[HN Gopher] Apple reverses course on death of Progressive Web Ap...
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Apple reverses course on death of Progressive Web Apps in EU
Author : astlouis44
Score : 449 points
Date : 2024-03-01 16:48 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (appleinsider.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (appleinsider.com)
| brycewray wrote:
| > For support, the Progressive Web Apps will still need to be
| built on WebKit, with all that entails.
|
| Here we go...
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| Not a fan of that wording. I'm going to build a PWA, and I'm
| going to serve it from web server. What it _runs_ on is
| determined by the user and /or their device.
| jansan wrote:
| What does that even mean? Isn't a PWA just a webpage with some
| Javascript? How can that be built on WebKit only?
| the_mungler wrote:
| A PWA usually makes use of a few features, most commonly push
| notifications, local storage, and install to home screen. The
| last one allows a web app to open as if it's a standalone
| native app, basically only a web view with no nav bar.
|
| It's these features that Apple is restricting to webkit.
| jansan wrote:
| Ok, thanks. But aren't all browsers webkit based on iOS
| anyway? Is this about other browsers or also about Chrome
| on MacOS?
| elevatedastalt wrote:
| The fact that this could be so easily reversed probably provides
| evidence in favor of the argument that this was a purely punitive
| move by Apple as a way of throwing a tantrum against DMA.
| Somewhat akin to an abusive spouse saying "See! You _made_ me hit
| you!"
|
| If this sort of behavior doesn't ring alarm bells in the minds of
| the regulators I don't know what will.
| dagmx wrote:
| Why would you assume that it's malicious and not just the
| result of getting further clarification from lawyers on both
| ends?
|
| The DMA isn't an exact set of steps to follow. A lot is left to
| interpretation
| RicoElectrico wrote:
| Steve Jobs was legendarily spiteful and petty. They just
| carry over the tradition.
| arccy wrote:
| they didn't need to remove a capability they already had, so
| any lawyer clarification would be on if they would be
| punished for being anticompetitive by removing the capability
| dmitrygr wrote:
| So..you've never written software with a lawyer standing
| over your shoulder?
|
| Very often legal requirements lead to removal of features
| that cannot easily comply rather than expansion of the
| feature to comply. Removal is less rick.
| dwaite wrote:
| Except they have had to do this multiple times (although
| usually patents).
|
| Examples include portions of AirPrint functionality on
| macOS, Bootcamp suspend/resume, and FaceTime peer-to-peer.
| The latter being the reason that Apple did not open up
| FaceTime as a broader industry initiative.
|
| In the US we currently have Apple Watch being sold without
| access to the blood oxygen feature due to an import
| restriction.
|
| There are also restrictions on showing certain maps in
| certain countries, as well as whether or not the Taiwan
| flag emoji displays in China.
| elevatedastalt wrote:
| I won't say it is malicious. But I won't give Apple a pass
| either.
|
| Ultimately, the truth is that a company like Apple doesn't
| want to deal with DMA. Their whole services business model
| (whether it be the App Store monopoly or the iMessage
| monopoly) relies on behavior that is counter to DMA.
|
| It's also clear from their seething press releases about the
| DMA that they don't want to mince words about how much they
| don't like it or don't want to do it.
|
| It's always easy for them to give a vague privacy / security
| argument to justify whatever benefits their monopolistic
| control. It's no different from the "Think of the children!"
| style of reasoning that politicians use to get what they
| want.
|
| I think it's important for users to keep calling them out at
| every opportunity so they don't get away with it.
| dagmx wrote:
| Get away with what though?
|
| You're the one who's ascribing maliciousness to their
| actions. But you don't have that backed up by anything
| concrete other than your subjective perception.
|
| From what they've written they removed it initially to keep
| all browsers equal, which is what the DMA implies is
| necessary.
|
| They now brought it back with only WebKit support.
|
| It's completely logical that their lawyers worked with the
| EU to clear this exception.
|
| People here ascribe too much in the way of human emotion to
| corporations.
|
| If they were really trying to kill PWAs they'd have done it
| everywhere. If they were really trying to stick it to the
| DMA, PWAs are such an insignificant feature to do it with.
|
| What are the percentage of people who'd be so
| inconvenienced that the PWA would open in a browser tab
| instead of a pseudo browser instance?
| lolinder wrote:
| Given that reversing course here means "Home Screen web apps
| continue to be built directly on WebKit", this pivot doesn't
| actually contradict their claim that safely supporting PWAs
| from other engines was too much engineering work.
|
| My hunch is that the initial change may have been performative,
| but it was likely performative for the EU regulators and not
| the customers. This pivot presumably means that the EU has now
| okayed browser engine lock in for PWAs.
| elevatedastalt wrote:
| That's a good point
| masklinn wrote:
| > My hunch is that the initial change may have been
| performative, but it was likely performative for the EU
| regulators and not the customers.
|
| Funny I was thinking the exact opposite: they floated it in
| case PWA removal got people to complain about the EU.
| TheGlav wrote:
| > So easily reversed
|
| Yeah. It is easy to reverse committing an "if" statement.
| ankit219 wrote:
| This is not a reversal. They are allowing PWAs built on webkit,
| not other browser engines. Their argument was that they cannot
| reliably make sure that installing a webapp on other browser
| engines is secure. And that they do not have a way to do so
| reliably before the deadline, and other important things (with
| more uses)take priority. On Webkit, they already did it ages
| ago.
|
| In a few months, once we see newer browser engines on iOS, we
| will see calls that it is unfair Apple allows for one kind of
| web apps (on their own browser engine) but not others and that
| is self-preferencing.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > we will see calls that it is unfair Apple allows for one
| kind of web apps (on their own browser engine) but not others
| and that is self-preferencing.
|
| We have been seeing people say that for years. And mostly,
| they've been right; Apple's treatment of WebKit and Safari
| was anti-PWA for years. Even today, Apple has zero
| competitors who could meaningfully encourage them to adopt
| new PWA features or change Safari on iPhone.
| bevekspldnw wrote:
| Exactly, the Safari team has been openly hostile to PWA for
| a decade.
| bevekspldnw wrote:
| And yet you can run any browser engine on MacOS and the world
| hasn't ended. This is a cash grab, it's not about security
| and I don't understand why people keep repeating that.
| dwaite wrote:
| MacOS and iOS have different security architectures and
| different UX.
| sircastor wrote:
| And they have different attack surfaces and
| vulnerabilities. In the abstract, our phones are (for
| better or worse) far more critical to our lives than our
| laptops. They go with us everywhere, they're increasingly
| our keys for various physical and digital access. They're
| off-board brains and backup. Generally speaking, I would
| say a compromised phone puts the average person in a
| worse situation than a compromised laptop.
| fsflover wrote:
| So why can't I benefit from a strong, secure
| virtualization on my phone, like I do with Qubes OS?
| bevekspldnw wrote:
| Fine, but where's the evidence alternate browser engines
| are such a massive security risk? I see none, but I see
| many billions of dollars Apple is making from applying a
| 30% tax on any app I buy. And to be clear, consumers pay
| that 30%, developers pass it on.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Let's stop pretending any of it makes sense. Why are Mac
| app devs not charged the "Technology Fee".
| bevekspldnw wrote:
| It's NextSTEP all the way down
| graftak wrote:
| MacBook has 100wh battery, iPhone has 12wh. Chrome is
| notoriously inefficient, easy 2x more battery drain over
| Safari.
| albert180 wrote:
| Source: Trust me bro, I've just made it up
| mpweiher wrote:
| Running an inefficient app is the user's choice, not
| Apple's.
| Terretta wrote:
| There's no legitimate choice without education.
|
| The consumer would switch their PWA default engine in one
| of the half dozen "you have to agree to continue" buttons
| when Edge and Chrome install themselves and demand every
| privacy and security toggle be turned off (as Microsoft
| Teams demands when you try to run it in Safari*), and
| then all PWAs would be insecure and monitored by the
| adtech engines.
|
| This weird idea to force Apple to have OS viewports use a
| foreign engine would not be 99.9% of users' real choice
| at all, just like the users who installed Avast anti-
| virus didn't choose to have all their browsing sold to
| adtech, or the users who chose "Private Browsing" in
| Chrome didn't choose to have Google recording that
| activity to the user's profile.
|
| * Note: Because Teams is actually "just" a skin on many
| different services and the Apple+CloudFlare private
| browsing confuse the coupling.
| seszett wrote:
| > _The consumer would switch their PWA default engine in
| one of the half dozen "you have to agree to continue"
| buttons when Edge and Chrome install themselves and
| demand every privacy and security toggle be turned off
| (as Microsoft Teams demands when you try to run it in
| Safari_), and then all PWAs would be insecure and
| monitored by the adtech engines.*
|
| I suggest Apple takes inspiration from Android then,
| since that doesn't happen on Android. Maybe Android's
| security model is better.
| bevekspldnw wrote:
| This is solely about Apple getting a cut of App Store
| sales. They've been in cahoots with Google for years, as
| evidenced by the recent DoJ monopoly trial - "privacy"
| and "security" are marketing terms at Apple. Nothing
| more.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > This weird idea to force Apple to have OS viewports use
| a foreign engine
|
| That is not what people are saying. Nobody cares that
| MacOS renders half its content using WebKit on Mac. Same
| goes for iOS - people _do_ care that they can 't use a
| PWA in their browser of choice. It's anticompetitive
| blockage that will be inevitably brought-up when the
| compliance deadline rolls around.
|
| > would not be 99.9% of users' real choice at all
|
| No reasonable person can claim that. Alternative browser
| engines aren't even allowed yet, you don't know that.
|
| > just like the users who installed Avast anti-virus
| didn't choose to have all their browsing sold to adtech,
| or the users who chose "Private Browsing" in Chrome
| didn't choose to have Google recording that activity to
| the user's profile.
|
| Or the people who left notifications on and got their
| iPhone information slurped up by the NSA. Pobody's
| nerfect, right? Get the strawmen out of here before they
| start a fire.
| Terretta wrote:
| On MacOS, there are sandboxed apps, and not-sandboxed apps.
|
| iOS never had a not-sandboxed option.
| seszett wrote:
| Wouldn't that make it safer to allow any app or rendering
| engine on iOS than on macOS then?
|
| It seems like an argument against what Apple is claiming.
| mort96 wrote:
| It's 100% a reversal. Their previous statement was: "we will
| remove PWA support". Their new statement: "we won't remove
| PWA support, we will keep PWAs as they were in 17.3".
| treffer wrote:
| Regulatory worried?
|
| The EU stated they will investigate this. And somehow Apple
| decides less than a week later that the feature will return.
