[HN Gopher] iOS 16 to support Web push notifications in 2023
___________________________________________________________________
iOS 16 to support Web push notifications in 2023
Author : judge2020
Score : 128 points
Date : 2022-06-06 19:02 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.apple.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.apple.com)
| phillipseamore wrote:
| Obligatory "HN post about Safari" note: Still waiting on MSE and
| fullscreen (for elements) API on iOS, both supported on macOS and
| ipadOS for years.
| 9999 wrote:
| It's utterly absurd that iOS on the iPhone still doesn't
| support Media Source Extensions.
| dawiddr wrote:
| WKWebView has some new APIs that suggest this might be the
| lucky year for fullscreen, both on iOS and iPadOS.
| phillipseamore wrote:
| Interesting, though fullscreen for any element (not just
| video) has been available on iPadOS for some years now.
| phillipseamore wrote:
| Why do so many find it necessary to downvote my comment?
|
| MediaSourceExtensions are vital for supporting media in Safari
| (and already available in iPadOS and MacOS [and under the hood
| on iOS for VP8/9 support]) and the fullscreen API for arbitrary
| elements is necessary to support video + slides (or other
| sideloaded material) and to support captions/subtitles that
| need features not supported with regular textracks.
| MBCook wrote:
| I didn't, but I'll hazard a guess.
|
| "Safari is the new IE" has been the meme for years, despite
| the fact the situation is totally different. Any time Safari
| is mentioned or gets a new feature it's just posts from
| people complaining Safari doesn't support WebUSB or whatever
| their pet feature is.
|
| So Safari added the one I see people complaining about more
| than anything else. The top complaint on HN for literally
| years.
|
| And you just switched your complaining to something else.
| Most people here are celebrating they got something they've
| wanted forever.
|
| Personally I'm just tired of all the bitching. There is no
| escaping it, it seems.
|
| You could have framed your comments much more positively.
| Perhaps that would have helped.
|
| My 2C/ guess.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| It doesn't help that apologists have said Apple isn't
| dragging their feet but just not implementing features that
| are bad for users. This article is about one such feature.
| GP points out that Apple is still dragging their feet on
| features important to them, features that are only not
| implemented because they threaten Apple's monetization of
| streaming services, and apologists drag them instead of
| Apple.
|
| The situation with Safari and IE _is_ very different. What
| is not different is that they were the most damaging
| browsers for progress of the web platform in their
| respective eras.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| What made IE _damaging_ was that it raced out _ahead_ of
| standards and created APIs that no one else supported but
| companies started to rely on _while it was in the lead_
| and couldn 't migrate away to standards that didn't
| exist. Most people today remember the era of IE
| stagnation and misunderstand: that wasn't the period of
| _danger_ , that the was _consequences_ of danger.
|
| Safari isn't the new IE, Safari is the new Netscape.
|
| Chrome _is_ the new IE _in that danger period_. All the
| web developers complaining about Safari and Firefox
| "being slow", that's the danger signs. That's the warning
| flags. That's the new IE damaging browser progress by
| locking people into single-browser "web standards" that
| aren't standards. I don't know if the web will reap the
| same _consequences_ this time, if there will be a Chrome
| stagnation to follow this Chrome danger time. I do know
| that the warning signs aren 't what a lot of people think
| they are. The warning signs are the complaints about
| "Safari holding back the web" because they tend to imply
| that Chrome is the web when it isn't.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| That didn't make IE damaging. XMLHttpRequest pulled the
| web forward. What made IE damaging was that after it came
| pre-installed on Windows, it stopped progressing after
| IE6.
|
| It had a garbage collector that made very rich webapps
| nearly impossible.
| https://vinaytech.wordpress.com/2008/11/07/garbage-
| collectio...
|
| It had CSS bugs that weren't fixed for years.
| https://css-tricks.com/ie-css-bugs-thatll-get-you-every-
| time...
|
| It didn't implement features that web developers asked
| for and didn't even join the working group formed to
| standardize those features.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WHATWG
|
| It had security issues that made it dangerous for people
| to use the web.
|
| Safari suffers from the last three of those problems, and
| Apple makes them even worse by preventing other renderers
| on its platforms. If I had an iOS device, I'd want to run
| Firefox. I can't. That's on Apple, and pretending
| otherwise is absurd.
| phillipseamore wrote:
| Thanks for the notes MBCook.
