Apple likes the idea fine, they just don’t want every website in the universe being able to send notifications to a user’s device. I don’t understand why people don’t see why that’s a bad idea.
It's more about bridging the gap between mobile and web. Installable web apps that have as much access to the OS as a native app (through user-initiated consent) is a great direction to move towards.
The browser can now run any language through web assembly, threads and all. The HTML/CSS layer is just a portable, expressive markup for visual assets.
I made a fitness goal tracking web app that worked completely offline. If you've used "strong" on android, it's basically a free clone that.
It stored all the records on the browser via indexeddb and the timer would ping you with a push notification when the rest timer would expire.
iOS erases the persisted storage after 7 days and doesn't let me use push notifications. I'd love it if iOS asked "hey this web app wants to store data long term" or whatever, but it doesn't.
I would be down with this if apps aren't allowed to ask for notification permissions until the user adds it to the home screen, the same way that game controller and full screen work now. Therefore the user consented for it to "become an app".
If Apple like the idea fine then they don’t fund/pay attention to it accordingly. Safari is full of weird PWA bugs and long standing ones, too.
As for the notifications, it’s easily solved. Softest touch: don’t let a notification prompt show without there being a user interaction first. Hardest touch: only allow it for webapps that are installed to the home screen.
I have a much less charitable view: Apple doesn’t like webapps because they’re a threat to the App Store ecosystem. Not so much from a monetary perspective but an exclusivity one: if you can run all the exact same apps on all mobile platforms they lose an edge. (though I’m sure they don’t mind the money either!)
> Apple doesn’t like webapps because they’re a threat to the App Store ecosystem
Steve Jobs in 2010:
>"We have two platforms we support. One is completely open and uncontrolled and that is HTML 5. We support HTML 5. We have the best support for HTML 5 of anyone in the world. We then support a curated platform, which is the App Store."
Just because Steve Jobs said it doesn’t make it true. Apple have lagged behind webapp standards for years. Even with the release of iOS 14.5 there are no notes about changes in the browser, despite there being a bunch.
Claiming Apple fully support the web because of something a former CEO said in a marketing presentation over a decade ago just doesn’t work.
