Apple is attempting to leverage its position as a platform holder, as it always has, by threatening the open web. It's APIs to support the web platform are shockingly, even purposely, terrible and it uses it's app developer licence to ensure that open development cannot happen on its closed OS. Worse, it doesn't even play on an even playing field, as it ensures that the WebView that developers are required to use is less up to date than the already poor Safari browser on iOS. This is anti-competitive and is the way Apple has always operated.
The EU has enacted its laws to protect users and developers working with the platform from these limitations. PWAs are just a part of it (see per install charges, WebView limitations, Apple malicious compliance). It's pretty obvious that Apple will not allow its AppStore cash cow to be tampered with so they will need to be strongarmed.
Well, first it came out in the Epic trial that 90% of App Store revenue comes from games and in app purchases. Those companies aren’t going to move to the web because they want the direct access to users wallets that they get from the in app purchase mechanisms.
People aren’t as willing to put their credit card on random sites and people have access to pay via in app purchases that don’t have access to credit cards.
But you still didn’t answer the question, if it were just Apple, then why aren’t companies abandoning the Google Plau Store in droves and just creating PWAs that will work on Android devices and PCs and avoid the “Google tax”?
It isn't about abandoning the app stores, it's about offering reasonable alternatives, whether they be alternative app stores or first class web apps. There's definitely reasons to create native apps, which is why Apple created the AppStore in the first place (we all know that when the iPhone launched, it was only web apps), heavy graphics games being a big one, but simply removing existing functionality in response to being forced to allow these alternatives is just Apple throwing the dummy out of the pram.
For the record, Google has always allowed alternative app stores, browser engines and PWAs and has not suffered much in terms of financial loss but they are used to playing on the open web whereas Apple's financial model is more like Microsoft's (at least in software)
Well, there is an existence proof by the lack of PWA adoption on Android and that companies aren’t forgoing the expense of creating native Android apps, that PWAs aren’t a “reasonable alternative” today on either platform.
So you are going to compare “every person you know” to the fact that hardly any company or app developer is exclusively creating an iOS app and telling Android users just use the web since PWA support is so good?
You really don't get how the human emotion plays into this, huh?
Happy to break it down.
iOS user installs your service's app. Android user wants to then install one-click Google Play Store, feels like a second-class citizen if they're instead directed to find a URL to log in, forced to create their own bookmark....
By focusing marketing on the App Store, and "Apps", which led to those goofy badges (App Store, Play Store, now Samsung/Amazon App Store sometimes), Apple made native apps "the thing". If you don't have those badges on your site or in your ad, you're not signaling you're "real".
But it's just a social trend, at the end of the day.
We can make the app's functionality the same, or better, wherever we want. Even in Safari gulp.
Link, bookmark, and to home screen not needed.
Pwas can be installed from the store... Native has zero arguments except if ya really need something the web can't do or if you're a bad dev.
Neither did the necessity to add cookie collection warnings to all sites that use them. In spite of what some Americans believe, if the EU sneezes, the US catches a cold (and vice versa, for the record)
Electron is a useful hack with the same resource problems as Chrome rather than an ideal solution.
More the point though, PWAs are part of the existing web ecosystem. Apple has dragged its heels bringing Safari and their Webview up to spec on anything that might damage the AppStore ecosystem for years. They've also forced browser developers to use their webview instead of the browser's engines and has kept the API broken for functionality which they support in Safari - I mean try running a webrtc application in both safari and either chrome or firefox on iOS and see the problems.
By enforcing the Webview on everyone they also ensure that all web developers need to have a mac to debug Safari specific issues that happen on a level unseen since IE7.
The EU is simply telling Apple they can't leverage this anti-competitive behaviour, just like they rightly did for Microsoft in the 90s and Apple are just trying to salt the earth in the EU. It's a joke
And you still didn’t dispute anything I said. If it’s only Apple keeping the wonderful world of PWAs back, why are the same companies that create iOS apps creating Android apps instead of just creating a PWA?
Signed - Apple is collectively behaving like a spoilt child throwing a tantrum because the stupid-head EU said that it can't force the app ecosystem on everyone along with the broken webview. Finally we can get some good browser engines on the platform so they decide to pull a unity with the per install charges and pull in-place functionality from PWAs.
One is App Store distribution. The per install license thing is bullshit but it might comply with the law. Keep in mind the DMA was written to privilege companies like Spotify, not to give you a property right to install whatever you want on your own device.
The other issue, which deals with a different DMA rule, is that Apple can’t privilege WebKit over other rendering engines. That means PWAs have to be able to run in any rendering engine installed.
To make that work, they’d have to build out APIs to allow third party rendering engines to do all that WebKit does to render PWAs. Or they could disable PWAs altogether and then nothing is privileged.
Seems like a case study in unintended consequences. If the EU has consulted with anyone who understands technology, this could have been explained beforehand. Or maybe it was. Either way, the WebKit issue might be lazy compliance but it doesn’t strike me as malicious.
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