|
| I certainly know the noise in the comments here when Safari
| is discussed. And that's why I only gripe on these two
| features which are available in every Safari for several
| years now, except on iOS, with no apparent reason.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| More notifications nobody is really asking for. Devs may think
| it's cool but when like 99% of users are disallowing webpage
| notifications.... It's just not newsworthy.
| Gigachad wrote:
| This is useful for legitimate apps. If I add the telegram PWA,
| I want to see notifications when I get a message.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| No one needs them on random websites, and I agree it's really
| sucky when you visit a site you've never been to before and the
| first thing they propose is turning on notifications. (These
| days, invariably with a fake notification dialog so declining
| doesn't lock them out from asking again. Yuck.)
|
| There's a lot of web-based _applications_ that could benefit,
| though.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| ya ya, having the feature/capability is a nice to have for
| some web apps (web, the platform apple's been
| restricting/hating/building against for more than a decade),
| and even in that space more notifications is debatably not a
| good thing, but trying to also say it's not newsworthy, not a
| feature to dwell on from WWDC etc. Apple has a habit of
| making flashy announcements for stuff that's either not
| news/been around, or could just be rolled out in updates
| (like for example almost all of the silly messaging
| updates/features?)
| brewdad wrote:
| Yup. If this isn't allow/disallow by web site, I'll be turning
| off all Safari notifications. Even so, aside from messaging
| apps, I pretty much have notifications turned off already.
|
| I will interact with my phone on MY terms rather than have
| garbage pushed to me at all hours of the day.
| brundolf wrote:
| Here's hoping this signals a tide-shift in their general stance
| on PWAs. PWAs can and do put really important competitive-
| pressure on the walled garden, and Apple knows it, and I think
| that's why they've been hampered for so long. I kinda wonder if
| this change was motivated by the antitrust stirrings
| devxpy wrote:
| Does anyone know how to switch off animations in iOS? Quite a
| pity to have to wait for slow animations on the fastest mobile
| chip in the market!
| rimunroe wrote:
| You can reduce animations/motion, but I think there will always
| be a slight fade animation for things like switching between
| apps https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/motion-
| iph0b691d3ed/i...
| devxpy wrote:
| The reduce motion stuff also makes the swipe navigation
| gestures impossible to use because there's no physical button
| anymore
| devxpy wrote:
| Incredibly sad state of affairs :(
| jstx1 wrote:
| After the most recent update apps started opening with a from-
| the-right sliding animation and I hate it so much.
| baisq wrote:
| That's a bug I think, have you tried rebooting?
| jstx1 wrote:
| Yep, you're right. Rebooting fixed it. Thanks :)
| nicoburns wrote:
| Finally! If they add support for persistent offline storage that
| doesn't get automatically cleaned up then mobile web apps might
| finally be a viable alternative to native ones. Less of a need
| now that react-native is more mature, but the update model of
| mobile we is still much better.
| endisneigh wrote:
| That's already possible if you add the page to your Home
| Screen. With this the missing piece is finally added
| phillipseamore wrote:
| Persistent or longer than 7 days isn't guaranteed with sites
| added to home screen, though it rarely happens it can be
| cleared (has happened to me after iOS updates).
|
| My only problem with the 7day storage limit is that every and
| any site gets the 7-day limit with no regard to if the user
| has interacted or actually used it, and to me that fails the
| privacy test. I've posted some ideas about that here before
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30402242)
| endisneigh wrote:
| Doesn't the same problem wrt privacy exist on the desktop
| and android?
| phillipseamore wrote:
| Not sure I understand the question. Persistence isn't
| guaranteed in any browser, but Safari is the only one
| with a definite 7 day limit. All browser treat these
| limits the same (e.g. engagement doesn't matter), except
| for browsers that support persistent storage after a user
| gives permission for it.
| phillipseamore wrote:
| Ah, I mentioned privacy because that's the stated reason
| for Apple's 7 day limit.
|
| However, when my kid clicks a link in a game, that opens
| an ad in Safari, which he immediately closes, shouldn't
| get the same storage limit as the site I built for my
| town to check on garbage collection days.
|
| In that scenario the storage the ad used should be
| cleared immediately, to protect privacy and eliminate
| tracking.
|
| But my garbage collection site, built to be easier than
| the the PDF from the township, should be allowed the 7
| days (preferably more, garbage collection is every 15
| days, excluding holidays). And in case the user enters
| his address I should be able to store it even longer than
| that in localStorage for his subsequent visit (usually
| 10-12 days later). For now I store them in cookies I set
| on the server-side (only for Safari users), though I
| really don't want to store any data server-side.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Chrome local storage is indefinite until cleared. So
| what's the difference with respect to privacy?