|
| Looks like regulators should not be worried about Apple
| complying in the medium term.
|
| DMA has a catch-all: any circumvention can lead to penalties.
| You can try to play games like this, but it will just lead to
| fines.
|
| I would expect a few more U-turns, especially on the fee
| structure.
| bevekspldnw wrote:
| I think they'll keep pushing their luck but it's not in a
| vacuum - Microsoft, Google, and Meta have been dealing with
| EU regulators a lot longer and on a much deeper level. They
| will see Apple's missteps and use that towards their own
| benefit by gaming the refs.
|
| Ironically, Microsoft now has a fairly good argument that
| Apple is abusing its OS control to stifle competition in web
| browsers. What a world!
|
| Apple is playing checkers, Brad Smith is playing chess.
| xyst wrote:
| Users have been abused for a decade now. It's normalized.
| Unfortunately, not much competition in this space.
|
| OSS has potential to disrupt but needs a significant mover to
| patch it all together. And $$$ to motivate. Then there's the
| hardware aspect.
| bee_rider wrote:
| IMO it would be better to avoid the language of spousal abuse
| and physical violence when describing what are actually dry
| business decisions. It kind of cheapens the real physical harm
| befalls vulnerable people.
| Apreche wrote:
| Apple: You can have it our way, or you can have it our way.
| smoldesu wrote:
| I hope the commissioners write Apple another scary letter.
| turquoisevar wrote:
| Who do you think gave their blessing for PWAs to run on
| WebKit only?
|
| https://9to5mac.com/2024/02/26/apple-blocking-web-apps/
| smoldesu wrote:
| Beats me, it's their funeral.
| albert180 wrote:
| I hope they bonk them with a huge fine, for their bullshit
| compliance with the App Store. A few percent of global
| turnover will hurt badly
| granzymes wrote:
| > For support, the Progressive Web Apps will still need to be
| built on WebKit, with all that entails.
|
| I wonder if there was some sort of back channeling with the EU to
| determine that "actually this is fine, we don't care about
| rendering engine competition for PWAs, WebKit-only is better than
| removing them."
|
| The law ultimately only requires changes to features the EU cares
| about.
| smoldesu wrote:
| I doubt there was back-channeling - Apple is seeing how
| liberally they can interpret this act. They tried doing the
| same thing when they threatened to use MFi on USB-C, up until
| an EU Comissioner threatened to boot them from the market.
| Plus, making per-company agreements would kinda render the
| entire "point" of the Digital Market Act moot.
|
| Apple knows exactly what the DMA wants from them, they're just
| deathly terrified of handing it over.
| Zak wrote:
| I think terrified is the wrong take here.
|
| Apple could fully comply with the letter _and_ spirit of the
| DMA and remain profitable in the EU, but they would be _less_
| profitable. They probably have a very good estimate of how
| much less profitable, and they 're doing their best to
| minimize the impact.
| smoldesu wrote:
| The fear of low-profitability is what drives that behavior,
| though. You're right that the DMA/DSA threatens Apple's
| bottom line, but as long as Apple continues to sell iPhone
| hardware in Europe then they should be turning a profit on
| hardware margins alone. Apple wants the control at any
| cost, and it's going to encourage more countries to draft
| even stronger legislation.
| Zak wrote:
| I'm surprised the EU appears to be letting them get away
| with charging a fee for apps installed outside the app
| store.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| They haven't hit the deadline yet, lobby your national
| and EU representatives if you want rid of this.
| threeseed wrote:
| Most companies e.g. Unreal charge a fee for using their
| SDKs.
|
| The idea that you would be forced to give it away for
| nothing would be a pretty extraordinary and unworkable
| intervention in the market.
| Zak wrote:
| They can charge licensing fees for their SDKs, but the
| "core technology fee" is not structured that way. As
| currently structured, it would apply even to an app
| written from scratch in ARM assembly language (not that a
| reasonable person would build an iPhone app that way).
| threeseed wrote:
| CLI apps are not supported on iOS.
|
| So at some point you have to interact with Apple SDKs.
| Zak wrote:
| Making system/library calls to display something on the
| screen does not necessarily require the use of an SDK
| either; it _might_ require quite a bit of reverse
| engineering work. As far as I understand copyright, that
| doesn 't involve copying/distributing the library code
| and wouldn't be legally encumbered unless there's a
| patent covering it.
| justinclift wrote:
| The fee kills any real world possibility of an OSS App
| Store though.
|
| 1 million downloads for an app sounds like a lot for a
| paid app.
|
| But on the desktop, popular OSS software packages do
| those kind of numbers in well under a year. There's no
| reason to believe OSS mobile apps on iPhone would be any
| different.
| threeseed wrote:
| Non-profit organisations are exempt from the core
| technology fee.
| justinclift wrote:
| Cool, that _might_ make it workable then. :)
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Unreal is a game engine, iOS is an operating system.
|
| In almost every other case application software is not
| considered to be a derivative work of the operating
| system it runs on. If this wasn't the case, then Apple
| could have easily sued Cydia and AltStore for offering
| the equivalent of iOS fanfiction. Hell, even the
| Copyright Office was perfectly fine with adding a DMCA
| 1201 exemption for jailbreaking iPhones to install non-
| Apple software on them - and they're _extremely_
| tightfisted with those.
|
| The reasons why this is different is very simple: you
| don't distribute Apple's SDK along with your application,
| but you do distribute Unreal's. The user got access to
| Apple's code _when they bought their iPhone_ , you have
| to give them Unreal Engine, so you need a license for
| that.
| albert180 wrote:
| The DMA goes into force only tomorrow. We will see if
| they will get away. I guess they will get bonked, because
| they apply more favourable conditions for their own App
| Store. They might get away if they would charge the fee
| for all Developers, but the Bullshit with "staying inside
| the old conditions" will surely get them into trouble
| roamerz wrote:
| >The fear of low-profitability is what drives that
| behavior
|
| Are you sure about that? Seems like a pretty bold
| statement where you would have to have some kind of
| inside information.
|
| I don't have anything to substantiate this but I would
| like to believe that Apple still has the best interest of
| it's customers and security in mind when fighting these
| kinds of legislation. I switched from Android to Apple
| BECAUSE of those restrictions and the improved security
| the walled garden model provides. The other reason was
| the middle finger Apple gave to the cell providers about
| applying firmware updates to their phones. When I was
| using Android it was maddening to wait months for an
| update to be 'approved' and able to install. That led me
| to rooting and installing firmware that was outside of
| the manufactures control and who knows what might have
| been in that.
|
| So for me everything that Apple does to keep a walled
| garden is what actually keeps me as a customer and helps
| their bottom line.
| Zak wrote:
| It does not seem to me that anything about the DMA will
| make it difficult for people who prefer to stay inside
| Apple's walled garden to do so. Most Android users only
| install apps from the Play Store and use Chrome as their
| browser.
| albert180 wrote:
| Yeah, who knows what's inside of OpenSource Firmware like
| LineageOS. It's a huge mystery
|
| Also I never needed to wait for a carrier to approve an
| Update for my Android Phone. Neither for my Pixel, Nexus
| or Samsung Galaxy ones.
|
| And beside the "strict" controls, malicious Apps got in
| the App Store, and the iPhones themselves also pwned.
|
| Are there other Apple Fanboy Horror Stories about Android
| that you've missed?
| smoldesu wrote:
| > Are you sure about that?
|
| Certain as I can be, without having seen the cards. Apple
| is a company about margins; you see it in their hardware
| profitability, but also in Tim Cook's service initiative.
| They fought Dutch regulators over this for months
| preceding the regulation, and it's not a stretch to say
| the DMA and DSA is a direct legislative response to
| Apple's wanton behavior.
|
| Apple can move literal mountains, when it aligns with
| their incentive of increasing profit margins. Anything
| that falls outside that purview ends up sidelined or
| worse-yet, lobbied against.
|
| > So for me everything that Apple does to keep a walled
| garden is what actually keeps me as a customer and helps
| their bottom line.
|
| That's great, and Apple has every right to provide you a
| differentiated experience. I've been a historical Apple
| customer, and I still keep a Magic Trackpad around
| because it's mostly quite good.
|
| But you and I aren't entitled to a sustained monopoly
| because it benefits us. Happy IE users or Bell Telephone
| customers aren't an argument against antitrust action,
| and it's ultimately entirely tangential to how legal they
| are.
|
| Consider how Apple behaves in hardware, sponsoring
| dubious Chinese labor to make shareholders happy. They
| set industry-leading profit margins by sparing no expense
| in their exploitation of labor and parts manufacturing.
| Is it legal? They say so. But of course Apple would, and
| they have no incentive to ever stop the squeeze if
| shareholders cheer them on. They will behave _just as
| insidiously_ with software, and if you do not treat their
| every action with that scrutiny then you 'll pave the
| road to hell with good intentions.
|
| I _want_ businesses to be good people. I want God to run
| a killer froyo stand. But men are fickle, and Apple has
| been a swindling bastard of a company ever since Jobs
| cheated Woz out of $4,500 over an Atari contract.
| roamerz wrote:
| > But you and I aren't entitled to a sustained monopoly
| because it benefits us.
|
| Does 20.1 percent market share constitute a
| monopoly?(2023 Forbes) Seems like people have plenty of
| choices of what kind of cell phone to purchase.
|
| >treat their every action with scrutiny
|
| Is that not what the free market does? When companies
| make poor choices customers punish them. (Budweiser 2023)
| kmeisthax wrote:
| The issue isn't the size of Apple's market share, it's
| the tying between their hardware, the OS software, and
| app store, such that if you choose to buy their phone,
| you also are locked into their app store.
|
| Apple is not subject to market forces because Apple is
| not a capitalist entity, it is a feudalist one. It is not
| a merchant buying metal and glass to turn into phones, it
| is a feudal lord that has put a gate on the river that
| anyone passing buy has to pay 30% in order to open.
| fh9302 wrote:
| There is no evidence that Apple ever planned to introduce a
| MFi system with USB-C. What likely happened is that leakers
| misinterpreted the USB-C E-Marker as a MFi chip.
| duskwuff wrote:
| Or that Apple was considering a "made for iPhone"
| certification program to allow manufacturers of USB-C
| devices to certify that they'll work with iOS devices --
| which would be a perfectly reasonable thing for them to
| have! -- and misinterpreted that as meaning that Apple
| intended to implement a restrictive device authorization
| scheme like they had for Lightning devices.
|
| (Just because newer iOS devices have a USB-C port doesn't
| mean that all USB-C devices will work with them! Devices
| still require drivers; if iOS doesn't know how to handle a
| device, it won't work.)
