Home Screen Advantage

https://infrequently.org/2024/02/home-screen-advantage/

by genericlemon24 • 2 years ago

330 224 2 years ago

infrequently.org

th4tg41• 2 years ago

Off topic: This site is next to unreadable on my phone.

Zigzagscrolling is an insult to the audience.

k1t• 2 years ago

It looks fine to me. (Firefox / Android)

sosodev• 2 years ago

It's perfectly readable on my phone and with various device dimensions set in my desktop browser.

quyleanh• 2 years ago

Me too. Using Safari on iPhone now. Is it intended?

exodust• 2 years ago

Problems on ultrawide desktop too (severe horizontal scrolling).

To partially fix, open dev tools and change the body tag's display:grid to display:block. I'm not sure how you can stuff up a single column HTML article, but they've managed to.

xorcist2• 2 years ago

The line length is hilarious.

Press the little book icon (or F9 in Firefox desktop), it fixes this just as it fixes so many other unreadable web sites.

Luckily our clients aren't completely strangled yet so this still works. How meta considering the subject.

underwater• 2 years ago

If Safari supported extensions then you'd have the ability to resolve this by installing something like Readability.

If iOS supported other browsers then you could read it in a Chromium based browser, where it appears completely readable.

zimpenfish• 2 years ago

If Safari supported extensions

iOS Safari does support extensions. I've got a handful installed on my phone right now, including Userscripts to apply custom formatting and styling to this website.

nottorp• 2 years ago

But why should you need extensions to go around some site disrespecting you?

latexr2• 2 years ago

Safari does support extensions. And it has built-in Reader mode. And it needs none of that for this case since the website loads perfectly fine with no zigzagging required.

What Apple is doing sucks, for sure, but let’s not lose sight of reality and make stuff up or misinform people.

rezonant10• 2 years ago

It looks completely fine on my phone, what browser are you using? Did you perhaps leave Desktop Mode on?

Since Alex is here in the comments, I'm sure he'd reply if he had fixed something between each of us reading it.

verisimi3• 2 years ago

PWA - progressive web app, delivered via the web, html, CSS, JavaScript, etc.

gambiting• 2 years ago

Thank you! I hate when articles use acronyms and never actually expand what they mean - I read the entire article without any clue what PWAs actually are.

verisimi3• 2 years ago

I know - I'm not in that area and got quite a way through before realising I had to look it up!

npteljes• 2 years ago

I agree, it's a bad writing practice. And it's very simple to be completely unambiguous - just use the complete phrase the first time. So in this case, the tagline could just be "Decoding Apple's Desperate Ploy To Scuttle Progressive Web Applications", and then, if people see PWA, they can decipher it themselves.

But of course this seems to be a personal blog, so much of it is up to personal taste, as it should be.

eksu• 2 years ago

I don’t use any PWA’s and I am not so sympathetic from claims of harm from removing/deprecating PWA’s without some data on the size and impact of this change.

Xbox Gamepass presumably would be the largest one/best example, is that how they ask people on iOS to stream games?

kevingadd3• 2 years ago

I can't speak to whether this is still true, but there was a time period where Apple would reject certain categories of iOS app store submissions and tell people to just make a website - 'simple webview' type stuff, like apps for a small business etc.

The natural response to that is to make a PWA if Apple says you're not good enough for the store. Now that option is going away, so I can understand if people who previously relied on it are ticked off.

makeitdouble• 2 years ago

Yes, it is the "Minimum Functionality" requirement , still in the books:

https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#min...

4.2 Minimum Functionality
Your app should include features, content, and UI that elevate it beyond a repackaged website. If your app is not particularly useful, unique, or “app-like,” it doesn’t belong on the App Store. If your App doesn’t provide some sort of lasting entertainment value or adequate utility, it may not be accepted.

rezonant10• 2 years ago

That is for actual websites. A PWA is typically something app-like.

Think about it a little harder. If Apple says "only bikes are allowed in their bike store, and if you want to build something else, go put your product in a different store", then you said OK fine and proceeded to build a bike and put it in another store, does that make sense?

Apple would've accepted your bike. Websites and web apps are treated differently in Apple's rules.