|
| With safari I've found in practice you can't really rely
| on the local storage for what it's worth.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| I am still on team "why haven't these been deprecated by all
| major browsers yet".
|
| I literally get calls from people who believe their computer has
| "malware", and it's just dozens of notification subscriptions in
| their browser spewing adult content ads onto their screen.
|
| Of all the web APIs out there, this is the one most aggressively
| misused for spam ads, and most rarely actually useful. We
| literally spent a decade demanding people add a popup blocker
| into the web browser, and a decade later, injected a popup ad
| tool back into the browser.
| Beltalowda wrote:
| It's useful for "native" web-based apps, both on mobile devices
| and things like Electron. But for regular browsers: yeah nah.
| Although, for some things like Telegram web or email it could
| be useful; the problem here is (as always): how do you allow
| the useful uses without the twats moving in to engage in their
| twattery?
|
| I never heard of this before though, but turns out it's been in
| Firefox since 2016. I did set "always deny" for notifications a
| few years ago as I got so tired of all the sites whining about
| it, so I guess that includes these push things too(?) Sites
| still whine about it with in-site popups of course if they see
| that permission is denied... Sigh...
|
| When looking it up a bit for this comment I found this
| description that I found somewhat amusing:
|
| "Web push notifications allow users to opt-in to timely updates
| from sites they love and allow you to effectively re-engage
| them with customized, relevant content."
|
| Lotsa words for "allows you to spam them ads".
| moritonal wrote:
| I disagree, I think it's a great feature that let's apps like
| ProtonMail not require a desktop app.
|
| What it needs is a user-driven gesture restriction and a harsh
| penalty by Google for firing on first-load.
| rektide wrote:
| I agree that it's a great feature. It's just actively
| terrible for 99.9999% of websites.
|
| There is a user-gesture restriction. So now there's an HTML
| pop-up on dozens of pages.
|
| Imo the user-gesture + permission-modal design is
| fundamentally bad. We penalize sites by making them have to
| maim their cover with grotesque user-gesture cutouts, then,
| once the user clicks (makes a user gesture) they have to
| click again. Sites should just request push notifications,
| without user gestures. Something should show up in the
| awesome-bar, and users can enable it at their leasure. Rather
| than an active "pull" flow for permissions, we need a "push"
| flow where users can passively enable/disable some
| permissions freely, in a more chill way. Conversion rates
| would plummet, but the whole web would be a much more
| pleasant place & actually operate for-the-user, which is what
| the internet is for[1].
|
| [1] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc8890
| teakettle42 wrote:
| > I think it's a great feature that let's apps like
| ProtonMail not require a desktop app.
|
| For many users, being forced into web-only non-native cloud
| "apps" is not actually feature.
|
| _Especially_ for something like end-to-end ostensibly
| client-side encrypted e-mail.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Why would you be forced exactly? Developers can still make
| native apps.
| teakettle42 wrote:
| Forced by developers that refuse to make the necessary
| investment in producing native applications, because --
| with features like web push notifications -- the poor web
| UX is something these developers consider "good enough".
|
| This thread is about actively facilitating that kind of
| behavior by developers.
| endisneigh wrote:
| That's not what forced means. Consider that there are
| developers who have apps with no notifications at all.
| For some, something is better than nothing.
|
| Personally I like web notifications, if the site doesn't
| implement them well then turn it off for that site.
| teakettle42 wrote:
| "Forced" means to be compelled by force _or necessity_.
|
| I'm forced to use crappy web apps for work.
|
| How does it benefit Apple -- or Apple's users -- for
| Apple to facilitate forcing users into crappy, non-native
| web apps?
| endisneigh wrote:
| Again, no one is being forced. This isn't even opt out,
| it's opt-in. So, yeah, no one is forcing anyone. It's
| simply an option.
| teakettle42 wrote:
| I don't think you've read the thread you're replying to,
| are replying without context, and are countering
| arguments nobody has made.
|
| We're discussing the idea that this feature is valuable
| because it facilitates developers dropping native
| applications in favor of fully web-based replacements.
|
| The example given by the first poster was Protonmail,
| which performs client-side encryption, and which they
| argued would be better served by providing only a web
| application.
|
| I noted that this would not actually be desirable for
| most users, _especially_ when the application in question
| must be trusted to implement client-side encryption for
| which the server should not have access to the private
| keying materials, as is the case for protonmail.