| threeseed wrote:
| > when they threatened to use MFi on USB-C, up until an EU
| Comissioner threatened to boot them from the market
|
| Except this never happened.
|
| And it doesn't even make any sense because MFi is when there
| is proprietary Apple technology involved which isn't the case
| for USB-C nor 3.5mm, Bluetooth etc.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| You need MFI to use Bluetooth unless it's audio through the
| system UI or BTLE
| threeseed wrote:
| Bluetooth is not part of MFI for any of the standard
| profiles.
|
| https://mfi.apple.com/en/faqs
| troupo wrote:
| > I wonder if there was some sort of back channeling with the
| EU
|
| No back channeling is required. It's literally written in the
| law that you can go ahead and ask if you're unsure:
| https://ia.net/topics/unraveling-the-digital-markets-act Scroll
| to _Law: Ask us if you find issues_
| bevekspldnw wrote:
| There's always back channel that's how these things always
| work. One team of lawyers hashing it out with another.
| agust wrote:
| Apple didn't have to ask though, they fully knew they were
| breaking the law here. They are only backing down because of
| the pressure from the web community and from the DMA team
| starting an investigation.
| masklinn wrote:
| They knew they were breaking the law in their lack if
| browser choice.
|
| The PWA issue is a completely different one.
|
| Although what I assume is they floated removing PWAs to see
| if that would get users / communities on their side.
|
| It might have worked if PWA support was first class rather
| than half abandoned.
| agust wrote:
| The DMA plainly states that they have to give other
| browser vendors access to all features present on device,
| and that they cannot degrade the quality of their
| services.
|
| Removing PWA support goes against both these obligations.
| turquoisevar wrote:
| Nope, that's not what iA says, and it would be a gross
| misrepresentation of the DMA to be honest.
|
| The section they're referring to is clause 64 in the lead of
| the DMA[0] and it is not only limited to cases of
| interoperability, unlike what iA implies it doesn't follow
| with a suggestion that gatekeepers can just ask if they're
| unsure. Instead it states:
|
| > In all cases, the gatekeeper and the requesting provider
| should ensure that interoperability does not undermine a high
| level of security and data protection in line with their
| obligations laid down in this Regulation and applicable Union
| law, in particular Regulation (EU) 2016/679 and Directive
| 2002/58/EC. The obligation related to interoperability should
| be without prejudice to the information and choices to be
| made available to end users of the number-independent
| interpersonal communication services of the gatekeeper and
| the requesting provider under this Regulation and other Union
| law, in particular Regulation (EU) 2016/679.
|
| That's why one of the main criticisms of the DMA is that
| gatekeepers generally can't present proposals for approval
| and have to wait until _after_ implementing to see if it is
| to the EC's liking.
|
| That said, the EU has inquired about the PWA stuff[1] and it
| seems that the outcome of that has been that Home Screen
| install doesn't need to be provided for other browsers.
| Allowing Apple to back down from their careful
| interpretation.
|
| 0: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-
| content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELE...
|
| 1: https://9to5mac.com/2024/02/26/apple-blocking-web-apps/
| troupo wrote:
| 64: says that gatekeepers should provide a reference of
| what they are intending to implement, and commission will
| say if it's in compliance
|
| 65: For anything more complex we can have an extended
| dialog
| jsnell wrote:
| That's not true. The section the blog post is quoting is
| saying that _the EC_ can ask another regulatory body to make
| a decision specifically on whether the technical
| implementation of interoperability requirements is
| sufficient.
|
| So it's only about a very thin slice of the DMA to start
| with, and a slice that's not the part that Apple was
| intending to violate when removing PWAs, but it's also not a
| process that Apple could trigger or even be a party of.
|
| As far as I know, nothing in the regulation suggests that
| gatekeepers can get their compliance plans pre-approved or
| pre-rejected.
| troupo wrote:
| > That's not true. The section the blog post is quoting
|
| That's the beauty of reading: you can read more than just
| the quote, and read the paragraph immediately after. Or the
| referenced section in the law:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39565987
| M2Ys4U wrote:
| I hope that the UK CMA enforcement action will smack Apple over
| the head for this one.
| dwaite wrote:
| ...to what end? Removal of the feature from iOS in the UK?
| turquoisevar wrote:
| This is the most likely theory.
|
| The notion that Apple was purposefully trying to kill PWAs
| never made sense in light of their significant investment in
| supporting PWAs over the last four years, down to recruiting
| industry rockstars such as Jen Simmons.
|
| Nobody who was screaming bloody murder ever tried to reconcile
| that incongruence, much less succeeded.
|
| What's more likely is that Apple's lawyers went with the most
| careful interpretation of the DMA, concluded that they'd have
| to facilitate Home Screen install for other browsers as well,
| figured it wasn't worth the engineering effort, especially on
| short notice, and instead just deactivated it for Safari as
| well.
|
| Then, after all the bloody murder that was being screamed
| about, the EU started to inquire[0] both with Apple as well as
| developers about the consequences for PWAs. Apple was told that
| their interpretation was too strict (or that they will be given
| more time to implement it for other browsers, but less likely
| because such decisions are typically made public) and that
| they're fine (for now) with PWAs running in WebKit.
|
| 0: https://9to5mac.com/2024/02/26/apple-blocking-web-apps/
| refulgentis wrote:
| The histrionical descriptions of other people's takes are
| like nails on chalkboard and kinda gross. (bloody murder?)
|
| No one thought removing them in the EU was the first step to
| removing them everywhere.
|
| Jen Simmons isn't a "rock star."
|
| Hiring someone with a lot of Twitter followers to do
| something doesn't preclude the company from stopping doing
| something.
|
| I think everyone over 30 in tech has seen that first hand.
| Couple right off the top of my head for Apple: Graeme Devine,
| Max Howell...
|
| In general, it is important for discussions to have nuance.
| I'm sure you've seen some un-nuanced discussions that I
| haven't. However, escalating rhetoric to condemn lack of
| nuance in others rhetoric should be reconsidered.
| turquoisevar wrote:
| > The histrionical descriptions of other people's takes are
| like nails on chalkboard and kinda gross. (bloody murder?)
|
| Claiming that Apple is trying to "kill" PWAs is in and of
| itself histrionic. Especially when behavioral evidence that
| clearly points to the opposite is completely ignored and
| the bad faith intents are attributed wholly based on
| "vibes". My categorizing that as screaming bloody murder
| isn't an escalation in rhetoric[0] in the slightest.
|
| > Jen Simmons isn't a "rock star." It's a figure of speech
| within the industry, granted, it typically also implies big
| ego issues, so perhaps the term isn't so suitable when it
| comes to Simmons.
|
| > Hiring someone with a lot of Twitter followers
|
| Trying to diminish someone's accomplishments and relevance
| within an industry by pretending they "just have a lot of
| Twitter followers" does nothing to refute my arguments.
| She's one of 82 web developers with a Wiki bio and one of
| 177 programmers, that alone signifies notability.
|
| Point is that that she's a high profile programmer and web
| developer and those come at a premium. That, plus the
| significant efforts made in the last four years to not only
| support PWAs but also improve standards, runs counter to
| the notion that Apple has ill will towards PWAs.
|
| While she has spearheaded a lot of the investment in PWAs,
| for the purposes of this debate I only brought her up to
| emphasize Apple's investments in making improvements.
|
| Even with Simmons out of the equation there's still four
| years of significant engineering efforts to reconcile.
|
| > doesn't preclude the company from stopping doing
| something. You're begging the question here. Without you
| substantiating the implication that Apple has stopped
| improving PWAs, you're just throwing around empty words.
|
| Nevertheless, it's clear Apple hasn't stopped their efforts
| on PWAs, given that the next Safari update will, again,
| include a slew of improvements to the benefit of PWAs as
| can be seen in the Safari Technology Preview release
| notes[1].
|
| I'm amenable to debate this further, provided you put in
| some effort into make a credible case with substantiated
| arguments and you can keep the tone policing to yourself.
|
| 0: https://www.merriam-
| webster.com/dictionary/scream%20bloody%2...
|
| 1: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safari-
| technology-...
| refulgentis wrote:
| > Claiming that Apple is trying to "kill" PWAs
|
| Source for where I claimed this?
|
| > Trying to diminish someone's accomplishments and
| relevance within an industry
|
| Source for where I said anything about accomplishments or
| relevance?[^1]
|
| > doesn't preclude the company from stopping doing
| something. You're begging the question here. Without you
| substantiating the implication that Apple has stopped
| improving PWAs, you're just throwing around empty words.
|
| Source? I don't know where this is from at all.[^2]
|
| [^1] n.b. pointing out companies are cold and don't let
| stuff like that affect product decisions, isn't even
| remotely the same as saying all employees are
| unaccomplished and irrelevant.
|
| [^2] Earlier when I say source, I am deferentially and
| politely pointing out you're making up things I said as a
| strawman to beat up on more easily. Here, it's not even
| close to anything I said.
| motoxpro wrote:
| "She is not a rock star"
|
| That is a statement about relevance and I would argue to
| be a "rock star" you also have to have a lot of
| accomplishments.
|
| You might not agree that she is a rock start but you did
| make comments about her relevance ("twitter followers"
| etc)
| refulgentis wrote:
| It is quite explicitly not a statement indicating I
| believe them to be irrelevant or not famous.
|
| This is immediately clear when, immediately after these
| two words, I mention Twitter followers, clearly
| indicating I believe they have fame and relevance.
|
| It's abundantly clear when I spell out that companies
| don't make product decisions based on famous hires. (n.b.
| rock stars get to dictate the concert and album schedule)
|
| It's ever the more clear when I name famous and relevant
| people as similes.
|
| It's absolutely abundantly clear once you notice I never
| used the words famous and relevant, or words with stems
| of the same.
|
| It's a fools errand to spend time imagining thoughts in
| other people's heads that twist their words into insults
| of other people.
| turquoisevar wrote:
| Really? This is what you want to spend your time on
| doing?
|
| > Source for where I claimed this?
|
| Source for where I said _you_ claimed this?
|
| > Source for where I said anything about accomplishments
| or relevance?
|
| Source for where I said anything about you straight up
| saying anything about accomplishments or relevance?
|
| > Source? I don't know where this is from at all.
|
| You said: "Hiring someone with a lot of Twitter followers
| to do something doesn't preclude the company from
| stopping doing something."
|
| Now you're gonna act coy by acting undignified about me
| interpreting "to do something" and "stopping doing
| something" to refer to working on PWA support when that
| has been the topic of this thread the entire time?
|
| Have some dignity.