Understand that Apple has used this rule to keep web based apps out of the app store, but they got burned on that and there's no such restriction today.

littlecranky67• 2 years ago

of harm from removing/deprecating PWA’s without some data on the size and impact of this change

Apple just introduced a lot of PWA feature on Desktop Safari on the last WWDC, and improvements on iOS like web-push were introduced with iOS 16.4 just less than 1 year ago [0]. The impact can't be that big for stuff Apple just released recently. And now they are killing it outright again.

[0] https://www.macrumors.com/guide/ios-16-4-new-features/

youngtaff• 2 years ago

I use many PWAs on my iPhone, they have a few issues but I find they’re way more preferably to installing apps

michpoch• 2 years ago

I don’t use any PWA’s and I am not so sympathetic from claims of harm from removing/deprecating PWA’(...)

First they came for the Communists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Communist

(...)

n33• 2 years ago

"True character is revealed in the choices a human being makes under pressure - the greater the pressure, the deeper the revelation, the truer the choice to the character's essential nature." — Robert McKee

rob74• 2 years ago

Well, the "true character" of any company is essentially being a greedy asshole - and that's no surprise, if they weren't that way from the beginning, the shareholders would dictate this behavior. I know some people think Apple is an exception - maybe these latest shenanigans will change their minds, but I wouldn't bet on it...

kqr• 2 years ago

It may often be a useful model to pretend "a company" has a character, but when the context is McKee on character, it is a mistaken perspective.

I'm sure McKee would argue for the exact opposite! Organisations are run by individuals, and it is their character that is revealed. The greedy assholery is the front they have to assume to uphold their fiduciary duty to shareholders, but their true character is what happens underneath – the thing revealed under pressure.

And in this, we see large variation.

diffeomorphism• 2 years ago

Nah, this is too much equivocation. Some companies are much more spiteful than others and shareholders also don't want you burning bridges.

So it is not about Apple being exceptionally good but rather them going out of their way to be exceptionally asshole-ish.

kevingadd3• 2 years ago

"Apple looks set to argue, contra everyone else subject to the DMA, that the moment from which features must be made interoperable is the end of the fair-warning period, not the date of designation." is an interesting point I hadn't seen before. I was under the impression that as long as they removed PWAs before the final deadline, they'd be able to claim they were complying in good faith. But I suppose that might not be true, and it could actually be as-of the warning period?

jeroenhd• 2 years ago

Like with the GDPR, the DMA had a long lead-in time in which the law has gone into effect but the EU wasn't prosecuting anyone for incompliance yet. The designation took place half a year ago but you can't expect companies to act on a rough draft and unmade commission decisions, so while the right EU people got started, nobody needed to comply yet.

Of course Apple could've acted earlier out of the goodness of their hearts and to serve customer interests (lol), but like with the GDPR, companies tend to prepare longer and only launch their changes right when they're about to see any real risk. The end of the fair warning period is the final deadline.

Microsoft and Google are doing the same thing, I think it's to be expected with regulation like this, and the regulation was designed for this.

randomdev3• 2 years ago

It's just nonsensical to use a device that dictates what you can install on it. Well, Androids don't come with root permissions either ( you should be able to get it easily if you want imo ) but at least you can install any app, even just create your own.

shrx• 2 years ago

It's not that easy on Android either. Rooting usually requires a factory reset and several apps (e.g. banking) will not work if they detect the system is rooted.

edit: Also, in some cases you lose warranty.

pooper3• 2 years ago

The fact that you can't install apps from your own xcode and run locally (used to be at all now I guess seven day limit) is silly.

On Android, with Android 12, we can now have apps on neostore (fdroid frontend) auto update. There is no good reason to defend apple here. You as a user are always free to not install third party app stores.

xorcist2• 2 years ago

Installing F-Droid is not hard. No need for root. In fact, the usual criticism is that it's too easy.

There are a number of scary warnings to click through but that's it. Not great for security but the official distribution is good enough that it's not a problem outside a few select countries where doing business is hard.

rezonant10• 2 years ago

There is no need to root to install software on Android. Rooting is only required for permissions that no app (save pre installed apps), whether installed via Play store or not, can be given.

kyriakos• 2 years ago

There's no need to root. Installing any app outside play store is a matter of clicking 2 buttons.

opan• 2 years ago

You do not need root on android to install a .apk file. I see too many people thinking iOS and Android are on equal starting ground.

