https://realness.online is my PWA only application, So, I've got a front row seat to apple's monopoly fulcrum killing all desenters.
if you install https://whatpwacando.today/ on a phone or ipad today you can see how they already barely support standards.
Only basic things work. filesystem access is only halfway. no Contact picker, no background sync. They will destroy the user experience for everyone in order to disable other browsers more robust implementations of the spec.
They have been monopoly gaming us for years The EU is forcing them to go out in the open with it
We all know that nontechnical users click through those and won’t understand the risks. So how do browser devs deal with the ethics? “Our browser presented them a dialog, not our fault, they should have read it?” We know many won’t, I don’t care whose fault it is if I’m in that address book.
If we want to imagine a world where websites have equivalent capabilities to native apps, first imagine a world where people install hundreds of new random native apps every day, both unreviewed and unsigned. Or, accept Microsoft requiring each website publisher to verify their identity with MS and sign their sites, like app developers? What’s the solution to avoid rolling back the security model 10-15 years?
what is "installed" is js, css, html etc. files downloaded the second you go to a web site, service workers are silently "installed" before and without "install web app"...
so if your device survived the last 10-30 years having "installed" thousands of websites already then you will stay safe if your favourite monopoly after 3 years of prolonging app store revenue hit finally lets you run your website standalone and with the push of a button
you can run LastPass native clones on ios store but really, you should not run a chrome/firefox native code (from Google, Mozilla) that is governed by an open source readable js code that a service worker is?
the whole web app is a website run in standalone by the browser without browser UI and with access to some things IF you say so... and of course competition is that safari will not let web bluetooth or file picker or whatever and if people learn that another chrome feature led to this big security issue they will use safari...
Right now Apple devices don't offer that and violate our consumer rights by limiting and dictating what software we can run on it. It also uses this control to exploit us - by forcing us to install software only from the app store, we are unnecessarily forced to pay extra for every paid software because Apple expects a hefty app store commission on it.
Looking at the CanIUse stats for the features you complained about made me wonder if your whole post is meant to be sarcastic.
- the contacts api spec is draft, and can be enabled as an experimental feature in Safari 17
- the file system access api is a Google-sponsored draft and not "fully supported" by any browser; Safari and chrome both support the same thing on mobile: "Origin private file system".
- the background sync api is yet another Google-sponsored unofficial draft.
You are simply giving far too much credit to a company known for its vague communications and underhanded tactics. Also note that the exceedingly detailed documentation for building "alternative browser engines" [2] has literally zero mention of progressive web apps. All the signs are in the air: it's busted and going to stay that way.
[1] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/ios-ipados-release... [2] https://developer.apple.com/support/alternative-browser-engi...
Sounds like the comfy position of someone with nothing to lose from such a thing shipping in a finished build.
Bloggers could be less sensational about it for sure though.
Had Apple not been pressured into a communication update on the matter the conversation would be starting at 0 a month from now.
the website you use can be an app if well written
"install" is not needed, the bad wording "install" is just a switch to standalone mode from tab view (and get a direct launch button etc.)
by web apps (standalone websites) the browser stays as the running environment on top of OS, the web security model and trust stays intact
competition law will demolish anything with time that hinders web apps
it is sad we have to fight for this to happen
I think under steve jobs apple would have the best web browser beating chrome and they would have converted app store monopoly revenue to other sources of revenue based on excellence, not monopoly
My understanding of the third-party browser requirements in the DMA is they have to be able to do anything Apple’s Safari can do if they want to, and while Apple’s built out a bunch of entitlements for browsers and other DMA requirements, they haven’t done the same work for PWAs. Yet?
So given that, it would actually violate the DMA if Safari supported them but Chrome and Firefox couldn’t, and they’re not going to allow that until they’ve taken the time to figure out how they want to proceed, if at all, with allowing it for third-party browsers.
