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PWA on android's side is at least usable. You get notification. You can autoplay video/audio. You get whaterver video or element full screen with all necessary

by mmis1000 11mo ago

PWA on android's side is at least usable. You get notification. You can autoplay video/audio. You get whaterver video or element full screen with all necessary UI. You get rotation lock. You have a fullscreen to do what ever you want for any purpose. You probably can't touch hardware APIs(for example: bluetooth/nfc) like native app. But that isn't really needed for most apps either. On the other side. Apple seems sabotage the PWA as much as possible. You can't autoplay video/audio. You can't even fullscreen anything other than video, and when fullscreen video, UI is ignored. Also there is no way to disable gesture so your app will misfire system gesture. And you can't lock the rotation either. There is no way to auto rotate the video player or whatever when maximized either. It's really a golden example for pretend to do something while actually not. It seems you can do pretty much everything with ios pwa. And when you try to do it. You will figured out it will have a worse experience than native app because all sort of issues.

popcornricecake 11mo ago
To be fair, Android also sabotages PWAs, it's just done behind your back. You see, in order to get a PWA to properly install, you'll have to use Chrome, and you'll have to have a Google Play account and Chrome will submit the PWA manifest for validation to a Google server, which in turn will decide whether the PWA is worthy, and if it is, it will generate a so called WebAPK, which is then installed on your device. If it's not worthy however, then it will become a bookmark instead, and many of the features that can be described in the manifest will not work at all. So if you wanted to use a different browser or install a PWA without a connection to the internet, or without Google Play, all you get is a bookmark.
- mmis1000 11mo ago
  > in turn will decide whether the PWA is worthy In my personal experience, it only validate whether manifest is malformatted though. Although it's still up to google if they want to do something wonky.
  - popcornricecake 11mo ago
    I saw someone claim on SO that they were not able to get a PWA to install properly until they changed their IP address, supposedly because they were from Iran, a sanctioned country.
- daveoc64 11mo ago
  Other browsers on Android support PWA, such as Firefox.
  - popcornricecake 11mo ago
    To my knowledge, every PWA installed from Firefox on Android will become a bookmark. For Firefox I believe that means for example that if you try to open a link elsewhere that is within the manifest scope, it will not open in the PWA. That's because it's not possible to deep link to the PWA without it having an AndroidManifest with a corresponding intent filter, which is what the Chrome WebAPK achieves and why they can support for example custom protocol handlers or share targets or launch handling options.
  - theK 11mo ago
    Other browsers "occasionally" find a way to create a PWA install. YMMV, it never lasts. Right now Firefox cant, at least not on any of my android phones.
    - daveoc64 11mo ago
      Firefox uses a widget to make it work. I've never had an issue with it, and have been using it for years. I use it for X (Twitter) so that I can avoid ads. Looks like support for installing a PWA on Android was added in Firefox 58 back in 2018: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/10/progressive-web-apps-firefox-android/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/10/progressive-web-apps-firef... Video demo: https://youtu.be/heSvwQgEMLM?si=5X0iky_uVDAS6eE1 https://youtu.be/heSvwQgEMLM?si=5X0iky_uVDAS6eE1 Developer and user documentation: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/use-web-apps-firefox-android https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/use-web-apps-firefox-an... https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Progressive_web_apps/Guides/Installing https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Progressive_web...
      - theK 11mo ago
        AS I said, YMMV. PWA install has seen many a regression. Last Android release it didn't work for me, this one it does. I presume a lot of it is due to ecosystem variations and API changes.

popcornricecake 11mo ago

To be fair, Android also sabotages PWAs, it's just done behind your back. You see, in order to get a PWA to properly install, you'll have to use Chrome, and you'll have to have a Google Play account and Chrome will submit the PWA manifest for validation to a Google server, which in turn will decide whether the PWA is worthy, and if it is, it will generate a so called WebAPK, which is then installed on your device. If it's not worthy however, then it will become a bookmark instead, and many of the features that can be described in the manifest will not work at all. So if you wanted to use a different browser or install a PWA without a connection to the internet, or without Google Play, all you get is a bookmark.

mmis1000 11mo ago
> in turn will decide whether the PWA is worthy In my personal experience, it only validate whether manifest is malformatted though. Although it's still up to google if they want to do something wonky.
- popcornricecake 11mo ago
  I saw someone claim on SO that they were not able to get a PWA to install properly until they changed their IP address, supposedly because they were from Iran, a sanctioned country.
daveoc64 11mo ago
Other browsers on Android support PWA, such as Firefox.
- popcornricecake 11mo ago
  To my knowledge, every PWA installed from Firefox on Android will become a bookmark. For Firefox I believe that means for example that if you try to open a link elsewhere that is within the manifest scope, it will not open in the PWA. That's because it's not possible to deep link to the PWA without it having an AndroidManifest with a corresponding intent filter, which is what the Chrome WebAPK achieves and why they can support for example custom protocol handlers or share targets or launch handling options.
- theK 11mo ago
  Other browsers "occasionally" find a way to create a PWA install. YMMV, it never lasts. Right now Firefox cant, at least not on any of my android phones.
  - daveoc64 11mo ago
    Firefox uses a widget to make it work. I've never had an issue with it, and have been using it for years. I use it for X (Twitter) so that I can avoid ads. Looks like support for installing a PWA on Android was added in Firefox 58 back in 2018: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/10/progressive-web-apps-firefox-android/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/10/progressive-web-apps-firef... Video demo: https://youtu.be/heSvwQgEMLM?si=5X0iky_uVDAS6eE1 https://youtu.be/heSvwQgEMLM?si=5X0iky_uVDAS6eE1 Developer and user documentation: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/use-web-apps-firefox-android https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/use-web-apps-firefox-an... https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Progressive_web_apps/Guides/Installing https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Progressive_web...
    - theK 11mo ago
      AS I said, YMMV. PWA install has seen many a regression. Last Android release it didn't work for me, this one it does. I presume a lot of it is due to ecosystem variations and API changes.