Android out of the box is fairly close to jailbroken iOS. Very few things require root.

theferalrobot2• 2 years ago

If we're getting technical you don't need to jailbreak to sideload on iOS either. AltStore automates the tedium but you can side load just fine on iOS too (for now).

boxed9• 2 years ago

Creating your own app is actually pretty easy on iOS. I run an app on my phone right now that I built myself and that is not on the app store.

Timwi2• 2 years ago

Creating your own app is actually pretty easy on iOS.

I don't believe you. I believe that you probably left out some crucial detail, such as having to own a Mac first.

the_gipsy13• 2 years ago

It's not easy, you need a multithousand dollar apple machine, and you can't share this app with anybody else.

ThatMedicIsASpy• 2 years ago

Is the $100 developer fee not required for own - non app store - apps?

dvngnt_• 2 years ago

installing it without Apple's blessing is the real problem

charcircuit4• 2 years ago

No, getting root permissions should not be possible. Having a concept of a super user which can do whatever they want is bad for security and doesn't follow the principle of least privilege. There are better ways for an OS to offer functionality than requiring such a dangerous concept to exist.

The fact that desktop and server Linux distros still have a root account, have sudo, or said binaries is evidence of how far behind they are in terms of security.

rezonant10• 2 years ago

MacOS also has sudo.

themoonisachees3• 2 years ago

The entire web runs linux successfully and securely. Suggesting that Linux is insecure is mad, especially given the attack surface.

Karellen• 2 years ago

For me, the issue is, who do I distrust less - Google or Apple?

Yes, they're both shitty in a number of ways. And while is is easier to root Android devices than it is to root iOS ones, last I checked you were still dependent on the vendor kernel and parts of the vendor display server on Android because not all of the necessary drivers and related config are upstreamed (and the lack of TIVO clauses in GPLv2 makes this possible) - meaning replacing 95% of userspace doesn't actually get you very far if your issue is not being able to trust the vendor.

I choose Apple because:

1. Apple is primarily a hardware company. When I buy their hardware, I am their customer. When they make noises about protecting my privacy, I am reasonably confident that very few parts of the business are working to undermine that. OTOH, Google is an advertising company. When I buy their hardware, my eyeballs become their product, which they rent out to their real customers, the advertisers. When they make noises about protecting my privacy, I see that as mostly marketing BS (or, "puffery") which large parts of their business are working to undermine.

2. My phone is not my primary computing device. I have a laptop running GNU/Linux that I use for most of my computing needs, including web browsing, email, and software development. I am fine with my mobile phone being an "appliance" that I use mostly for instant messaging, and occasionally checking the news and weather, taking photos, or making short temporary notes that I will (manually) transfer to my laptop later. And sometimes, even, making phone calls. But I generally stay away from "apps". No, I don't want to install your fucking app, no matter which device it would be on. Just make sure your website works.

Given those factors, I have an Apple phone.

That's not to say Apple is for everyone. My priorities are not everyone else's, and that's fine. Different people have different tradeoffs. If an Android device works better for you, that's great.

the_gipsy13• 2 years ago

Apple's no longer a hardware company, they're a platform rent extraction company. They are directly misleading and harming their users with this move, and also with the existing dark patterns around iCloud storage.

Terretta• 2 years ago

nonsensical to use a device that dictates what you can install on it

Xbox, PS, iPad are consoles. Not everyone wants to DIY the OS and app config and maintenance. Using (digital) cartridges gets all those non value added activities out of the way of just playing the game or using the app.

phartenfeller• 2 years ago

I think removing persistent storage and the ability to add websites to the home screen makes it obvious what their strategy is. The EU shows that they want interoperability for big players like they do with messenger interoperability in the DMA. The web is such a fundamental standard and its interoperability is so important I guess the EU will fine Apple for such behavior. The question is how soon this will happen.

pantulis4• 2 years ago

I guess the EU will fine Apple for such behavior. The question is how soon this will happen

Too late, I'm afraid. Apple has pulled a really smart trick against the tons of paper written by EU commissioners.

t0mas88• 2 years ago

Really smart tricks can buy you a few years, but in the end either you'll get sued for not complying with the intention of the law or the law gets changed to kill your trick.

