
App Clips for iOS - wodow
https://developer.apple.com/app-clips/
======
danpalmer
I'm excited for what this means for categories of apps that many users
currently consider to be "junk" – restaurant ordering apps, parking apps,
venue apps.

There are many of these, and we often don't want download these, or when we
finally cave in and do download them the friction of notifications and
eventual deletion is a pain.

With App Clips, and some of the features like "no install", 8 hours of push
notifications and the ability to confirm a fixed location without location
permissions, I think the UX is going to be significantly improved.

~~~
smnrchrds
What incentive do parking and venue apps have to implement this? The audience
is captive. They push the app because either they do not want to spend the
engineering effort to make a usable website or they want to siphon data from
their clients. In either case, they will not have an incentive to spend more
engineering time to get less data from customers.

~~~
Shank
> What incentive do parking and venue apps have to implement this?

As a good example, a parking meter app is simply there to collect money at the
meter. An App Clip is small, which will be way faster to download than the
full app, and enable a user to pay much faster than before. In a situation
where you want people to get an app but know that they're time constrained and
that app is how you get paid, you'll implement it because it'll make sense to
implement.

I've personally given up on bike and scooter rental apps because the time to
download and setup was frustrating. For those cases, this would be awesome.

~~~
baddox
But as mentioned, the audience is captive. If there was another parking option
around the corner they would have used that. I don't think parking lots care
how long it takes you to download their app and pay.

~~~
Slippery_John
Not really, there are often other options. Different lots nearby using
different systems, for instance. Or the option of simply _not paying_ and
risking getting towed / a ticket.

A parking lot clip could use the time-based notification to warn you that your
meter is almost up and give you the option to re-up. Without having to walk
back to the lot to do it. I imagine this would be especially useful in a
tourist-heavy area since somebody who isn't sticking around won't want to
download a whole app for the purpose.

~~~
neurostimulant
I kinda doubt that parking lot management companies would be willing to pay
Apple's 30% transaction fee though.

~~~
majormajor
Apple's fees are on digital goods, not physical ones. Amazon doesn't pay a fee
for me to place a physical order in the Amazon app, nor does the laundry app
in my old apartment building.

~~~
neurostimulant
I thought parking counts as a service, not physical goods, but then again I
think I paid parking via app in the past, with external payment gateway, so
you're probably right.

~~~
dwaite
The in-app purchase system is the one which takes a fee, and is only sometimes
required (and only _usable_) for services or digital goods consumed in the app
itself.

Any real world good or service would fall onto Apple Pay, which makes its
money through a micro fee on the card issuer, basically to use the phone as a
convenient, highly fraud-resistant card.

------
philplckthun
I’m not sure why this isn’t highlighted more often, but I don’t see this just
as a take on making web apps less relevant for iOS users.

Rather what I see is a system to take on and take back control from the “app
in app” WeChat ecosystem that has taken over so many parts of everyday life in
China.

It seems to me that Apple is looking to replicate that success, and sees the
potential for apps that users don’t want to keep around permanently.

It is indeed sad that this may discourage companies further from building
solid web apps, especially if Android counters this system with their own, but
I think it’ll mainly be interesting to see if and how it’ll affect WeChat in
China.

~~~
plokiju21
Android actually already has something similar:
[https://developer.android.com/topic/google-play-
instant](https://developer.android.com/topic/google-play-instant)

~~~
jeroenhd
Only Google Android, neither my current nor my previous phone have had the
option to use instant apps.

Maybe it's a region lock thing (I'm not in the US) but it's not globally
available on all Play Services devices so I don't know what the point of
putting effort into Instant Apps really is. It only makes sense to support all
of Google Android or none of Google Android.

------
sktrdie
I'm gonna be the web guy... have we given up on the web completely? Why not
improve the signup/payments experience using Web APIs? Why not integrate
safari more closely to what is required with these App Clips?

It seems the only real reason that Apple isn't doing this is because it wants
people to build for their App Store so they have control and possible revenue
stream.

From a dev perspective this feels like a lock-in: yet another platform to
support

~~~
solarkraft
All the cynical comments about Apple's ecosystem motivation certainly apply,
but there's one much more mundane reason: UX.

The best PWA still feels vastly worse than native versions (my reference is
Twitter) and for Apple that's a huge factor, which I respect a lot.