|
| There, hopefully you're all caught up. I understand that
| you like the idea of this feature, but please read the
| threads you're replying to.
| endisneigh wrote:
| I did read the thread - no one is being forced, still. If
| you or anyone else doesn't want it then you don't have to
| do anything as it's opt-in only. Hope you're caught up.
| teakettle42 wrote:
| I'm sorry you still clearly don't understand the thread,
| but given your response, it's clear I'm ill-equipped to
| explain it to you, or you just don't care to actually
| listen; perhaps someone else will assist.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| If a web standard only works if Google "penalizes" people,
| it's a bad web standard. I hate having to express this
| weekly, but _Google is not the web_.
|
| I really don't think any mail client needs corner of screen
| popups to be useful: I respond to most emails within 5-10
| minutes, have used web email since 2005, and I've never
| wanted or allowed push notifications on my desktop.
|
| It is, at best, a solution looking for a problem, and at
| worst, an adtech popup spec maliciously impressed upon the
| web with a casual justification for building it.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Why not disable notifications if you don't like them? This
| functionality is opt in. If you don't toggle this feature
| flag you'd never even know. Lol
| dijit wrote:
| > Why not disable notifications if you don't like them?
| Lol
|
| The "Lol" at the end of your comment is misplaced, comes
| off as condescending.
|
| Not everyone is the same as you, maybe they had
| considered turning them off and it's possible that they
| believe that it may not be an option.
|
| For people outside of tech who do not mess with the
| settings of their devices, ironically the same people who
| are likely to be abused by this feature, then having a
| toggle is not very useful overall anyway.
|
| But, I'm not happy with your tone as it brings down the
| whole conversation to the same tired old flame war/shit
| slinging that inevitably happens when someone starts it
| with mild condescension on the internet.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Given that the feature in question is explicitly opt in,
| there's no problem then.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Notifications is enabled by default on every major
| browser that supports them. I turn them off, and at work,
| push a policy to disable them across the org, but it's
| still something I see and hear a lot afflicting non-
| technical users, especially seniors.
| tshaddox wrote:
| > I literally get calls from people who believe their computer
| has "malware", and it's just dozens of notification
| subscriptions in their browser spewing adult content ads onto
| their screen.
|
| That is most definitely malware.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| I agree, Google Chrome is malware. As in these cases it is
| actually just notification API subscriptions, a feature
| browsers chose to implement.
| ABeeSea wrote:
| I use browser notifications for google calendar every day.
|
| It is slightly annoying that the notification chime plays for
| each calendar tab I have open and forgot to close though.
| usrn wrote:
| No one would care about web push if sideloading worked.
| collaborative wrote:
| True. Although it is nice to have an app be truly cross-
| platform.
|
| If MS released Windows with pre-installed WSA we would be
| half way there. The truth is we are still perhaps a decade
| away from this and everyone running M1's happening so until
| then PWAs fill the gap
| om2 wrote:
| We have a number of technical protections to limit abuse
| potential and will be monitoring the situation. Websites like
| Twitter, Facebook, Protonmail, Slack, etc seem like they could
| benefit from push notifications for the same reason their
| native apps do. It's true that other websites ask for low value
| / spammy uses.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| I've seen so much abuse in this on desktop I really think it
| should be intentionally hard to turn this on. Like registry-
| editing-level hard.
| cosmotic wrote:
| The best use of this feature is 'Chrome apps' or "Edge apps"
| where a web version of an app (like facebook messenger or
| whatsapp) can live inside the process of the browser instead of
| their own whole separate process, drastically reducing memory
| usage and energy consumption. Though it's kind of a workaround
| for the electron app anti-pattern.
| hbn wrote:
| Yeah I was glad Apple was holding out on this. We've had years
| now to realize that this API is basically only going to be used
| to trick users into getting spammed with garbage they don't
| want. I don't know why Apple chose now to implement them.
| dijit wrote:
| I am aware that this website is predominantly web developers. But
| I'm personally quite disappointed in Apple for this move.
|
| That you can turn a browser into an app platform is not a success
| for browsers, it's a failing in application distribution and
| native application tooling.
|
| As a user I am not looking forward to the inevitable deprecation
| of native applications to PWAs; because when that happens I will
| not be able to turn off the push notification feature in the
| browser.
|
| The same was true of JavaScript: it's impossible to run a browser
| without JavaScript, what was originally progressive enhancement
| is now mandatory code execution; for many web developers that is
| not an issue at all, as a user: I shouldn't have to trust _all_
| the code in the world that my browser can potentially pull in.