The legal system doesn't like tricks, a "yes but I did X in a really clever way so it's not X" defence doesn't usually work.

Xelbair• 2 years ago

I think you aren't aware that EU courts judge on intent, not letter of the law.

reddalo• 2 years ago

I seriously hope the EU will intervene on this -- it's outrageous and malicious compliance.

JimDabell24• 2 years ago

Removing persistent storage

They aren’t making any policy changes relating to storage.

Apple have been progressively locking down methods websites use to persistently track people for privacy reasons. All forms of permanent storage (e.g. cookies, local storage) are limited to a seven day lifetime unless the user interacts with that website / web app. If the user keeps visiting the website / web app at least once a week, the storage remains.

Another thing Apple have been doing is using the act of installing a PWA as a signal that it should be trusted more than anything you happen to come across in a browser. So the seven day lifecycle doesn’t apply to PWAs that you install to the home screen.

What is happening now is that because PWAs installed to the home screen are no longer available in the EU, people use those PWAs through a web browser. And due to this, the seven days lifetime without user interaction starts to apply.

It’s a problem, but this specific thing isn’t a recent policy change from Apple regarding storage, it’s fallout from PWAs not having the elevated privileges from being installed to the home screen.

ThePhysicist2• 2 years ago

The 7 day limit only applies to third-party cookies / storage, that has nothing to do with progressive web apps.

rictic• 2 years ago

"I didn't delete your files, I moved them from the bucket where they aren't deleted to the bucket where they are deleted, and then according to my own policies, I deleted them. This change is mandatory."

It's a policy change that impacts storage and has the practical effect that PWAs on iOS in the EU have had the persistent storage feature removed with no replacement.

Seems fair to gloss that as "Removing persistent storage."

the_gipsy13• 2 years ago

So - effectively, apple is crippling PWAs exactly as being said. Got it.

lo0dot0• 2 years ago

They could just make cookies a user choice, but it's Apple we are talking about here, it's all about hard coding and hand holding.

veeti• 2 years ago

It really makes me wonder what makes people engage in such pointless semantic handwringing like this. Your comment even acknowledges the end result: support for PWA's and as a result persistent storage has been removed. Do you think that end users care that you can make some theoretical mental gymnastic argument about how there hasn't been a "policy change" when from any practical point of view there actually has been one?

aragilar7• 2 years ago

Not an IPhone user: but honesty I'd rather have things open an actual browser tab, as then I can interact with it via all my standard extensions (e.g. adblockers), rather than be opened in a webview.

Also, given how often you need to change phones (given build quality), if I have important data and you're a web app, I rather the server be the source of truth, and the phone a cache (so I don't loose data when the phone breaks).

beardyw• 2 years ago

Web apps are mostly optional and otherwise work as a normal web site. Differences are that some functions are exclusive to web apps, so you wouldn't get them on a web site anyway. A feature I do find annoying is the ability to save a page onto my (Android) phone screen is taken away and replaced by "install app". I work around that by going into airplane mode, fetching the page unsuccessfully, and saving that!

aragilar7• 2 years ago

That doesn't mean they don't have ads, or other things I want to work around.

sspiff• 2 years ago

This should be an option for the user then, like "Install" (as a PWA) or "Add bookmark to home screen" (as a browser tap).

There's reasons to want either, but as a heavy user of PWAs for a few online services / communities, I much prefer the former in most cases.

sebstefan• 2 years ago

With Firefox Mobile on Android, you can confiure webviews to open as Firefox webviews as well, and my extensions seem to be running because I don't see ads there. They're still webviews of course, you don't get the tabs, bookmarks etc. Just webviews with extension support.

aragilar7• 2 years ago

That's what I do as well, but still sometimes it's chrome that opens, and so a "always really open an actual browser, never a webview" would be preferrable (and more recognisable when preferences are ignored.

kevincox• 2 years ago

There used to be an option to redirect the Custom Tabs API to just open a regular Firefox tab. I loved that option as it replaced a reduced functionality API with the full thing. Too bad it got lost in the great fenix rewrite.

fuzzy28• 2 years ago

I’d like to quickly address the second paragraph. From my experience, iPhones last until their software support runs out, barring any accidents. Furthermore, PWAs need not be offline applications (so TFA overblows the data loss potential ever so slightly) but often work exactly like you want them to.