~~~
theschwa
I'd also add reducing friction. It seems the goal here is to reduce the amount
of time it takes to get the user to the exact functionality they need in the
shortest amount of time with a user experience that makes it feel seamless.

~~~
vxNsr
A QR code is exactly the same thing. If you wanna talk NFC... how many people
do you think are gonna buy apple's proprietary NFC broadcaster? either way
though apple could use the same API to call a public website instead of a
private call to a handicapped app.

They're still downloading MBs of data. Not sure how big most websites are
these days but I would surprised if most app clips don't go right up to that
10MB limit.

------
jonplackett
This will be really useful when the AR goggles launch. And for interesting AR
or other fun (but ultimately throwaway) experiences before that.

There's so much cool stuff you can only do with an app but currently there's
just too much friction. I hear someone say "No one downloads apps anymore"
daily. Well, now they don't have to, and we can still make the fun thing we
want to.

------
saagarjha
The 10 MB limit is going to be very interesting, because it would instantly
preclude the use of many SDKs that apps bundle these days "as a given". Unless
there's a massive shift, things like Facebook login and analytics frameworks
are just not going to work…maybe it'll cause developers to drop them from
their full apps as well?

~~~
ChrisMarshallNY
As a native Swift developer, I can live with this.

I used to spend a lot of time, optimizing 8-bit images (PNG8), but gave it up,
some time ago.

This looks like I may want to revisit that exercise.

~~~
krzat
Perhaps that's why Xcode 12 supports SVGs now. Supposedly on iOS 13 they won't
rasterized during build.

~~~
ChrisMarshallNY
Yay!

I've heard that SVG has been supported for a while, but I have not used them
(yet).

------
gerash
IMHO both this and the Android Instant Apps are half assed ideas.

The ultimate goal should be working towards having the ephemeral nature of web
apps while maintaining the native app performance. That is, access to raw
sensors, running native code rather than JS and working offline. I know it's
technically challenging but that should be the direction.

~~~
saagarjha
> That is, access to raw sensors, running native code rather than JS and
> working offline.

So, a native app?

~~~
solarkraft
GP wants web apps that feel native. I'm not sure that'll happen mid-term.

~~~
jamil7
If you'd asked my 5 years ago I would have said the web would dominate. Now
I'm not so sure (although I'm also currently working in mobile). It feels like
by the time we get to something like webapps that feel native they may not
really be webapps anymore, maybe something like what google is doing with
Flutter or something WASM based that can run on anything.

------
shay_ker
I'm curious what Apple Pay and App Clips means for the ongoing browser wars
and the web in general. The more and more Apple or Google create products that
only work with _their_ hardware and _their_ browsers, where does that leave
everyone else?

Imagine scenarios like:

\- Want to use Apple Pay on your laptop? You'll need Safari!

\- Want to redeem a reward off a QR code in a store with your friends? If you
switch to Safari right now, no problem!

\- Want to pay your parking meter in a rush? Safari has you covered!

I'm aware of Google Play Instant, and I assume that App Clips will only
accelerate the adoption of both technologies. But will they be adopted at the
same rate, or with the same quality?

And where does that leave the users? The web was wonderful in that, as long as
you can access a website, you can have a (hopefully/roughly) similar UX. Now
it feels like that semblance of access is being eroded with more ecosystem
lock-in.

Is it possible to open this up?

~~~
macNchz
Reminds me of ActiveX in the late 90s/early 2000s...tons of web applications
developed exclusively for Internet Explorer on Windows. As a Mac user in high
school/college at the time, I occasionally had to use the shared computers in
the school library just to use certain web apps that were built with ActiveX.

------
zuhayeer
I thought App Clips were the most exciting part of iOS 14. I think there’s a
real opportunity to utilize this for some guerrilla marketing (I hear a lot of
it will work through deeplinking). It seems like a lot of it will be purchase
intent based, but I can also imagine once Yelp implements this, you can
deeplink to a 5 star rating. A Soundcloud rapper can now have folks scan into
their new song and get a preview.

Let these companies build the integrations and find creative use cases around
them!

~~~
macNchz
Given how often I encounter very broken deeplinks on iOS, this doesn't make me
especially optimistic if there will now be another layer to it...I regularly
click links on my iPhone that dump me into the app store despite already
having the app installed, or that will open the app for a brief moment, only
to switch me back into Safari, or banners on products/posts/pages that prompt
me to "View in App" that just don't actually work properly.

I haven't personally worked on an app with deeplinks in a few years, so I'm
not sure what's going on, but it seems to be a widespread issue.

------
codegladiator
> Instead of asking for credit card information, you can take payments using
> Apple Pay.

But can I ask for credit card information and not use "Apple Pay". The
"instead" is super weird there.

Also, why not just PWA ?

~~~
reaperducer
_But can I ask for credit card information and not use "Apple Pay". The
"instead" is super weird there._

"Apple Pay" doesn't mean Apple Card. You can have a bunch of different credit
cards loaded into Apple Pay.

