> the reason why we can't have nice things like progressive web apps
I.e. implying that progressive web apps are only possible if a specific set of features are supported everywhere. It’s like saying that accessibility is only possible if no users have disabilities.
I feel like I’m repeating myself, but the whole concept of “progressive” web apps is to be resilient to these variations in which features are implemented.
> but the whole concept of “progressive” web apps is to be resilient to these variations
Your confusion comes from your personal definition of "Progressive Web App"
For sure the confusion starts from their name, but in short «A progressive web application (PWA) is a type of application software delivered through the web, built using common web technologies including HTML, CSS and JavaScript. It is intended to work on any platform that uses a standards-compliant browser, including both desktop and mobile devices.»
Emphasis on any platform that uses a standards-compliant browser, in this case Safari is not standard compliant.
A Progressive Web App (or PWA in short) is not the same thing of "progressive enhancement" or "graceful degradation" for regular Web Application.
Those are just some of the features, but it doesn't stops there.
Some of the fundamental charateritics of a PWA include being
- App-like — Feels like an app to the user with app-style interactions and navigation
- Re-engageable — Ability to use push notifications to maintain engagement with the user
As you can see being able to notify the user is a key feature of a PWA.
Which is not possible if some vendor refuses to implement the standard features that narrow the gap between Web and Native, like Apple is deliberately doing with Safari.
It's not too hard to make them work without those features, that's not the point, the point is it's impossible to have the same feature set on every platform because one vendor in particular doesn't want you to, they want you to develop native applications which is vastly more costly and it feels like wasting effort and money on something that should have worked with almost the same capabilities on all the major platforms with little or no modifications. It's true everywhere, except on Apple mobile devices, where you can't even chose the web rendering engine.
Not sure what you’re quoting in italics there. But it’s certainly not my “personal definition of the term”, it’s the origin of the term [1]. The idea was to take progressive enhancement so far that a regular website can progressively become something app-like. Over time, people seem to have forgotten why we call them progressive, and think it just means they’re entitled to use every idea that someone in W3C’s Department of Feature Creep put their stamp of approval on.
> the reason why we can't have nice things like progressive web apps
I.e. implying that progressive web apps are only possible if a specific set of features are supported everywhere. It’s like saying that accessibility is only possible if no users have disabilities.