Native apps just tend to feel better. That may have being true a few years ago, but now days unless you are really pushing for very specific stuff GPU stuff. With CSS GPU acceleration its barely noticeable for normal UIs. Now there are tons and tons of PWA that is done in a very in efficient way, then you get a really laggy app.
  - _23sd 1y ago
    If the theory is that if you do everything perfectly, you can reach the performance of a mediocre native app, then obviously most PWAs are going to suck and opinions will form accordingly.
    - kelthuzad 1y ago
      You don't have to do everything perfectly. Both web apps and "native" apps will be similarly affected by a dev who is terrible at coding. Most people use web apps every day and are not even aware that they are using web apps. Some special interest groups are just very persistent in perpetuating falsehoods and myths in this matter.

JimDabell 1y ago

> The fact that iOS safari supports SO many lifecycle features except BeforeInstallPrompt is just so frustrating. BeforeInstallPrompt is non-standard. They removed it from the specification because Mozilla had no plans to support it and Apple wouldn’t commit either. Here’s the discussion: > There is also some disagreement on the a `BeforeInstallPrompt()` event (BIP). Despite BIP having been in the spec for a few years, neither Safari nor Firefox have opted to support it. As it stands, Mozilla does not plan to support BIP. We are unsure what WebKit's plans are - @hober maybe could let us know? If WebKit doesn't plan to support it, then we should probably remove it from the spec. — https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webapps-github/2019Sep/0256.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webapps-github/2... So yet again, this is a case of Google wanting something, Google implementing it unilaterally, Google not being able to convince any other rendering engine to implement it, then the non-standard, Blink-only behaviour is being presented in situations like this as if Safari alone is failing to support a standard. Web standards are not whatever Google wants. They are arrived at through consensus.

kelthuzad 1y ago
You're absolutely right about BeforeInstallPrompt. It never achieved consensus, Mozilla declined to implement it, and this is exactly how standards should work. But here's the thing, this actually makes the broader argument stronger, not weaker. The issue isn't any one feature rejection, it's the pattern. Remember the iOS 17.4 thing from February 2024. Apple completely disabled PWAs in the EU, claiming alternative browser engines created insurmountable security problems that would require building "an entirely new integration architecture" that wasn't practical given DMA timelines. Then after two weeks of backlash they reversed it. If the technical barriers were real, how did they solve them in 14 days? That looks less like a technical limitation and more like testing how much they could get away with. Or push notifications, Safari on macOS got them in 2013. Safari on iOS got them in 2023. Same WebKit engine, same APNs infrastructure, 10 years apart. What's the technical explanation for that gap? And even after iOS finally got push notifications, they only work for PWAs installed to home screen, not in Safari itself. That's a restriction that doesn't exist anywhere else. Android Chrome has had this working in the browser since 2015. That's the genius of plausible deniability, every individual decision has some technical justification you can point to. BeforeInstallPrompt lacks consensus (true). Safari has limited resources (as has Chrome). Security is hard (definitely true). But the cumulative effect of all these decisions, year after year, is that PWAs on iOS are hobbled compared to native apps in ways that just happen to protect a $20B+ App Store business. Your fact-check on BeforeInstallPrompt actually demonstrates why the other patterns are harder to explain away. It shows Apple can legitimately decline features through proper standards processes, which makes the decade-long notification delay and the iOS 17.4 reversal look even more suspicious by comparison.