|
| The sandbox, as complex as it is, is not infallible.
|
| All of this consolidation on the browser frightens me,
| personally, and maybe you disagree, but honestly I'd like someone
| to be pushing back on the "faster horse"[0] requests from web
| developers.
|
| 0: reference to the famous quote by Henry Ford: _"If I had asked
| my customers what they wanted they would have said a faster
| horse."_
|
| Edit: expected result from the hackernews audience. But at least
| if I managed to convince one person that the browser shouldn't do
| _everything_ then it's worth the karma sacrifice.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| For me, the biggest problem with the web as an app platform is
| that many of its advancements in the past 10-15 years have been
| heavily weighted towards giving total control to the developer
| rather than the end user. This isn't much of a surprise given
| the biggest players in this space, but it's disappointing
| nonetheless.
| brundolf wrote:
| What?
|
| > the inevitable deprecation of native applications to PWAs
|
| If that were going to happen it would have happened already, at
| least on Android. The reality (and I say this as a web
| developer) is that it's harder to make mobile apps that perform
| and feel and look as good as native apps. The same is not true
| on desktop OSes, with their current SDKs and dev experience,
| which is the reason they've taken over there.
|
| > I will not be able to turn off the push notification feature
| in the browser
|
| I have no idea what this means either. You already have to opt-
| in to notifications for each individual web app, which is
| actually more than can be said for native apps. Web apps are
| assumed to be user-hostile, vs native apps that are usually
| just slightly user-hostile but get treated as non-hostile
| anyway.
|
| > I shouldn't have to trust _all_ the code in the world that my
| browser can potentially pull in
|
| How is this different from trusting all the code in the world
| that your native apps pull in? And before you say it's all been
| screened by Apple- there are various widely-used methods to
| dynamically load code into an app after the fact
|
| PWAs are especially important on mobile OSes because they put
| competitive pressure on the walled garden. xCloud only exists
| on iOS because of a web app. When I used a de-googled Android
| phone I was only able to use maps and access my bank account by
| using web apps. The web is an open platform that pierces the
| veil, and keeps the native ecosystems honest.
| endisneigh wrote:
| It's literally opt-in. Given that this will be relegated to a
| small niche at best. Most people aren't going to go into Safari
| advanced settings and toggle a flag.
|
| Native apps will always be necessary for something that
| actually needs it.
|
| If anything you should be happy about this as it'll remove
| control of everything from Google and Apple exclusively. Funny
| you talk about consolidation...
| dijit wrote:
| > It's literally opt-in.
|
| For now, I'm not sure how that will be though, if it's
| anything like adding a calendar then it's just hitting "yes"
| on a prompt.
|
| > Given that this will be relegated to a small niche at best.
|
| How many apps on your phone want to send notifications?
|
| > Most people aren't going to go into Safari advanced
| settings and toggle a flag.
|
| Assuming that's how it will be enabled (and in perpetuity), I
| can't see people doing that in the general case either and
| this the effectiveness of this feature is questionable.
|
| I think everyone in this thread assumes they can deploy PWAs
| in a generally available way that support push notifications
| over the web, if you have to go into safari settings (as in,
| the settings app) then people are not likely to enable it and
| the this you can't use them generally.
|
| What I'm saying is: either this is easy to use for users, and
| it will be abused; or it's hard for users and the actual
| usefulness of the feature is dubious.
| endisneigh wrote:
| > For now, I'm not sure how that will be though, if it's
| anything like adding a calendar then it's just hitting
| "yes" on a prompt.
|
| It's a safari flag in the advanced settings.
|
| I'll never understand why people aren't for more options.
| Why constrain yourself?
| dijit wrote:
| > It's a safari flag in the advanced settings.
|
| 1) that's how betas are
|
| 2) you should read the last part of my comment where I
| discuss the usability aspect if that's the case in future
|
| 3) are you sure that wouldn't change? I would expect at
| some point it becomes opt-out because of #2.
| endisneigh wrote:
| There's no point of speculating about hypotheticals. It's
| been a flag since 15.3. It's for power users only just
| like some of the WebRTC flags.
|
| Literally if you don't want it then you don't have to do
| anything.
| dijit wrote:
| What's new now then?
|
| Surely its either not new and thus not noteworthy, as you
| imply, or it's a new feature with a somewhat uncertain
| future for us mere mortals to fully know.
