[HN Gopher] Tell HN: PWAs on iPhone Still Suck
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Tell HN: PWAs on iPhone Still Suck
I don't want to require my users to install a PWA to their home
screen in order to receive Push Notifications, but on iOS, it's
still a requirement despite support for Push Notifications
"arriving" in iOS 16.4.
Author : breckenedge
Score : 14 points
Date : 2023-06-30 21:42 UTC (1 hours ago)
| jurmous wrote:
| I think allowing any website to just ask for permission for
| notifications, which by most non tech people would be clicked
| away with yes, would lead to a lot of spam. I see it already
| happen with people in regular browsers...
| AntonCTO wrote:
| It could require user interaction first like for other APIs
| such as fullscreen: https://stackoverflow.com/a/30871435
| tehbeard wrote:
| That's actually a pretty good requirement and one I wish
| chrome/android would follow.
|
| It blocks the kind of low effort notification about hot new
| listicles on some crappy blog.
|
| There are zero good usecases for notification/push support
| outside of installed PWAs in the web ecosystem.
| breckenedge wrote:
| I saw a really good one the other day: push notifications from
| BrowserStack when it's about to shut down an instance due to
| inactivity. It was really nice to get notified of that without
| having to switch tabs or keep it in the foreground.
| TexanFeller wrote:
| As a user I don't want browser based apps to try to send me
| notifications at all. I don't want them to have access to my
| clipboard or to rewrite my browser history either, but that's now
| a thing. Having people save the site to their home screen seems
| like a decent way to indicate "pretend this is a real app and
| allow app like features". Anything Apple can do to discourage web
| apps and force more development of native apps I'm grateful for.
| rektide wrote:
| You should have a user-agent that respects your preference &
| lets you do that! These are good options that should be easy to
| make happen!
|
| What I hope we can agree on is that your desires are _minimal._
| You have a big _anti-feature_ urge for how you want to
| experience the web. (I respect that, and am in ways partial!)
| But there 's other people out here who want other behaviors.
| And since it's obvious the two don't have to be mutually
| exclusive, I hope we can talk about how to get you what you
| want, without necessarily imposing your strictures upon
| everyone else.
|
| Alas, your initial comment has a bit of zeal, forged in
| exclusionary dogmatisms:
|
| > Anything Apple can do to discourage web apps and force more
| development of native apps I'm grateful for.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I dunno. I think every brand wants to spam me 100x more than
| I want to be spammed.
|
| There is little appreciation in the industry for how people
| feel about this. I think the very idea of Pocket in Firefox
| drives a lot of people crazy, not because it is bad, but we
| are so used to vendors harassing us with crap products we
| just don't want. Had they called it "Firefox Super Bookmarks"
| or something like that and not introduced a new off-brand
| they might have bypassed our defenses and we might have used
| it and liked it.
|
| Microsoft schools us all by destroying very good products
| (OneNote before it went 100% cloud) by trying to shove it
| under our fingernails (three taskbar icons, added as a
| "printer", etc.). Trouble is it normalizes this behavior for
| the rest of the industry which doesn't see the value
| destruction Microsoft creates for itself since Windows and
| Office survive despite it all.
| exabrial wrote:
| > PWAs Still Suck
|
| Fixed it for you.
| refulgentis wrote:
| They're good on pretty much every platform but Mac.
|
| Being this glib is especially old & tired, Figma's been around
| for years, and years, and years.
|
| The greatest trick Apple ever pulled was being the one
| platform* that requires Electron to ship PWAs. People use the
| baggage from having to _ship the entire web runtime_ as
| circular reasoning. Only reason it changed at all recently is
| antitrust sent the message it was time to stop. I hope Apple
| continues to see value in reinvesting in the open web.
|
| * outside Linux.
|
| ** Disclaimer: I own a MacBook Pro M2 and have used Apple
| platforms exclusively in my personal life for 19 years.
| AntonCTO wrote:
| Thank you for providing such a thorough and valuable
| explanation, along with high-quality arguments, on this topic!
| Your insights will be extremely helpful to HN folks and
| developers in their exciting projects!
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