I use the Outlook PWA. It’s great because I don’t have to let my company manage (part of) my phone.

aragilar7• 2 years ago

Sure, caches make sense, and are where PWAs are a legitimate solution. But PWAs also are sold as a replacement for native apps (hint: they're not, but a whole bunch of native apps should be PWAs, or just static sites...), and the author of TFA does subscribe to that view.

rezonant10• 2 years ago

What sort of web experiences are you thinking of here? It kind of seems like you are thinking of websites.

This isn't to say some web apps don't have ads, but then again so do some native apps.

aragilar7• 2 years ago

That is at some level a distinction without a difference (and I have implemented PWAs, and tried to get them to work on mobile, including offline for significant periods of time). I've found (as a user) that most webview based apps (including those in the mobile stores) that I've used as a user tend to be held together with bits of string, and that running them in an actual browser tends to work better except in the case where there's literally no internet (i.e. for flaky internet browser beats wrapped pwa).

willi59549879• 2 years ago

I prefer websites to apps too. That way the server takes care of storing the data and you don't have to worry about backups. Still i will never buy apple products again because of their anti open stances. The last product i had from them was an iphone 4.

neoberg2• 2 years ago

these are not inherent problems to PWAs tho. The data loss situation is pretty much the same for any native app. They can choose to be local only or sync to a server. Apple can also support iCloud for PWAs in theory.

Also there is nothing stopping extensions to work for PWAs. They do on Chrome desktop and you can disable/enable extensions per app. Not an Android user (yet) so I don't know how is it on mobile.

silvestrov• 2 years ago

Apple has gamely sent $1600/yr lawyers

shouldn't this be "$1600/hr" ?

euroderf2• 2 years ago

The author was thinking of public defenders ?

slightlyoff• 2 years ago

Fixed.

euroderf2• 2 years ago

PWApocalypse

How about: aPWAcalypse

rezonant10• 2 years ago

Nice. Kinda sounds too adorable for what it is though

throwawa142233• 2 years ago

Maybe I don’t get it? I look at the list of features Apple is removing and they all seem like things I wouldn’t want a web browser to have to begin with.

the_gipsy13• 2 years ago

Just look at the timing.

And there is a simple solution too: just offer multiple browsers in the appstore.

Sander_Marechal• 2 years ago

It's not about browsers. It's about OS APIs that browsers need to support PWAs. Apple is killing those APIs so that other browsers cannot offer PWAs.

m1el• 2 years ago

Not a browser, but a PWA. It's a web page, which you can "install" as an "app". Features like storage, background tasks and notifications are important for many applications, for example a messenger. These were available, and there is a market for those, but Apple has decided to kill that market.

throwawa142233• 2 years ago

That makes a ton more sense thank you.

azangru• 2 years ago

I look at the list of features Apple is removing and they all seem like things I wouldn’t want a web browser to have to begin with.

If only Apple just removed them from Safari, and allowed other browsers to compete...

coldtea4• 2 years ago

Thank god for Apple's lacklustre support for PWAs.

Else iOS would be like macOS, with every second app from a major vendor people need to run (for work, school, banking, etc) would be the equivalent of an Electron monstrocity.

Apparently that's the dream of the author.

joemelonyeah• 2 years ago

Funny that the reverse has already happened due to Apple's lackluster support of PWAs. PWAs run with the system's browser engine, unlike Electron apps that ship with their own customized Chromium engine. Each app is only a few megabytes tops, unlike the hundreds of megabytes of bloat native apps tend to take up nowadays.

coldtea4• 2 years ago

The static megabytes on disk are not a problem [1], the runtime, battery, and memory overhead from them being written in JS+DOM is.