| refulgentis wrote:
| This would have been easier: "oh, I missed a line break,
| imagine a \n after 'doesn't preclude the company from
| stopping doing something."
|
| If you needed to get a dig in, could have appended "I
| would imagine you would have remembered and/or noticed
| that at least the first sentence was in your post"
| nemo8551 wrote:
| Gene Simmons however is a rock star.
| vundercind wrote:
| > The histrionical descriptions of other people's takes are
| like nails on chalkboard and kinda gross. (bloody murder?)
|
| Just shows the poster read the relevant threads on this
| very site.
| afavour wrote:
| > in light of their significant investment in supporting PWAs
| over the last four years
|
| Investing in PWAs for four years is only going to get you so
| far when you're eight years behind the competition.
|
| Obviously I'm making numbers up here but to my perspective
| Apple's recent investments (bringing them to a level still
| behind competitors) has a lot more to do with staving off
| legal threats to their 30% cut on native apps (e.g. the Epic
| lawsuit) than any benevolence towards the web platform.
| turquoisevar wrote:
| > Investing in PWAs for four years is only going to get you
| so far when you're eight years behind the competition.
|
| I don't think this speaks to intention, the investments
| that have been made and are still being made bring with
| them a cost, both in a monetary sense and in other ways.
| Regardless of the separate question with regards to them
| having been able to catch up with the competition.
|
| A generous interpretation, with the presupposed premise
| that they haven't been able to catch up, could say that it
| warrants a more favorable interpretation of their
| intentions if they were willing to invest after having
| lagged behind for so long, because the required investment
| would be greater and the pay off less clear.
|
| > (bringing them to a level still behind competitors)
|
| Let's be honest here. When people say something like this,
| they're mainly thinking of Chrome/Chromium-based browsers.
|
| Google is known to have no qualms supporting certain things
| that both Mozilla and Apple are uncomfortable with, while
| at the same time implementing a bunch of stuff that isn't
| standardized.
|
| On the whole, Safari/WebKit has roughly met Mozilla's level
| of support for frameworks and APIs and even surpassed
| Mozilla on certain things (especially desktop). Of course
| if the benchmark is just Chromium, then none of it will
| ever be enough, then again, Mozilla doesn't seem to catch a
| lot of flack for drawing a line in the sand in terms of
| support.
|
| Other than that, Safari seems to be doing great on test
| suites/benchmarks that focus on progress such as the annual
| Interop. Consistently[0] keeping up[1] over the years[2],
| and sometimes coming out on top[3].
|
| > has a lot more to do with staving off legal threats to
| their 30% cut on native apps (e.g. the Epic lawsuit) than
| any benevolence towards the web platform.
|
| I tend to stay clear with attributing maleficence or less
| than generous intentions without something substantial to
| back it up. Especially when behavior seems to contradict
| such attributions.
|
| For example, if that where the main motivator then I'd
| expect a bare minimum approach and Apple dragging their
| feet, like we see with DMA implementations (e.g., only
| allowing what must be allowed in the EU instead of
| globally), instead we not only see improvement of PWA
| support, in part beyond what Mozilla supports, but also
| direct contributions of standards that PWAs rely on in the
| form of improvements..
|
| 0: https://wpt.fyi/interop-2021?stable
|
| 1: https://wpt.fyi/interop-2023?stable
|
| 2: https://wpt.fyi/interop-2024
|
| 3: https://wpt.fyi/interop-2022?stable
| scarface_74 wrote:
| This makes absolutely no sense. It came out in the Eoic
| trial that 90% of App Store revenue comes from games and in
| app purchases.
|
| Those apps are no more going to leave the App Store and go
| to the web than they are going to leave the Google Pay
| Store. In app purchases monetize too well and people aren't
| going to put their credit cards on every third party
| website.
|
| That's not even to mention all of the ways that you can pay
| via in app purchases that you can't pay via the web and all
| of the kids with phones without credit cards attached.
|
| If it's only Apple, then why aren't Android developers
| creating great PWAs to escape the same 30%?
| afavour wrote:
| > Those apps are no more going to leave the App Store and
| go to the web than they are going to leave the Google Pay
| Store.
|
| ...Microsoft did exactly that, though:
|
| https://www.macrumors.com/2021/06/30/hands-on-xbox-cloud-
| gam...
|
| I don't really understand the rest of your argument. "Of
| course developers aren't going to use the web instead of
| apps, it's a way worse experience!" is _precisely the
| point_ in criticizing Apple letting the web platform
| languish. They have a vested interest in making sure the
| in-app experience remains superior to web experience
| because of their 30% cut.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| If it's just Apple, then why aren't developers leaving
| Google Play Services in droves to avoid the same 30% cut?
|
| And Microsoft did that not because they didn't want to be
| in the store, but because at the time Apple wouldn't
| allow them. Yes I disagree with this.
|
| If PWAs could be made one to one with apps - and today
| games like Candy Crush could be web apps - game
| developers who make up 90% of App Store revenue still
| wouldn't give up the direct access to users wallets they
| get from in app purchases.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| If we ever reach a point where compiled code is equally
| as performant as web apps, I'll eat a shoe.
| brookst wrote:
| I don't think the comment you're replying to was saying
| Apple's PWA support was world-leading.
|
| I think it was saying that if Apple wanted to kill PWA it
| would have made more sense to just not make those
| investments over the past four years.
| kelthuzad wrote:
| >I think it was saying that if Apple wanted to kill PWA
| it would have made more sense to just not make those
| investments over the past four years.
|
| wrong, Apple only started implementing the bare minimum
| because they felt the heat from devs & feared the legal
| consequences for their anti-competitive behavior.
|
| Apple still has the unquenchable desire to kill PWAs,
| they will just keep sabotaging them more subtly. Apple
| will keep up their shenanigans until the bitter end, but
| I hope that the EU will have none of it.
| temac wrote:
| Maybe it is a tactical move to create a precedent were the EU
| tells Apple "in this case this is ok to require execution by
| safari"
| brookst wrote:
| Business is hard enough operating directly. Triple bank
| shots that require business and legal to coordinate are too
| complicated to attempt.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| From the bottom of OP:
|
| > Apple's move also comes after a threat to look into the
| issue by European Commission authorities.
|
| > "We are indeed looking at the compliance packages of all
| gatekeepers, including Apple," the European Commission said
| in a statement on February 26. "In that context, we're in
| particular looking into the issue of progressive web apps,
| and can confirm sending the requests for information to Apple
| and to app developers, who can provide useful information for
| our assessment."
| nguyenkien wrote:
| On android PWA home shortcut create by one browser, will use
| that browser, regardless of default browser. I don't see why
| Apple couldn't do the same.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| Apple provided theirs reasoning on this (security issues due
| to how iOS is currently written...) when they initially
| stated they would be removing them and said the work was'nt
| worth the tiny base of users who use it.
| brookst wrote:
| Only technical reasons. When PWA's were introduced in iOS 11,
| they were built with the assumption of WebKit as a privileged
| process. A re-arch is definitely doable, just a big expense
| for little return. And probably not feasible in just a year,
| can't imagine it would be a top priority against all of the
| other work.
| pier25 wrote:
| Does this mean that users will only be able to add the pwa from
| Safari or that when adding it from any browser it will always
| run with WebKit?
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| Great question. Orion is built on WebKit and works with
| firefox extensions (uBlock)
| lxgr wrote:
| That works (I suspect) because they run them as JavaScript
| in a different browsing context and have implemented some
| of the WebExtension APIs themselves on the backend, e.g.
| HTTP request filtering (which is one of uBlock's primary
| functions).
|
| That's a nifty workaround but not ideal, since it's not
| possible to actually provide all WebExtension APIs that
| way.
| lilyball wrote:
| Presumably that you can only add the PWA from Safari, because
| there does not exist any API to add a PWA from a third-party
| app.
| robertoandred wrote:
| Yes there does, other browsers already use it.
| robertoandred wrote:
| Other browsers can already add PWAs. Presumably they'd just
| continue using WebKit to matter what engine the browser in
| question uses.
| Despegar wrote:
| They were basically negotiating in public. I think the EC
| probably realized that the DMA as currently written is flawed
| and producing outcomes they don't want, and this episode
| basically highlighted it to them. They probably told Apple
| there won't be any enforcement against only Safari having it,
| because the alternative is worse. A basic principle is that you
| are very unlikely to compel Apple to engineer anything unless
| they choose to, and you would most likely lose in the EU courts
| if you tried to. Any regulation that doesn't factor that in is
| going to be doomed to fail.
| lxgr wrote:
| > A basic principle is that you are very unlikely to compel
| Apple to engineer anything unless they choose to, and you
| would most likely lose in the EU courts if you tried to. Any
| regulation that doesn't factor that in is going to be doomed
| to fail.
|
| That sounds a bit like "Apple is beyond the law/regulations,
| regulators better accept that and move on" - is that what you
| mean?
|
| It worked just fine for USB-C, fwiw.
| hananova wrote:
| There's a big difference between those cases. In the USB-C
| case there was no room for argument. It was either include
| the new port, or stop selling the iPhone.
|
| In this case, they could just remove entire features and
| have the public do their lobbying for them.
| lxgr wrote:
| It shouldn't be too hard to make the case for that being
| malicious compliance, though. It seems to have worked in
| this particular case, for example: People called Apple's
| bluff.
| Despegar wrote:
| Malicious compliance and "spirit of the law" aren't real
| things when it comes to the legal system. You either
| comply with the law or you don't. And courts will
| ultimately decide if Apple's interpretation of the DMA
| complies or not.
| Muromec wrote:
| Malicious compliance is totally a thing in this specific
| case and is expected to happen. The act itself is written
| in a very pointed way so to say.
|
| To make matters worse, the executive is given powers to
| tell Apple what exactly they need do to comply if they
| start funny business.
| shaky-carrousel wrote:
| They are, in Europe. We don't really like companies not
| following the spirit of the law. Companies usually learn
| via fines. Luckily for us, Apple is a slow learner.
| d1sxeyes wrote:
| Companies are compelled to develop features all the time.
| Mostly so far in the EU these features have been around
| accessibility, safety, and crime prevention, but there's an
| awful lot of precedent for companies being required to
| develop something specific in order to be able to sell their
| product in the EU.
| Despegar wrote:
| Companies comply with those regulations because, on
| balance, the incentives still make it logical to. That
| doesn't mean an unbalanced regulation that misunderstands
| the target's incentives would result in the outcome the
| regulator wants.