| endisneigh wrote:
| It's the same future. They stubbed out the flag and will
| be implemented in 2023, accessible via opt in via the
| same flag that already exists today.
|
| It's not news worthy, which is why you have to scroll all
| the way down in a random list of new features to even
| find it.
|
| What is news worthy is the date, not the functionality.
| [deleted]
| dntrkv wrote:
| The web is the only free platform we have. Everything done to
| bring it inline with proprietary apps is a good thing in my
| eyes.
|
| - web dev that prefers native apps most of the time
| kllrnohj wrote:
| How do you figure? The web platform is more or less
| controlled by the duopoly of Apple & Google, the two dominant
| browser developers. Toss in Firefox for the outliers and
| that's the entirety of the platform as is able to exist - the
| web is too complicated for anyone else to join (case in
| point, see previously major players, like Microsoft, giving
| up at it).
|
| If you just mean distribution then that's also not true.
| Android, Windows, MacOS (although this is eroding), and Linux
| all have open publishing of native applications.
| dijit wrote:
| I'm sure you didn't intend to, but you've dismissed the work
| of F-droid and all of Linux.
|
| What you might intend to say is that it's the only cross
| platform application distribution and execution environment
| that is free.
|
| But how free is it when one company controls 80%+ of the
| browser market and has the muscle to force standards?
| tomComb wrote:
| You lament Google's dominance of the web platform while
| listing F-droid?
|
| Google's dominance is unfortunate, but their support for
| the web has been vital in keeping it (sort of) competitive
| with the proprietary platforms, including their own. Google
| does this for financial reasons, of course, but it is still
| a good thing.
|
| And the web is still the only major client platform we
| have. We can still successfully object when Google promotes
| changes that are not in the platform's interest. Look how
| often Mozilla has thwarted Google proposals for the web,
| like their vision of webasm or web components.
| james2doyle wrote:
| That's good news. It's about time. Personally, I like that they
| are adding haptic feedback to the keyboard:
| https://www.apple.com/ios/ios-16-preview/features/#:~:text=K....
| gdeglin wrote:
| This is great news.
|
| One of the biggest advantages native apps have had over websites
| is the ability to send notifications.
|
| This difference has disadvantaged individuals and companies that
| find themselves needing to invest in both having a website and a
| mobile app, and discouraged investment into good web experiences.
| As websites can finally provide experiences and leverage
| notifications as well as apps have been able to, I think we'll
| see the quality of the web improve considerably.
| hbn wrote:
| I think the more likely outcome of this is a bunch more
| grandmas with 12 ads on their lockscreen at all times because
| users are so conditioned to click "accept" for every prompt
| they see just to get it out of the way
|
| Web push notifications have basically only been used to make
| shitty experiences. Random websites sending you ads, every news
| site you just happened to click to read one article trying to
| trick you into letting them send notifications for new articles
| they publish, etc.
| gdeglin wrote:
| Apple has been refining the iOS notification experience to
| prevent this from being a problem for apps and I'm sure this
| will apply to websites too.
|
| For example, putting notifications in the scheduled summary
| or asking users if they want to turn off notifications from
| an app they haven't engaged with recently.
|
| On the other hand, why should I have to download an app in
| order to know when I get outbid on eBay or a notification
| when a package is delivered. Like any messaging channel, not
| every business is going to use it in a smart way overnight.
| But I'm confident Apple will put the right guard rails around
| it, and it will be a welcome replacement to email. Unlike
| email, web push is privacy friendly, and has standard opt-in
| and opt-out methods.
| tuxone wrote:
| > why should I have to download an app in order to know
| when I get outbid on eBay or a notification when a package
| is delivered
|
| What's wrong with prioritized emails? Of course they prefer
| to send you push notifications via app because it is an
| additional (and someway less filtered) channel.
|
| Once also push notifications will get the same spam inbox
| filtering system (which iOS already has) then we will all
| scream for the next channel to be filled of spam (retina
| displayed popups?)
| spiffytech wrote:
| > Web push notifications have basically only been used to
| make shitty experiences
|
| This part is a bit chicken-and-egg. If you have to build a
| mobile app regardless, because iOS doesn't support web push,
| why invest in web push too?
|
| Once this rolls out I anticipate we'll see legitimate use
| cases in greater numbers, as some new projects realize they
| don't need to be apps anymore.
| babypuncher wrote:
| It's not so much a chicken-and-egg situation (plenty of
| sites and browsers already support this), the problem is
| the sheer number of bad eggs. When the feature rolled out
| in Firefox, I noticed almost every site I visited wanted to
| send me push notifications. Rather than reject them one by
| one, I disabled the feature entirely within Firefox.