[1] never got anywhere near close to run out of space on iOS because of apps (at 50+ apps installed). Besides the big offenders space-wise are not general apps and their code dependencies, but games with huge asset libraries.

themoonisachees3• 2 years ago

... Are you somehow under the impression that means companies won't go back to how it was before and simply package their website as an electron app for iOS? This is the reason PWAs were invented in the first place, to avoid every app shipping an entire browser when the user-selected one was right there, if only it presented the app like an app and not a website.

Companies aren't going to magically switch to a ios-compatible framework or language, it's cheaper to keep just web devs and hire one guy that knows how to package an electron app.

coldtea4• 2 years ago

... Are you somehow under the impression that means companies won't go back to how it was before and simply package their website as an electron app for iOS?

I'm not sure there that many doing "add to home screen PWAs" in the first place, for them to be "going back".

"Add to home screen PWAs" were used by users (not many either) for convenient access to this or that website they've used, but weren't ever a major app delivery use case in iOS. So, I see the whole post more like much ado about nothing.

And while companies do just package webkit (or use system webkit) + some web app framework as iOS native apps, iOS still encourages developing proper native apps.

Which I'm all for. If Slack, VS Code and co could be forced to create fully native apps on the desktop too, I'd jump at the chance of replacing their Electron stuff with those.

timwaagh• 2 years ago

There's fortunately no need to use any apple products. The ones most hurt by this will probably be Apple. Especially if functionality breaks as stated here. It will mean the 'luxury phone brand' is now a broken phone brand at least in the EU. Apple users might switch and I think Samsung is most likely to get them.

joelanman• 2 years ago

that would be nice but when Apple dropped Flash it was Flash that died

fuzzy28• 2 years ago

It’s not that easy. I switched to iPhone mainly because of Android phone makers’ abysmal update policies. Heck, I had a Nexus 5 and it was “killed” merely 1.5 years after I bought it. Because newer Android required newer graphics drivers and Qualcomm said “no”. Supposedly things are better now, but are they really?

My iPhone 7 was my daily driver for 5 years and was only retired because I got an offer that was too good to pass up.

And then there’s also the degrading storage on many Android phones. They just become sooooo slow. My iPhone 7 is slow now, too. After 7 years, not after 3.

rezonant10• 2 years ago

Both Samsung and Google now offer 7 years of software support (security and features) on their latest phones, and Samsung is increasing that from 5 years.

And then there’s also the degrading storage on many Android phones

Citation needed.

shepherdjerred• 2 years ago

Zero non-technical users actually care about PWA support.

Affric2• 2 years ago

I am actually a moderately happy Apple user. The old phone I have is good. The smart watch works well for my needs. The laptop is light, quiet, cool, and I spend most of my productive time in a terminal.

I don’t really care about my phone as a general purpose computer.

Where the rubber hits the road for this one is what developers do. IMO the answer is to go all in on web apps. Make it obvious to the user that it’s Apple degrading the experience.

At this point of the game, all Apple will understand is churn. And it is churn. They are rent seekers.

zmmmmm• 2 years ago

I hope the EU calls them on this and mandates that they offer equivalent OS API support for 3rd party browsers to implement PWAs to what Safari had at the time their initial ruling was made. Let's then watch how fast Apple restores PWA capabilities to Safari when web sites are actively encouraging users to install third party browsers so that PWA's keep working.

Devasta• 2 years ago

Its honestly a fantastic feat of marketing that JavaScript apps outside the browser are still referred to as web apps.

fuzzy28• 2 years ago

They’re not Javascript apps though. They’re HTML with Javascript over HTTPS, rendered by a browser engine and… oh wait, that’s a website.

amadeuspagel• 2 years ago

Yes, it's only an app if it's approved in the Cupertino region of California. Anything else is a sparkling website.

boomskats• 2 years ago

The number of apologists and distractors in this comments section honestly makes me feel like it's been brigaded. I'm amazed, given how well informed this crowd typically is.