| rejhgadellaa wrote:
| The law requires Apple to open up iOS to 3rd-party browser
| engines _and_ that Apple can 't self-preference their own
| browser. This would mean that Apple has to open up anything
| that Safari can do (like run PWAs).
|
| I don't believe for a minute that the EU is OK with the WebKit
| restriction here, they simply haven't responded:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39565553
| lxgr wrote:
| We just don't know that at this point.
|
| For all we know, the EU might be considering PWAs a thing
| completely orthogonal to DMA compliance, since they neither
| provide feature parity with native apps, nor are they widely
| used (at least according to Apple's measurements).
|
| > open up anything that Safari can do (like run PWAs).
|
| I think it would be just as valid a viewpoint to consider
| them an OS feature (as opposed to a browser feature). The
| question then is whether that OS feature would be considered
| protected under the DMA.
|
| For example, it's also impossible to provide your own kernel
| extensions (e.g. to facilitate hardware device drivers) for
| iOS - but that's completely fine (as far as I understand)
| under the DMA, since it's not one of the covered areas like
| app stores, NFC payments etc.
|
| I'm not very certain of the last point, FWIW - maybe the DMA
| does actually require Apple to provide, on demand, access to
| hardware interfaces available to their own product offerings!
| For example, wireless (Qi) outbound charging is supported by
| recent iPhones, but only works with Apple's own Magsafe power
| bank, and other power banks can only do inbound wireless
| charging and need to be charged via USB - maybe that's
| actually noncompliant too? That would likely kill, or at
| least strongly impact, Apple's MFI program in the EU - or
| maybe just expand it to cover all first-party hardware
| interfaces too?
| summerlight wrote:
| > For all we know, the EU might be considering PWAs a thing
| completely orthogonal to DMA compliance, since they neither
| provide feature parity with native apps, nor are they
| widely used (at least according to Apple's measurements).
|
| DMA wording made it very clear that it's about browser
| engine, not the browser product. And Safari is designated
| as a core platform service.
|
| > The gatekeeper shall not require end users to use, or
| business users to use, to offer, or to interoperate with,
| an identification service, a web browser engine or a
| payment service, or technical services that support the
| provision of payment services, such as payment systems for
| in-app purchases, of that gatekeeper in the context of
| services provided by the business users using that
| gatekeeper's core platform services.
| lxgr wrote:
| > DMA wording made it very clear that it's about browser
| engine, not the browser product.
|
| Yes, but nowhere does it say explicitly that that third-
| party browser engine has to also be capable of hosting
| PWAs. It's definitely a possible read of the DMA, but not
| the only plausible one, in my view.
| EMIRELADERO wrote:
| It does:
|
| Clause 7 Article 6 of the DMA states:
|
| > _The gatekeeper shall allow providers of services and
| providers of hardware, free of charge, effective
| interoperability with, and access for the purposes of
| interoperability to, the same hardware and software
| features accessed or controlled via the operating system
| or virtual assistant listed in the designation decision
| pursuant to Article 3(9) as are available to services or
| hardware provided by the gatekeeper._
|
| > _Furthermore, the gatekeeper shall allow business users
| and alternative providers of services provided together
| with, or in support of, core platform services, free of
| charge, effective interoperability with, and access for
| the purposes of interoperability to, the same operating
| system, hardware or software features, regardless of
| whether those features are part of the operating system,
| as are available to, or used by, that gatekeeper when
| providing such services._
| robertoandred wrote:
| Are PWAs browsers?
| worksonmine wrote:
| They're pretty much just shortcuts/bookmarks to a browser
| window yes. If I "install" a PWA from Firefox I expect it
| to open in Firefox. I would be very surprised if I ended up
| in Safari instead.
| robertoandred wrote:
| What happens to those PWAs when you uninstall Firefox?
| dylan604 wrote:
| yeah, it should just open up in the default browser
| setting within the OS. having to create a shortcut based
| on which browser would be ridiculous. must like the post
| you were replying to was a ridiculously proposed comment.
| worksonmine wrote:
| > having to create a shortcut based on which browser
| would be ridiculous
|
| Depends how you look at it, Chromecast is only available
| from Chrome. If I want a specific page to open in Chrome
| because I use it mainly to cast videos should I have to
| switch my main browser to Chrome?
|
| Probably not how it works today and my initial comment
| didn't imply always open in Firefox even if not default
| browser, but thinking about it maybe that's how it should
| work, or the option to choose should be available?
| shaky-carrousel wrote:
| Hopefully they'll respond with huge fines.
| layer8 wrote:
| The final authority lies with the courts. If any of the third-
| party browser providers sue for being disadvantaged by PWAs
| being restricted to WebKit, no previous "back-channeling" with
| the Commission will have any bearing on the judgment. And the
| Commission knows this, so is unlikely to engage in that manner.
| summerlight wrote:
| No, DMA wording made it very clear that it's about web browser
| engine.
|
| > The gatekeeper shall not require end users to use, or
| business users to use, to offer, or to interoperate with, an
| identification service, a web browser engine or a payment
| service, or technical services that support the provision of
| payment services, such as payment systems for in-app purchases,
| of that gatekeeper in the context of services provided by the
| business users using that gatekeeper's core platform services.
|
| And they cannot make self-preferencing on their products.
|
| > The gatekeeper shall not treat more favourably, in ranking
| and related indexing and crawling, services and products
| offered by the gatekeeper itself than similar services or
| products of a third party. The gatekeeper shall apply
| transparent, fair and non-discriminatory conditions to such
| ranking.
|
| > The gatekeeper shall not restrict technically or otherwise
| the ability of end users to switch between, and subscribe to,
| different software applications and services that are accessed
| using the core platform services of the gatekeeper, including
| as regards the choice of Internet access services for end
| users.
|
| And Safari has been explicitly designated as a separate core
| platform service. There's no room for this kind of
| interpretation in the view of enforcement entity. Apple is just
| trying to buy time by pretending ignorance.
| layer8 wrote:
| It's more subtle than that. If Apple uses WebKit within one
| of their built-in apps or OS components, let's say in their
| Weather app or some Apple Pay dialog, there surely is no
| requirement that this has to be replaceable by Chromium or
| Gecko. Similarly, the PWA runtime environment may not
| necessarily count as a "web browser engine", since they
| aren't used to browse the web. It remains to be seen how this
| will be judged by the EU institutions.
| summerlight wrote:
| It's because those apps are not core platform service.
| Safari and iOS both are core platform services, which are
| explicitly designated as a target of this regulation. Go
| read the actual wording and have some understanding before
| making this kind of assumption.
| layer8 wrote:
| When you open a PWA, Safari does not appear. The argument
| can be made that this is not Safari, but a PWA runtime
| environment that happens to use WebKit internally.
| Basically, the PWA is it's own separate app (i.e. not
| Safari) that is being run by iOS with the help of WebKit,
| similar to how other OS features also use WebKit
| internally. It is not clear at all that this would fall
| under the category "web browser engine" of the DMA, since
| using a PWA does not constitute browsing the web.
|
| As for your argument about core platform services, the
| app store is a core platform service and (I'm pretty
| sure) uses WebKit internally, at least for some of its
| pages in login and payment flows, and similar for various
| iCloud-related functions accessible from Settings.
|
| I've read the DMA, you don't have to be condescending.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Who else even does PWAs? Firefox removed them which leaves
| chrome, edge, and now maybe safari.
| Andrex wrote:
| Devil's advocate: having a stable (maybe too stable) runtime
| for all iOS PWAs might actually be a benefit. Native apps, for
| instance, don't have to worry about rendering issues in various
| "viewers." This actually brings PWAs closer to the world of
| native apps, which I believe is what users would prefer.
|
| That said, I literally did a jump for joy when the DMA news
| broke. (Then of course, I did scream bloody murder reading the
| details on PWAs.)
| bastawhiz wrote:
| There's no such thing as an iOS-only PWA. You need to test
| with other browser engines regardless because other kinds of
| devices still exist.
| littlecranky67 wrote:
| So glad they reversed that, it would have killed my side-project
| which I based around webapp push notifications just after they
| released PWA pushnotifications with iOS 16.4 not even 12 months
| ago. That backtrack would have been a punch in the face of all
| devs that jumped on that feature.
| aeurielesn wrote:
| I also wonder what's point of PWAs _only_ supported in WebKit.
|
| It feels like they trying to keep playing cat and mouse.
| readams wrote:
| Mostly Apple wants to ensure that PWAs can't emerge as a viable
| option. As long as they're on WebKit, they can ensure that the
| apps are limited in their functionality.
| kemayo wrote:
| If that's Apple's motivation, why have they been implementing
| PWAs at all? Killing them would be even simpler if they just
| weren't on iOS in the first place.
| jamesgeck0 wrote:
| They've been on iOS since the beginning, predating the App
| Store. They were originally supposed to be the only public
| API for building 3rd party apps on iOS.
|
| For a long time they appeared to be in maintenance mode on
| iOS. They're still years behind what Chrome allows PWAs to
| do.
| dunham wrote:
| Apple has also added PWA to Desktop Safari in the latest
| OS release (which seems to work well for Tana). So their
| Safari team is putting some continuing effort behind PWA
| in general.
|
| I used this when I was taking a break from chrome,
| because Firefox cancelled their PWA support for Desktop.
| albert180 wrote:
| Because they are their go to excuse why the limitation to
| the App Store isn't a monopoly with the regulators.
| burnerthrow008 wrote:
| So... you're saying that having PWAs is purely
| performative because nobody actually uses PWAs... meaning
| that the loss of PWAs has no impact on customers?
| albert180 wrote:
| No, but they are obviously not equivalent in capabilities
| on iOS
| realusername wrote:
| As far as I'm concerned, it's just an argument for them to
| use in antitrust lawsuits. "See, they could have developed
| a web app if they aren't happy with our store". It's better
| to keep an option opened, especially if it's not good
| enough to be used.
| graftak wrote:
| PWA's can run a ServiceWorker in the background too, I can
| imagine Apple does not want anyone to be able to run code
| they don't control as a background task as this may
| negatively affect overall performance and battery life.
| agust wrote:
| Apple not wanting PWA to work properly on iPhones has
| nothing to do with performance, security, privacy, battery
| life or whatever excuse they may officially come up with.
|
| The only reason Apple does not want PWA is because it
| threatens their App Store profit.
|
| More information: https://open-web-advocacy.org/blog/apple-
| backs-off-killing-w...
| robin_reala wrote:
| These black and white takes are boring. It can be all of
| the above.
| Sammi wrote:
| Only one of the options affects the bottom line of Apple.
| Incentives incentives incentives. When you want to
| understand what and why people do what they do, always
| find out the incentives.