 _Also, why not just PWA ?_

I hope companies go with this instead of PWA for the simple reason of bloat.
Apple's payload restriction on App Clips is something like 10MB. Most PWA's
blow that cap loading the page header and footer.

~~~
vbezhenar
It's not like something won't allow those App Clips to download 100 MB after
launch.

~~~
MBCook
They are limited to 10 megs of storage space. Unless you download the real app
they can’t do that.

------
jbverschoor
Ah. The good old times when you tried to squeeze your game into 10mb, optimize
the hell out of it, so it was downloadable over cellular. These days apps are
humongous without good reason

------
pier25
So for Apple it's OK that you download a temporary app from a website but they
refuse to give PWAs access to essential features such as push notifications.

~~~
hn_check
Yes. And that is okay for the vast majority of consumers as well.

Are there compelling PWAs on other platforms that are killer apps? Somehow
Apple always gets called out here (despite being one of the first to support
PWAs and to enable advanced functionality), yet the average Android user I
suspect has approximately zero PWAs installed. The average Windows user -
Zero. The average Linux user - Zero.

Make some killer PWAs that people cry for and the user base will demand it.
But as is it seems to be mostly dreaming and imagination that Apple is the
boogieman.

~~~
pier25
HEY could have been a PWA. The UI is just web after all.

Edit:

Also, an argument could be made that because Apple doesn't really want PWAs on
iOS nobody is investing in make a good one for mobile.

------
dmart
If App Clips launch instantly enough, this could be the beginning of a sort of
"parallel Web" that delivers native applications instead of HTML. Which, of
course, has both benefits and drawbacks. But it's an interesting idea.

------
chungus_khan
What are people's thoughts on this compared to Google Play Instant? It seems
quite similar to me on first glance, but the special QR codes seem like a good
idea for making them more appealing to advertise/try.

~~~
mav3rick
It's Google so they won't acknowledge that Google did it first. Will post
comments on how they use Firefox and DDG.

~~~
jmull
Does it matter who did it first? Why would Apple mention or acknowledge this
in developer documentation or, really anywhere else?

It's not like it's a big secret they are trying to hold or a fraud they are
perpetuating. Why is there anything wrong with not advertising it?

~~~
mav3rick
I am talking about people on HN and not Apple.

~~~
jmull
Ah, well, you were responding to a post that acknowledges Google Instant Play,
so maybe not a great spot to claim HN people won't acknowledge Instant Play.

~~~
mav3rick
Just look at the other comments.

~~~
jmull
There are a bunch of comments talking about Google Instant Play, and none
denying it came first that I can see.

------
donarb
One overlooked feature of this feature is the Sign in with Apple. You can use
the App Clip to make a purchase and at the same time you give the vendor an
anonymous email address which they can use to contact you with more
information about their service. If you don't want any information, you can
cancel that anonymous address.

I don't see how this can be done in a web app.

~~~
shafyy
There is Sign in with Apple on the web, too.

------
derefr
Aside: when did Apple start putting out polished PR pages like this to
"market" features to developers? I feel like this year is the first time I'm
seeing them.

There definitely wasn't anything like this push for when Core Data or Ubiquity
came along, even though they both would have greatly benefited from it. The
only pages for individual features I recall pure consumer-focused "explainers"
of the benefits+implications of things like Gatekeeper, iCloud, or Time
Machine.

Is this just because this year's WWDC is online? Were they doing this sort of
"hey, pay attention, this exists now, you should try building with it" PR in
person before?

~~~
seanalltogether
Apple probably knows that developers aren't the ones making the decisions on
whether to implement app clips or not, product managers or the developers
clients are.

------
dangus
This was probably the only part of the WWDC keynote that left a sour taste in
my mouth.

It’s the opposite of what I want.

On the other hand, for the companies that _insist_ on apps, I guess it’s an
improvement. Kind of.

------
BiteCode_dev
So what google have done for the web with AMP, apple is doing to apps with
clips?

I feel like this could be achieved with better HTML5 support from the iPhone
and the promotion of light PWA instead.

~~~
anon102010
Every time I read these comments I realize that apple is going to dominate
again. A PWA is not vetted! If you complain about a PWA apple cannot take it
down!

In your PWA / QR code utopia, after someone sticks a few bogus QR codes on
parking meters, scooters and bike rentals etc that point to their phising PWA
- trust is going to be toast.

Seriously - chrome getting rid of subdomains used to trick users
(wellsfargo.securedomain.com) in the browser bar also generated lots of
complaints - and also helps users.

Is this just a HN thing? Screw the 1B users who can't be bothered to become
experts on every weird scam / original headers review etc? Because it get's a
bit tiring on literally every thing that google / apple do.