| xbar wrote:
| I am missing something. Which thing is the egg and which
| thing is the chicken?
| spiffytech wrote:
| I'm thinking, nobody wants web push in iOS because
| they've never seen a good use case, but no one will
| deploy a good use case until iOS has web push.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Given that it's opt in (likely by adding the website to your
| Home Screen I imagine if the Safari storage expiration is any
| indication) - how's this any different than apps spamming
| you?
| hbn wrote:
| Is it going to require you to add the site to your home
| screen, or is it gonna be like Chrome where you just get an
| "allow/block" button while browsing around, which all
| casual users will hit "allow" on because they're trying to
| get to the content?
|
| A website spamming you is very different from an app
| spamming you. Going to the app store and installing an app
| takes much more buy-in from a user than just clicking a
| link. If someone shares a news article from a random site
| I've never seen before, I might be willing to click it. If
| that same person told me to install an app to read an
| article, it's not happening in the first place. I've got a
| very short list of curated apps I installed on my device.
| The web is mostly garbage though and most of it shouldn't
| be sending notifications.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Given that notifications are not alerts and generally
| notifications are useful in the context of not being on
| the page, I'm confident it will require the site to be
| manually added to the Home Screen. I'd be surprised if it
| works any other way since safari currently freezes all
| safari pages other than the active one.
|
| Even if that's not the case though, still dont see how
| it's different than app notifications.
| gjulianm wrote:
| Apple has far more control over apps notification spam, as
| they review the apps. They do not review web pages.
| babypuncher wrote:
| Yep. When Firefox added support, I immediately noticed a
| bunch of sites spamming me with requests to turn on
| notifications.
|
| Rather than reject them one domain at a time, I disabled it
| entirely in Firefox. The entire feature is essentially
| useless because of this.
| lp0_on_fire wrote:
| It got to the point for a while there where it was like
| having pop-up ads all over again, except this time the ads
| were all for the site I was currently reading. This will be
| abused if it's not opt-in by default (as in I need to
| specifically enable the feature in the browser before it
| starts asking me if I want these notifications).
| babypuncher wrote:
| I'm glad some people are happy about this. I'm just hoping
| Apple includes an option to automatically opt out of all web
| notification requests. The fact that every website asks you to
| accept notifications has rendered the feature useless, since I
| feel compelled to disable it entirely at the browser level to
| block those obnoxious pop-up.
| ratio11 wrote:
| A big remaining hurdle to developing native-like PWAs on iOS is
| the inability to lock the screen orientation.
| physicsguy wrote:
| "We don't need native apps, use bookmarks"
|
| "Here is the App Store! Use native apps!"
|
| "We don't need native apps!"
| tuxie_ wrote:
| Having worked with PWAs I don't get my hopes up anymore when it
| comes to iOS, they have added and subsequently broken support for
| key features in the past. I wish they would just fix the current
| features they claim to support rather than keep adding half-assed
| features that won't properly work once you install the app in the
| phone, for example.
| [deleted]
| ramesh31 wrote:
| PWAs are never going to happen. I wish for a free and open app
| ecosystem as much as anyone else. But PWAs are not the way.
| collaborative wrote:
| Care to elaborate?
| ramesh31 wrote:
| >Care to elaborate?
|
| It's been nearly a decade, and we're still talking about
| PWAs being the next big thing. Mozilla/Firefox has killed
| them off for good [0], and Safari support is tepid at best.
| It was ultimately just another push by Google a la AMP to
| corner the browser market some more, and the rest of the
| vendors are fed up with it. Devs by and large never bought
| into it because they are objectively inferior to native,
| while the tiny number of niche use cases where they do make
| sense have (rightfully) just avoided the complexity and
| remained as normal web apps.
|
| [0] https://9to5google.com/2021/01/27/firefox-discontinues-
| work-...
| Gigachad wrote:
| The telegram PWA is shockingly good. It's not quite as good
| as the native app but it feels as good as a regular okish
| native app. It's useful to get around chats banned by apple
| as well.