| robin_reala wrote:
| Then why would they have bothered adding any support in
| the first place? There are market incentives in at least
| appearing to be modern.
| Sammi wrote:
| Misalignment of the company bottom line (incentives) and
| employees bottom line (incentives). Company gets money
| from variable App Store revenue which is directly
| threatened by PWAs. Employees get money from fixed
| monthly salary, which is only indirectly threatened by
| PWAs.
|
| Employees take money and do what is required of them, and
| otherwise do what they think is awesome. Employees think
| PWAs are awesome so PWAs happen... until they threaten
| almighty App Store then it stops.
| lloeki wrote:
| > Company gets money from variable App Store revenue
| which is directly threatened by PWAs.
|
| I don't see how a PWA-enabled Safari fits into this
| narrative.
|
| Timeline:
|
| 0) Apple hires key people and invests 4 years in PWA
| support for Safari on iOS.
|
| 1) Apple releases support for PWAs in Safari for iOS
| worldwide.
|
| 2) The DMA compliance thing happens.
|
| 3) Apple allows alternative browser engines + disables
| PWAs in the EU.
|
| 4) Apple rolls back PWA disablement in the EU.
|
| I mean, 0 and 1 are not some skunkwork. It hasn't been
| sneaked into the release. PWA support predates this DMA
| drama. It was disabled only in the EU.
|
| PWAs challenging App Store revenue is completely
| orthogonal to them being Safari-exclusive or not. PWA
| support for iOS has been invested on, released, enabled,
| and has even more features coming up and prereleased in
| the tech preview. Nobody forced Apple to do that. That
| alone is solid material fact, blowing away hypothetical
| claims of evil intent.
| agust wrote:
| Web apps were the first apps that Apple supported on the
| iPhone, as of 2007. Back then they did not have native
| apps, that's why they bothered supporting them.
|
| They then realized that they could make much more money
| with locked-down proprietary apps that they could tax at
| will through their App Store. Since then Apple has
| blocked any meaningful evolution of web apps, to prevent
| them from competing with native apps.
| Someone wrote:
| I don't see how that fits the timeline.
|
| The App Store was opened in 2008, and was a huge success
| in 2018 (https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2018/01/app-
| store-kicks-off-2...: _"New Year's Day Sets Record With
| $300 Million in Purchases"_ )
|
| If _"Since then Apple has blocked any meaningful
| evolution of web apps"_ , why did they add support for
| PWAs on iOS in 2018?
| (https://medium.com/awebdeveloper/progressive-web-apps-
| pwas-a...: _"Safari is finally adding PWA features."_ )
| brookst wrote:
| PWA's are not at all the same thing as the "pin to Home
| Screen" feature in iOS 1.0.
|
| PWA's were a brand new subsystem introduced in iOS 11
| with substantial (yet not emough) ongoing investment
| since then.
|
| The conspiracy theory still doesn't answer "why have then
| been investing in PWA's since iOS 11?", if they wanted
| them dead they could have just removed them rather than
| doing incremental enhancements.
| leptons wrote:
| Black and white? Apple not allowing other browsers to
| have their own browser engines is a black-and-white
| decision. All or nothing. Apple or nothing. It's all
| about what Apple wants, and that's MONEY. They don't care
| about anything else by keeping other browser engines off
| their platform. It doesn't matter what stupid reason they
| spout off. _It 's always about money_. Allowing
| functional PWAs and other browser engines on their
| walled-garden platform will mean they make less money
| from their app store. That's it, that's literally all
| this is about.
| isleyaardvark wrote:
| You mean euros instead of money, right? Because the
| changes were only for the EU region, so it's euros and
| not dollars or kroner or what have you?
| d1sxeyes wrote:
| Not all EU countries use the euro.
| rchaud wrote:
| What is boring is pretending that technical
| considerations about battery life play anywhere near as
| decisive a role in this matter as simply protecting a
| multi-billion dollar line item that is app store revenue.
| dnissley wrote:
| My take is that it's more about control of the
| experience, which is something baked into Apple's DNA.
| inopinatus wrote:
| Competitive advantage vastly outweighs engineering
| concerns in practically all corporate decision making.
| Apple is no exception.
| danaris wrote:
| Right, right; everything is 100% black or 100% white.
| There is no nuance to anything around Apple, and no point
| in even thinking about the reasons they give, let alone
| recognizing where they have a good point, whether or not
| that point outweighs the arguments against it.
|
| ...Like, seriously? I can fully understand disliking
| Apple, and disagreeing with their choices, but to claim
| that none of Apple's stated concerns--which are
| _perfectly reasonable_ on their face, regardless of
| whether you consider their weight to be sufficient to
| justify the choice--are legitimate _at all_? That they
| are _only_ concerned with profit?
| isleyaardvark wrote:
| They're somehow only concerned with profit, but only
| concerned with profit in the EU, since their PWA changes
| only affected that region.
| realusername wrote:
| > but to claim that none of Apple's stated concerns--
| which are perfectly reasonable on their face
|
| We don't need to speculate, cross-browser PWA work fine
| on Android and are secure.
|
| No, Apple's claims do not seem reasonable or valid here
| since there's an existing implementation contradicting
| them.
| rejhgadellaa wrote:
| Service Workers (SW) and installable PWAs are two different
| things.
|
| Regular sites in browser tabs can have SWs.
|
| When the full Chrome(ium) or FF hits iOS (engine and all),
| they will want to run SW. And, if I understand the DMA
| correctly, Apple will be forced to make that possible for
| 3rd party browser engines.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Like they have emerged as a viable option on Android?
| sangnoir wrote:
| Yes. Would you rather install a full-on app for a once-off
| event (concert, festival or conference) or would you rather
| just install a light-weight PWA or just use the website?
| ryandrake wrote:
| Just one user's opinion. I'd just use the web site for a
| one-off event. But if I had to install something for some
| reason, I probably wouldn't care what technology it was
| made with and would only care if there was a
| functionality or performance difference. Honestly, nobody
| but web developers cares about PWAs. If you put a gun to
| my head and made me choose between Native and PWA, I
| guess I'd choose a native app that looks and feels like a
| native app, performs like a native app, uses native
| controls and UX idioms, and has the security guarantees
| of a native app. I honestly don't think users's really
| care about this PWA vs. Native App war that web
| developers insist on making a big deal over.
| Tteriffic wrote:
| AppClip would be best
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Well, and that all works on Safari...
|
| And that's not what most people consider a PWA.
| sangnoir wrote:
| I have attended conferences that can be described as
| "scrappy": flakey oversubscribed wifi, lots of
| interesting talks and multiple "streams" in different
| rooms over 2-3 days in a foreign country where my visit
| was too short to bother to buy a SIM card. Being apple to
| see the schedule offline would have been a boon, a
| problem that can be effectively solved by PWAs.
|
| Any app that's geared towards visitors or tourists is
| better served as a PWA - think of the apps used to pay
| for transit, or parking in a city you're visiting. A
| website is Ok, but offline access and a shortcut on the
| homescreen would be better.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Or you know, go to the agenda before you leave your hotel
| and convert it to a PDF....
| zer00eyz wrote:
| I have been making the argument that apple pulling back on this
| was a "security" issue.
|
| Browsers are more code than most OS's they run on. Hell a
| browser IS its own operating system for all intents. One that
| can access the network and do all sorts of bad things on its
| own.
|
| This matters for the phone. Its a device many people take with
| them everywhere, bathrooms, bedrooms etc.
|
| Locking PWA's to web kit likely has some underlying security
| issues. If you dont think browsers aren't full of holes and
| permissions issues go look at the LAST compromise, Edge
| snarfing Chrome tabs.
|
| All that said, there are a lot of places where PWA's still
| suck, because browsers suck.
| fredoralive wrote:
| IIRC "Web Apps" pinned to the homescreen (which was the thing
| being broken) are hosted by Springboard (the shell), not Safari
| as part of the magic so they appear as separate apps. Rather
| than rework this to allow rendering engine switching, they
| obviously just decided to turn it off, at least at first.
| rezonant wrote:
| That part was still present: You could still add a web app to
| your home screen. It was that it didn't run as a PWA, with
| the additional features PWAs get.
| mmis1000 wrote:
| Because it's technically a separate app in ios system, with all
| storage separation, permission... etc. enforced by the system
| itself. And ios don't actually allow any app to install another
| app unlike Android. The pwa install process is a somewhat
| backdoor build into safari and ios for this specific usage and
| never made public at first place.
|
| To make this work with another browser. They would need to fix
| this, make a safe public api for it, and publish it in new ios
| version. (Which they think it's way too much work and rather
| want to get rid of it instead)
| adrr wrote:
| Browser can do the exact same thing as a PWA app. It's using
| the same web APIs.
|
| Edit: don't know why I am getting downvoted. A web page can
| do exaxt same thing as a PWA. Access camera,mic, files
| system, Bluetooth etc, send push notifications here's an
| example.
|
| https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/FileSystem
| yurishimo wrote:
| Not to access native push notifications which was the one
| feature that Apple only just added in 2023.
|
| Sure, Webkit and mobile safari have supported things like
| service workers for years and years, but we just freaking
| got notifications and so it felt like they were yanking it
| back.
|
| But to make push notifications happen, you need a central
| push server. How do you handle that with a third party
| browser engine? Where does the browser app request
| notification access? But then how is that delegated to a
| separate PWA if you have notifications turned off for the
| browser specifically? Currently, notifications run through
| Apple servers on iOS. With third party engine support, that
| opens a can of worms needed to proxy the requests into an
| iPhone.
| adrr wrote:
| PWAs on ios couldn't send them until the it was supported
| in webkit and safari. Talking security concerns about a
| PWAs which is the same risk as allowing users browser the
| internet since it's using the exact same APIs. Banning
| PWAs security reasons wouldn't make sense unless you just
| banned users from browsing the internet on the device as
| well. It's the same security threat.
| brookst wrote:
| It's super well documented if you care to look. PWA's rely on a
| Safari service worker running as a system process. Under the
| current iOS PWA architecture, any browser hosting a PWA can
| ignore app sandboxing.
|
| I don't understand why people speculate weird conspiracies
| rather than doing a bit of research to see the actual issue. We
| can still pile on Apple for a bad design, lack of foresight,
| and unwillingness to totally rebuild the PWA architecture.
| ingen0s wrote:
| This is a good news <3
| charcircuit wrote:
| It was never dead. It was simply being unshipped in the EU until
| they could get it to be compliant. Compliance takes time and
| money to do and there are probably not many engineers for
| building out such a feature and they may have other priorities to
| balance.