As for the topic being discussed - Apple have gone out of their way for the last _decade_ to avoid implementing things like ServiceWorkers properly. I remember having this same conversation back in 2015. It is a real shame, as things like the proposed w3c sensors api would totally eliminate the pain of deploying private/internal/enterprise apps to a fleet of employees, for example. There is so much that this enables for private apps. I won't be surprised if their decade+ old viewport meta tag reference documentation for home screen icons and status bar styling in full screen mode stops working at some point too - it's been neglected for years. It'll be a weird, heartbreaking example of corporate revisionism, especially considering Steve Jobs' original vision for apps on the iphone.

I'm not a huge fan of the big G either, but I honestly hope they take advantage of this with some clever (non-developer) product-centric marketing. PWAs are a very well thought out approach to 90% of what modern apps are. We absolutely should be sandboxing private browser instances per PWA, not shipping entire separate webkit wrappers for every app every time an app is updated. It's almost literally the same difference as shipping layered container images as updates instead of giant VM blobs. Such a huge loss.

meibo• 2 years ago

Most of the people on this site have either worked for Apple before or hold Apple stock. Regulation is directly reaching into their pockets.

Also obvious by how this post is already on 14th place after 2 hours, with more than 200 votes. (Edit: now 31, 3 hours in)

ffsm8• 2 years ago

Apple has fostered an incredibly fanatic userbase.

Most of them unironically call themselves "apple users".

They don't use a device, they've made the device part of their identity, and even implying that it's not the best thing ever created consequently becomes a personal insult.

Google and Microsoft tried to replicate that kind of brand love but were thankfully unsuccessful for the most part, so you'll always get an incredible amount of comments on anything related to Apple.

WA3• 2 years ago

5 hours in, place 65. It doesn't even have the typical flamewar indicators such as # of comments > # of upvotes.

joshstrange3• 2 years ago

Most of the people on this site have either worked for Apple before or hold Apple stock

Is this supposed to be a joke? _Most_, so over 50% of the people on HN work/worked for Apple or hold Apple stock? That’s absurd.

aragilar7• 2 years ago

The issue is things that would make sense in a workplace setting (which should be on work devices, but that ship has sailed), have real social and privacy issues (see MDMs being used as stalkerware). I worked on an app which really did need as much sensor data as possible (field notebooks for academics), but you really wouldn't want to give that level of access without oversight. The more information you can collect without needing some kind of review (which I totally agree is rarely sufficient), the more this is an issue. Ideally there are different levels (e.g. business, personal, and locked down), and you need to do the setup in person so as to reduce harm.

mrmanner• 2 years ago

Some of these changes by Apple are clearly user hostile. There's a consumer protection debate to be had about removing software features after selling a hardware + software package like this.

I think at least some of the "apologism" and "distraction" comes from more honest ideological differences though - like what should the role of the state be, what is a free market, should business be fair, how much consumer protection is the right amount...

93po6• 2 years ago

HN as a general crowd is pretty poorly informed. It does attract the odd subject matter expert on some topics but I feel like half the comments I read on any subject are really off the mark, which I am sure mine are too

chillfox3• 2 years ago

I have yet to try an “installed” PWA on any device that actually worked correctly when I needed it most, so I will take a shitty electron or web view wrapper app over a PWA any day.

rambambram2• 2 years ago

Although I agree with the article and the obvious sh!t move Apple is making, one needs to keep making a distinction between PWAs and web apps in general. Not every 'web app' needs local storage or push notifications.

Besides, I heard the 'simple' web apps still can have a place on the homescreen. Can anybody with an iPhone tell me if that works like the video from the article? Is it just with an address bar?

fuzzy28• 2 years ago

The video in the article (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AST12aDGf0Q) shows that PWAs are completely gone. They are degraded to pinned bookmarks that open in your default browser. Yes, you can still pin bookmarks, as you always(?) could, but those are not PWAs.

Only PWAs can offer a true app-like experience.

rambambram2• 2 years ago

Correct me if I'm wrong, but these "pinned bookmarks" can be on the homescreen like a link that opens in your default browser, right?

Only PWAs can offer a true app-like experience.

If one's definition of an app requires push notifications and local storage.

I get the d!ck move from Apple, but web apps can be way simpler without push notifications and storage on a server under your control. To me personally, push notifications and local storage are overrated.