~~~
wayneftw
> If you complain about a PWA apple cannot take it down!

Browsers already protect people against malicious sites.

You never saw Chrome warn you about it?

~~~
anon102010
I don't think you realize how easy it is to setup a new website. The apple
store doesn't have a lot of friction to sign up as a developer and get an app
approved, but it has some. Websites are far far easier / quicker etc, and
despite browser warnings phishing attacks continue to be very successful. This
includes lots of creative options such as windows.net domains using azure
cloud compute, cloudfront and CDN domains to host, content coming from places
like dropbox, google sites etc.

We actually already know browser warnings are not enough because there
continue to be incredible attack volumes in this area with malicious websites
as landing pages.

------
ozten
ClickJacking target?

I would have expected the App Clip UI to have better integration with OS or
Safari browser chrome, so that it wouldn't be possible to spoof from a web
page.

Since it floats entirely within content, it seems like you could make a click
jacking attack from a Safari experience.

Just one screenshot, maybe this is mitigated somehow...

~~~
jedieaston
The app clips still have to go through app review and the user is asked for
consent before it is downloaded and launched. You also have to create them as
part of a full app in the App Store (although for the restaurant ordering
scenario, GrubHub or whoever would make an app clip for the small restaurant
that didn't have a presence on the App Store).

~~~
ozten
Right. This would be simulating an app clip via HTML5 to trick a user into
thinking they are using a safe app clip, but actually it is just a web page.

------
EGreg
So is this exactly like Google Play Instant Apps?

[https://developer.android.com/topic/google-play-
instant](https://developer.android.com/topic/google-play-instant)

~~~
dewey
Have you seen it being used in the wild already?

~~~
isiahl
Instant Apps have been around 4 years now (just a guess) and I've only
encountered them twice. When going to a Vimeo link or a CBC link.

------
MarkSweep
It looks like this is a new way to get remote code execution on a locked
iPhone:

> NFC Tags: Users can tap their iPhone on NFC tags that you place at specific
> locations to launch an app clip, even from the lock screen.

I assume you would have to still get your app through the App Store review,
but once you get past that you "just" need a sandbox escape or a privilege
escalation bug to own the device. I suspect this feature will be taken
advantage of by forensics software.

------
solarkraft
Yes, Android has had it for years.

The difference is that Apple will actually ship it, it will work and provide
benefit.

------
gregsadetsky
Sorry, I didn't follow the launch. Does anyone know whether App Clips can
consume/produce audio? I'm working on a musical app -- is there a way for us
to "demo" our app in App Clip format, considering that it uses the mic +
speaker? Thanks!

~~~
nexuist
Supposedly App Clips can use every framework available to a normal app, except
for HealthKit, which they explicitly prohibited. They did mention that App
Clips can activate the camera, so I'd guess you can at least ask for
microphone permissions.

~~~
gregsadetsky
That’s very encouraging, thank you!

------
whytaka
I really think this is revolutionary. With Sign-In with Apple and Apple Pay,
it's going to make real world digital commerce much more streamlined with
Apple mediating as a guarantor for both sides. Like WeChat but unlike WeChat
because privacy is respected.

------
codysan
Looks like this could give Apple a bit of a head start with fleshing out some
of their AR app offerings out in the real world. I imagine these will
translate quite nicely into rOS / StarBoard, which gives Apple a slew of apps
to use on day one.

------
ngcc_hk
May be I am old. Even though this is so different, I have the same feeling of
sidekick in the DOS world ... do not know why.

------
xyst
I am actually excited to see this in the wild.

I wonder how well it would work when cell reception is very bad (indoors or
3G)

------
miohtama
Apple has a patent on context sensitive app installs/appearances. Come acrosa
it some years ago.

------
silentfishwm
We have been using these micro-apps in China since almost four years ago...

------
mdszy
I wonder how much of a potential there is for abuse with this system, one
thing I thought of during the keynote was:

1\. Someone sticks a malicious NFC tag on one of those rental scooters that
opens a malicious App Clip

2\. The App Clip _seems_ like it could be for the rental service

3\. App Clip maliciously takes your money and runs.

Wonder how much something like that could become a problem or if Apple would
be good enough about preventing/stopping it.

~~~
jdminhbg
The defense here is presumably the same as against a "Starbux" app that faked
orders to Starbucks and kept the money: it would either not make it past App
Review and into the store or as soon as someone was scammed and complained, it
would be taken down.