| troupo wrote:
| > and there are probably not many engineers for building out
| such a feature
|
| A trillion-dollar company with 161 000 employees that had known
| about the regulation for two years cannot enable something they
| already implemented.
| charcircuit wrote:
| >A trillion-dollar company
|
| A company wants RoI for what they spend money on. Having a
| high market cap doesn't mean money is able to be spent
| indescriminantly.
|
| >with 161000 employees
|
| Which may already be assigned to be doing work for something
| more important to Apple.
|
| >had known about the regulation for two years
|
| There are trade offs a company can make. Knowing about a
| potential trade off for years does not mean a company will
| pursue that option.
|
| >cannot enable something they already implemented
|
| PWAs being able to be supported in a secure way across
| arbitrary browser engines was not already implemented. Making
| it so PWAs can only use Webkit is a legal trade off that has
| seemingly been reconsidered since the original announcement.
| troupo wrote:
| > A company wants RoI for what they spend money on.
|
| Indeed. They bet on being able to flaunt it weasel out of
| DMA by any means possible. So far that RoI bet hasn't
| panned out.
|
| Meanwhile you're defending a company that made 93 _billion_
| dollars in _net profit_ last year.
| charcircuit wrote:
| >Meanwhile you're defending a company that made 93
| billion dollars in net profit last year.
|
| Yes
| jsnell wrote:
| The ROI is the approximately $100 billion they make in the
| EU each year. If that doesn't matter to Apple, I guess they
| could leave the EU market?
|
| The security issues with PWAs were a fabricated excuse.
| Apple has already mandated security reviews on 3rd party
| browser engines. All of their claims about malicious
| browsers sharing PWA information across apps could be
| caught during those reviews. Either the reviews were never
| about ensuring security but just performatively putting up
| roadblocks where they could, or the claims about PWAs on
| other browsers being a security issue were a cynical lie.
| charcircuit wrote:
| >The ROI is the approximately $100 billion they make in
| the EU each year.
|
| The RoI is how much they make from the PWA feature
| existing on their device. And yes, the PWA feature did
| leave the market for a period of time.
|
| >All of their claims about malicious browsers sharing PWA
| information across apps could be caught during those
| reviews.
|
| So they get caught and apple has no solution for 3rd
| parties to fix it so no other engines get approved for
| PWAs. That is essentially what we have now.
| mort96 wrote:
| No part of their communication up until now had indicated that
| PWA removal was a temporary thing.
| charcircuit wrote:
| From their announcement it was implied that given low user
| demand it didn't make sense to invest resources. If this
| changed and more user demand manifested then this decision
| would change. Additionally overtime the resources needed to
| add back support may decrease which changes the equation.
| mort96 wrote:
| This announcement doesn't indicate that any of that has
| changed. They're not investing resources, they're just ...
| not removing an existing feature. A feature that they would
| need to maintain anyways, since it would remain enabled
| outside the EU.
| nchmy wrote:
| Great work everybody. I had people literally laughing at me for
| helping get the word out, saying that it would be impossible to
| influence a behemoth like Apple.
|
| This goes to show the power that people have when they get
| together and fight for a common cause.
|
| But the work isn't done! Keep following OWA for news and ways to
| keep pressuring Apple and the other tech giants in favour of an
| open, competitive and capable Web.
| seanabrahams wrote:
| OWA[0]
|
| 0: https://open-web-advocacy.org/
| robertoandred wrote:
| I think people were laughing at the tactics OWA uses. For
| example, saying "web apps" are being killed is intentionally
| misleading.
| rezonant wrote:
| Fantastic. That's one giant step backwards not taken for the web
| platform.
| insin wrote:
| Is there any chance they'll ever allow Safari web extensions to
| run in PWAs?
| ajross wrote:
| Browser extensions aren't web apps. It's a definitional thing.
| The whole model of the PWA is that it's an app implemented
| using only the fixed set of features, authentication and
| authorization mechanisms defined by the relevant standards, and
| thus requires no human to specifically audit and permit the
| installation. Anyone can put up a web app and run it on
| anyone's device, and we're all safe (modulo bugs).
|
| Extensions can in principle do anything the browser can, like
| snoop on traffic with foreign sites, etc... They have more
| capability (for good reason!), but require some level of
| authorization to happen by the user and (usually) OS vendor to
| make sure nothing bad happens. And bad things happen anyway.
| dwaite wrote:
| It is possible, but unlikely.
|
| Apple will give per-app prompts for system resources like
| location, but does not really have an iOS 'app prompts for
| permission to manipulate another app'.
|
| These sorts of permissions are confusing to users, they imply
| an execution model where both apps will be guaranteed to be
| runnable side-by-side (rather than one suspended while the
| other executes), and provide efficient vectors to share
| privacy/tracking information across those boundaries about the
| user.
| jespertheend wrote:
| Last time I checked content blockers already seemed to work in
| PWAs, but there was no way to disable them.
|
| Ideally, of course, Apple would allow PWAs to use different
| browser engines and then competing browsers could add support
| for extensions in PWAs.
| nchmy wrote:
| Because this article decided not to do so, lets be very clear to
| give credit where it is due: The Open Web Advocacy group, who has
| been working for years with regulators around the world, and led
| this particular fight with an open letter to Tim Cook. It
| received 5500+ signatures in 3 days.
|
| Here is their debrief post about it:
|
| https://open-web-advocacy.org/blog/apple-backs-off-killing-w...
|
| The fight isn't over though. WebKit is still garbage, so we need
| to keep pushing until other browser Engines have full
| capabilities!
| lakpan wrote:
| I don't think WebKit is garbage. That title belongs to Gecko.
| Apple picked up their slack with Safari a long time ago. They
| do have faults with these decisions to intentionally break or
| not support some features for years, like Push Notificafions.
| brimstedt wrote:
| Would you mind elaborating?
|
| I still find Firefox superior to safari.
| nottorp wrote:
| They're all garbage, but you can at least run uBlock Origin
| in Firefox. Looking forward to being able to do that on my
| phone too.
| ezfe wrote:
| Wipr on my iPhone blocks all my ads, INCLUDING YouTube
| nottorp wrote:
| I don't trust commercial apps for something like this,
| sorry.
|
| Gotta be public code and public block lists.
|
| Also "Wipr blocks all ads ... EU cookie and GDPR
| notices".
|
| That's another no. I want to see those notices so I can
| make an opinion on how predatory a web site is by how
| complex they have made their cookie dialog.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| With a content blocker, you don't have to trust it, no
| data is being sent. It's like a hosts file.
| jespertheend wrote:
| Whether it's garbage or not ultimately doesn't matter much.
| What's more important is the fact that it's the only choice
| for users on iOS right now. WebKit will never have an
| incentive to get improved without healthy competition.
| burnerthrow008 wrote:
| That's right, it doesn't matter! What's important is that
| pretty soon Chrome will be the only choice for iOS users as
| websites migrate over to requiring it, just like they
| started requiring IE back in the day.
|
| I, for one, am eagerly anticipating unlocking the full
| monetization potential of the web with the demise of
| functional adblockers like uBO! No longer will Google be
| forced to support adblockers to remain competitive with
| Webkit and Gekko! Developers rejoice!
|
| Thank you open-web-advocacy.org for finally killing off all
| browser competition! You are doing god's work, son.
| hu3 wrote:
| Mozilla and Google managed to reverse browser monopolies
| by just being better.
|
| Why can't Apple?
|
| Why is Apple entitled for a free pass on forcing browsers
| down their users throat?
| burnerthrow008 wrote:
| > Mozilla and Google managed to reverse browser
| monopolies by just being better.
|
| Mozilla has reversed a browser monopoly? When? Do you
| mean back in the late 90's when Mozilla's predecessor
| (Netscape) lost their monopoly to IE? I guess that's
| technically true they reversed a monopoly back then...
| but that's not exactly helping your argument.
|
| Google did it not by creating a good web browser, but by
| forcing their browser on users of the most heavily-
| trafficked search site and video steaming site (by
| breaking features for those who used a different
| browser). You know, the very same anti-competitive
| arguments that so many people are wringing their hands
| about.
|
| > Why can't Apple?
|
| Safari already is a better browser... for _users_. I 'm
| sorry that it doesn't have let you do the same tracking
| bullshit that you can do in Chrome, but having Bluetooth
| and serial number APIs is not something I want in my
| browser. I'm ever so sorry that it breaks all the cross-
| site tracking cookies.
|
| The reason Apple can't reverse a monopoly with a better
| browser is that:
|
| 1. Safari is for iOS and MacOS only. By definition it
| won't ever rise above the user base of those OSs, which
| are a small minority in almost all markets. That is also
| why you don't have to worry about it become it's own
| monopoly, like Chrome did.
|
| 2. Safari won't add all the user tracking bullshit you
| want because that is the whole proposition of Apple's
| ecosystem. You seem to have forgotten what a browser is:
| It's a _user agent_. It 's supposed to work _for_ the
| user. But if website owners have the option to steer
| everyone to the browser that lets them reach into the
| operating system and pull out the device serial number,
| they 'll do that.
|
| > Why is Apple entitled for a free pass on forcing
| browsers down their users throat?
|
| 1. We often let minority players do things that we would
| not let a monopolist do. For example, Spotify is a
| gatekeeper to music streaming in the EU (I have to
| license to them if I want to stream my music to any
| significant number of EU customers), but the DMA does not
| apply because they are too small. Apple is a small
| minority player in the browser market, too.
|
| 2. Building a Chrome-only website (and enforcing that
| with DRM) today is a non-starter because it means
| shutting out the small but lucrative Apple customer base.
| But if iOS users have the option to use Chrome, websites
| can force visitors to use Chrome instead. Maybe Google
| will even pay higher ad rates to sites when the customer
| is a "verified real person". Google will have a hard time
| determining who a real person when they aren't using
| Chrome... but I'm sure that won't incentivize websites to
| steer users to Chrome, right?
|
| 3. If users don't like Safari they have the freedom to
| pick a different platform. If users don't like Chrome,
| they have a degraded experience with the primary purpose
| of a web browser: To visit certain websites.
|
| When Safari is dead and your web browser has become a TV,
| you can thank the standup folks at Open Web Advocacy
| organization. It would be so simple to add a provision to
| the DMA that website owners are not allowed to steer
| users to a different web browser... yet they don't.
| Funny, isn't it? I guess this isn't really about anti-
| competitive behavior after all.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > Safari already is a better browser... for users.
|
| Bold claim, wanna know how we test it? We let Safari
| compete with other browsers like it does on Mac. And
| having spent a lot of time around startups, I can assure
| you that the majority of Mac developers I've seen aren't
| daily-driving Safari.