1vuio0pswjnm7• 2 years ago

FruitCo and the Chocolate Factory love to ramble on about "security" but considering how "untouchable" these companies are, coupled with their evasive, callous behaviour toward "users" as well as any reasonable notion of transparency, it would be insane to assume they care about you or your data even one iota, except to the extent they can exploit you. And they can do so with ease. The risk of losing you as a "user" is almost nonexistant. There is nowhere else to go. Thus, the greatest threats to a computer owner's "security" are, in fact, FruitCo and the Chocolate Factory. There is no defense and no escape. Common cybercriminals are a joke by comparison.

FruitCo and the Chocolate Factory will never allow computer users to protect themselves from FruitCo and the Chocolate Factory. "Trust" is assumed. It's not like they ever ask you, "Do you want to trust us?"

Of course, you can always give up and ignore the threat. You can claim you trust one of these companies. You can wax on about how one is better than the other. But the threat remains. They can do whatever they want, no matter how irrational or "evil", and we are watching them do so in real-time. It did not take much to get them to show their true colors. What if business were to really get worse. Imagine what they could do. They could set new levels for douchebag behaviour. Unstoppable.

neoberg2• 2 years ago

I've always been an Apple ecosystem user. Both main devices and accesories. Apart from my first one, all my smartphones had been Apple. I've only used Apple computers since 15 years.

But that's it. Once my current iPhone breaks (and I took my protector off), I'm not buying another one. This is malicious compliance at the expense of user.

joshstrange3• 2 years ago

I feel like something that gets brushed off on HN all the time is:

Do people actually want PWAs?

In my experience the answer is a resounding “NO”.

Android supports PWAs but they aren’t taking the world by storm. My Android friends don’t use any that I’m aware of and if you ask them about it they just get a blank look on the faces.

Heck, businesses don’t care about PWAs or websites even. I work in this space, I’ve written well over 10 cross platform apps (web/iOS/Android) and not only do they not care about PWAs but they don’t care much about the web. It’s the same codebase and normally we get the web version up and running first so we tell them they can start playing with it on their phone in the browser. They literally do not even open it until we provide the app version to them. I know because only once there is an app do we hear _any_ feedback. No matter how many times we tell them it’s the same, that they can start doing user acceptance testing or QA early, or to just check the UI/colors to make sure it’s what they want. They don’t care until it’s an app.

93po6• 2 years ago

I want PWAs in instances where the alternative is no app or no feature at all. For instance I use Firefox in iOS but it’s massively crippled (no extension support) thanks to Apple being shitheads. If the only option to have extension support is with PWA then I 100% want PWA

chillfox3• 2 years ago

Nope, every PWA I have used ended up loosing data. They are universally shit across all devices/os I have tried.

remram• 2 years ago

Do I want apps that install instantly from the page, can't reach into my photos or contacts, and that even I can develop for all platforms without learning OS-specific APIs? Yes. I use some already, though a lot of apps today are mobile-friendly versions of websites, so I just use the website (e.g. Twitter, YouTube, FreshRSS, ...)

Affric2• 2 years ago

that even I can develop

This gives away that you are not a regular consumer.

pornel2• 2 years ago

People have been trained to look for apps in the app stores. PWAs aren't there, and have a different installation method, for technical reasons that shouldn't matter in most cases.

If you ask differently: do you want apps that install almost instantly, and take almost no space on your phone? A lot of people would be interested.

Renting a scooter or charging an EV tends to require native apps for no good reason. These apps can be 100MB+ large, and it's infuriating to install them when paying for roaming, or being somewhere in the middle-of-nowhere where it takes ages to download. The QR-code-linked page that merely redirects to an app store could have been the app itself!

syndeo• 2 years ago

Well Apple's proposed solution is App Clips, which is what Spin (and perhaps others?) use: https://developer.apple.com/app-clips/

Of course, an efficiently-coded webpage (e.g. no JS-heavy libs) could also work, with arguably less hassle all-around. But native apps do tend to "feel" nicer.

frodowtf• 2 years ago

... very low user adoption of Home Screen web apps.

Well, if nobody wants to play with our total clusterfuck of inconsistent APIs, we might as well drop support for them >:(

niutech• 2 years ago

I've proposed a workaround for bringing back PWA support to iOS: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39454792

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