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| > Having worked with <technology> I don't get my hopes up
| anymore when it comes to iOS
|
| In my experience iOS and Safari in general is an absolute
| wasteland of buggy, half-implementations of tech that should be
| table stakes at this point. WebRTC [0] is the most egregious.
| It's one of the many reasons that Google had to fork WebKit
| into Blink.
|
| [0]
| https://bugs.webkit.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=webrtc+safar...
| NonNefarious wrote:
| What is a "PWA?"
| jandorn wrote:
| A website.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| >What is a "PWA?"
|
| Exactly.
| brundolf wrote:
| "Progressive Web App"
|
| https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
| US/docs/Web/Progressive_web...
| yoavm wrote:
| Progressive web application -
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_web_application
| gruez wrote:
| Safari on mac already supports push notifications, but unlike on
| chrome/firefox you need a push server certificate (similar to how
| push notifications work for ios apps)[1] to actually push
| messages. That obviously requires the $100/year of a developer
| subscription. It's not a huge deal if you're running a business,
| but if you're just a hobbyist trying to push notifications to
| your own devices without a third party app, that sucks.
|
| [1]
| https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Ne...
| secondcoming wrote:
| Every website: 'Allow notifications?'
|
| Every answer: 'GTFO'
| usrn wrote:
| judge2020 wrote:
| I guess the hash to jump to the specific text was removed. Ctrl-f
| "Web push" to see the change.
| productceo wrote:
| When will they abolish the arbitrary 50MB limit on PWAs?
| jcstryker wrote:
| The limit does seem arbitrary, but just as a sanity check
| doesn't 50MB seem like a absurd size for a web application...?
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| It depends on the application. Something like a video game or
| a proper web application like Google Maps would surely want
| more than 50MB.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Finally. Though I wonder how this will be implemented. How's this
| done on android?
|
| The amount of FUD on this post is sad. People commenting on this
| who have no idea this has already been opt in since 15.3 via
| advanced safari settings.
| xbar wrote:
| I feel like the FUD comes from battling browser-based "allow
| notifications" requests from websites from whom no one wants to
| receive notifications--to me that is learned human FUD, as
| opposed to bullshit-FUD from a competitor trying to manipulate
| a market.
|
| Notifications suck in browsers. Maybe they turn to to magic in
| the iOS universe because of the device-ness aspect.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Just disable them, no?
| rideontime wrote:
| As a developer, this just happens to solve a specific problem I'm
| working on right now.
|
| As a user, like hell am I ever going to enable this.
| thiht wrote:
| Why not? If it's a site by site authorization, it can help
| replace many apps.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| Remember when everyone started getting Calendar spam because web
| pages abused being able to easily subscribe to a calendar?
|
| Yeah. I hope they have some safeguards here. At the very least,
| require an Apple Developer account so abusers can't hide behind
| anonymity. Also, let me pre-emptively disable this feature across
| all websites.
| brundolf wrote:
| Every other browser has supported these for years, and the sky
| hasn't fallen. If anything, the iOS implementation will
| probably be even more conservative than the others.
| qgin wrote:
| My guess is all of that is why it's taking until 2023
| llbeansandrice wrote:
| > Also, let me pre-emptively disable this feature across all
| websites.
|
| It's opt-in. RTFA.
|
| > Web push notifications
|
| > Adds support for opt-in notifications on iOS. Coming in 2023.
| teakettle42 wrote:
| > It's opt-in. RTFA.
|
| I'm assuming that they, like me, never want to even be asked.
| The request itself winds up being a form of spam.
| endisneigh wrote:
| That's not how it will work. You'll have to go into safari
| advanced settings and toggle a feature flag. It's been
| there until 15.3.
| teakettle42 wrote:
| How do you know how an unreleased and barely-discussed
| feature is going to work in the future release?
|
| The current mechanism of operation has no bearing on the
| intended mechanism, and I cannot fathom why you think it
| would.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Lol, it's literally the same feature flag. It just
| doesn't do anything now. Apple has clarified when it will
| work.
| teakettle42 wrote:
| You seem very confused about how any of this actually
| works.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Not at all. Feel free to come back to this thread in 2023
| if you'd like.
| teakettle42 wrote:
| What happens in 2023? You'll graduate middle school?
| endisneigh wrote:
| > What happens in 2023? You'll graduate middle school?
|
| Are you serious? Lol, smh...
| teakettle42 wrote:
| Am I serious that your replies on this topic have been so
| incredibly dense that one must conclude that either
| you're a child, an idiot, or possibly both?
|
| Yes. I am.
| endisneigh wrote:
| > Am I serious that your replies on this topic have been
| so incredibly dense that one must conclude that either
| you're a child, an idiot, or possibly both?
|
| > Yes. I am.
|
| Resorting to attacks huh? Pathetic, lol.
| [deleted]
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