|
| > When Safari is dead and your web browser has become a
| TV, you can thank the standup folks at Open Web Advocacy
| organization.
|
| If Apple is the only thing enabling an Open Web, then our
| web was never open to begin with. Let Safari die, for all
| I care. Maybe it will encourage Apple to try something
| different.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| Professionally, since we dropped IE11 two years ago, we've
| run into far more bugs with WebKit than both Chromium-based
| and Firefox combined.
|
| Within the last six months we had a bunch of cross-site
| cookies break because webKit was handling SameSite outside of
| spec.
| nottorp wrote:
| There were news that the EU has begun to ask for developers'
| opinions about the death of PWAs too. Apple doesn't want the EU
| to ask for developers' opinions.
| agust wrote:
| For sure Apple doesn't want anyone to know how it has
| crippled the web for over a decade, prevented browser
| competition, and just tried to kill web apps once and for
| good, that's why they tried to sneak this change without even
| making it public before two weeks after it was introduced in
| iOS beta.
| tsbinz wrote:
| As absurd as it is, Apple forcing people to use
| Webkit/Safari is, at the moment, good for the browser
| landscape. You already have websites that say browsers that
| aren't chromium aren't supported, if iOS didn't force
| Safari on people this would be way more common as people
| would flock to chrome and websites decide it isn't worth it
| to support other browsers.
|
| I use Firefox on my non-work machines ... in an ideal
| world, enough people would do that to prevent the "best in
| Internet Explorer" web of the dark ages, but I'll take
| getting forced to use Webkit on my phone over that, even if
| I'd prefer a "true" Firefox.
| sircastor wrote:
| > You already have websites that say browsers that aren't
| chromium aren't supported
|
| Is Webkit really so far diverged from Blink that the
| rendering result is different? I realize that Webkit
| doesn't support a bunch of stuff that Google pushed into
| Blink (like Web bluetooth, for instance), but I thought
| the end result wasn't that different.
| agust wrote:
| Blink was forked 12 years ago, and the size of the team
| behind Chrome is probably at least ten times the size of
| the team behind Safari. So yes, there are _major_
| differences between two, and it 's not just additional
| advanced APIs like Web Bluetooth. WebKit is lagging
| behind in all areas and ridden with bugs.
| agust wrote:
| Apple banning browser engines is what has prevented the
| web from becoming relevant on mobile, and the reason why
| browsers like Firefox cannot distinguish themselves from
| Safari and end up becoming irrelevant.
|
| So no, it is not in anyway good for the browser landscape
| or the web, it only serves the interest of one company:
| Apple.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| That must be why web apps are so great on Android devices
| and why companies avoid publishing to the Google Play Store
| to avoid the "Google tax"...
| robertoandred wrote:
| Nah, that open web advocacy place uses slimy tactics to muddy
| the situation while omitting details. Just look at that article
| you linked to: calling PWAs "web apps" is super misleading.
| fsflover wrote:
| Related discussion:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39563982
| pjmlp wrote:
| Congrats everyone, it isn't cool that Web is practically
| ChromeOS, on the other hand Apple's behaviour as spoiled child
| against EU is much worse.
|
| It was either this, or having to explain EU why PWAs work just
| fine on Android and Windows, and not on iDevices.
| sylware wrote:
| The real fight is to get major online services to have safe and
| available noscript/basic (x)html portals. Because running on
| google blink|geeko or apple webkit is no better than native
| google|apple apps.
| laserlight wrote:
| I'm not sure who backed off here, Apple or DMA officials. Apple's
| argument was that they wouldn't be able to enforce some privacy
| and security restrictions, _if_ PWAs were running on a third-
| party browser engine. If DMA hadn 't required PWAs to run on
| third-party browser engines, then Apple wouldn't have any
| concerns in the first place.
|
| From [0]:
|
| > "This support means Home Screen web apps continue to be built
| directly on WebKit and its security architecture, and align with
| the security and privacy model for native apps on iOS," Apple
| explains today.
|
| [0] https://9to5mac.com/2024/03/01/apple-home-screen-web-apps-
| io...
| rejhgadellaa wrote:
| Nowhere in Apple's statement or anywhere else does it say that
| the EU agrees with this. It's just Apple announcing a plan. I
| can imagine them being like "we showed we'd be willing to kill
| PWAs entirely, so they surely will be OK with our olive branch
| here and let us keep our WebKit restriction in place for PWAs"
|
| But I'm not so sure. I certainly don't hope so.
|
| The EU isn't stupid. They very much capable enough to see
| Apple's shenanigans for what they are.
| aptgetrekt wrote:
| Does anyone else think that this was the plan all along? Apple
| gave us the worst possible outcome so that this now seems like a
| win.
| zamadatix wrote:
| Maybe, maybe not. It can also be explained by Apple wanting to
| do the minimum required. First choice: no PWA support at all,
| Second choice: PWA support independent of custom browser
| support, and final choice (most work): PWA support on top of
| the custom browser support.
|
| The only thing we know for certain is Apple has shown no
| interest in making the best user experience given the rules vs
| complying with the rules only where required to.
| monero-xmr wrote:
| It should be obvious to everyone that Apple is Microsoft of the
| 1990s vintage. There isn't a lot of innovation in hardware that
| requires huge numbers of people to upgrade their phones and
| laptops as often as they did before. This requires services
| revenue to make up for it, and Apple is taking very aggressive
| tactics to ensure the App Store cash cow continues. They are
| fighting in every battlefield and spending enormous legal and
| tactical resources to do so. Any wedge into their closed
| ecosystem, from alternative app stores to side loading to web
| apps to alternative payment rails, must be prevented at all
| costs.
| orev wrote:
| For people using Windows, Microsoft of the 2020s is also like
| Microsoft of the 1990s, and possibly even worse. All the
| bundled apps, cloud requirements, "accidental" pushes of
| features that people had already declined, telemetry, etc.
| amelius wrote:
| Perhaps, but Apple in the 2020s is certainly worse than
| Microsoft in the 1990s.
|
| At least Microsoft has Microsoft Research. All Apple does is
| milking developers.
| aptgetrekt wrote:
| Does it seem like this was the plan all along to anyone else?
| Apple gave us the worst possible outcome so that this now seems
| like a win.
| TrianguloY wrote:
| I was gonna say this. They need to allow third party browsers
| the ability to create PWAs, but they can't (or don't want to).
| So instead they just disabled it, saying that it was not
| possible, and wait for the backlash to restore it for them
| only.
|
| Now we are at the beginning, PWAs are locked to Apple...but
| apparently that's good? I don't understand...
| zarzavat wrote:
| If this was their plan it's not a good one. There's no
| indication that the EU was interested in PWAs before this,
| but now Apple have made it a cause celebre and brought the
| issue to the attention of the EU.
|
| Hanlon's razor should be applied.
| Squarex wrote:
| Thanks god! I've already started porting my personal app from
| sveltekit pwa to react native...
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| Why not just use WebView?
| megaman821 wrote:
| As a fan of PWAs, I like the direction this is headed. Apple will
| both have to open up PWAs to other browser engines while
| increasing the abilities of PWAs in Safari. App developers will
| realize 80% of apps are fine as PWAs and it is a great way to
| avoid the app store.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| > For support, the Progressive Web Apps will still need to be
| built on WebKit, with all that entails.
|
| They are not opening PWA's to other browser engines.
| megaman821 wrote:
| For the time being, their excuse of not having enough time to
| validate and secure those capabilities seems valid. In a
| year, that won't seem as reasonable, and other browser
| engines will rightly complain.
| rejhgadellaa wrote:
| To anyone reading this as "the EU is okay with PWAs being
| restricted to Safari/Webkit":
|
| (I've seen a couple of those comments go around here on HN)
|
| I don't think so. Nowhere in Apple's announcement does it say
| "the EU is okay with this".
|
| What Apple has announced today is a(n update to their) _plan_ to
| comply with the DMA. The EU won 't actually do anything until
| March 7th (the deadline for compliance). The fact that they _did_
| do something following Apple 's announcements regarding PWAs just
| shows _how obviously ludicrous_ those plans were. The EU
| recognized the urgency of the situation and acted [1] - If Apple
| would have shipped this update, many existing PWAs would stop
| working overnight, those apps would jump ship and offer their PWA
| in the App Store with (no way back?) and the damage to the
| reputation of PWAs would have been done: Apple would 've sent a
| message that you can not rely on the web to reach your customers
| on iOS.
|
| Nowhere does anyone say that the EU is OK with PWAs being
| restricted to WebKit. In fact, the DMA demands the opposite:
| Apple has to open up iOS to 3rd party browsers, and Apple can't
| self-preference Safari/WebKit for any of its features. Like, say,
| run PWAs.
|
| I have read lots of comments and posts that said something along
| the lines of "Apple doesn't want other browsers to run Service
| Workers". That's not the reason for the attempt to remove PWAs on
| iOS. Service Workers are not PWA-only, every regular website in a
| browser tab can have a Service Worker. PWAs can be added to the
| home screen just fine without one. They are not mutually
| exclusive.
|
| Apple removed PWA support so they would not have to open up the
| APIs to other browsers. Period.
|
| So, to circle back to "the EU is okay with PWAs being restricted
| to Safari/Webkit":
|
| I very much doubt it. Apple has announced a plan to comply,
| forgot to mention they were going to kill support for PWAs, then
| did confirm it (only took them 2 weeks), and now they backed
| down. We're back where we left off a month ago - and I believe
| the EU is very much going to have an opinion on the WebKit
| restriction Apple is trying to keep in place.
|
| [1] The EU only announced they would start an investigation
| AFAIK, which is a long way from actually enforcing anything.
| ivanjermakov wrote:
| You've posted your comment twice.
| dang wrote:
| Might have been a mistake? I've killed the other one as a
| dupe now (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39565557).
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Don't agree with politicians using this as a money making
| opportunity with no clear rules where the money can be spent.
|
| Would be happier if it were burned to be honest.
| kevingadd wrote:
| I don't understand how this is politicians making money. It
| happens all the time, sure, but what about the DMA is making
| politicians rich?
| andy_ppp wrote:
| I might try an Android if Apple keep being dicks.
| amelius wrote:
| When will apps on iOS get the same status as apps on MacOS?
|
| Apple can't keep hiding behind the "it's for your own safety",
| because everything they argue about happens on MacOS already.
|
| A modern smartphone is a capable computer, yet I still feel like
| I'm carrying an expensive brick in my pocket.
| t00 wrote:
| Just. Stop. Using. Their. Products.
|
| Apologies but it had to be said.
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