We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19023701.

I don't think that's right. Apple are consistently late to the party as far as Safari goes. I mean, they don't even support web push notifications yet, while other browsers have been supporting them for years. It's down right annoying.

Case in point. Why do you need web push when you have websockets which safari supports?

So that you can notify users even when they've closed their browser, like you would with a native app.

The last thing I want is for websites to send me notifications (or rather, endlessly nag me to enable notifications, as I'd never grant permission).

I'd say there's a difference between a 'web site' and a 'web app'. If there's a web app for which you'd allow notifications if it was a native app, why wouldn't you do so for the web app?

Because every single website I visit today on my desktop shows me a popup asking me to enable their desktop notifications.

Nah, useless functionality. I've got feedly if I'd like to keep track of their news.

That being said I work in ad arbitrage, so I understand the presumed efficiency of these notifications. As they say our business is middle-aged Americans who can't use the Internet.

I don’t know: frankly I find them incredibly annoying (that includes Spotify, email and the likes).

But besides the point: imo the semantics of these notifications severely differ between applications. Moreover, the usefullness of them heavily depends on the ability for someone to integrate them in the whole ecosystem.

Thus notifications from news websites fit right in: they don’t need a snooze button as it in for OS X Calendar app. But they are the least useful.

So we are back to square one: if you allow notifications, then what kind of? Do you allow any HTML payloads or only some?

That being said my reply is re. subj.: I understand why Apple doesn’t like them. Because they are generally useful only for a small amount of use-cases, 99% of which is spam. And an average user is going to blame Apple for allowing him to accept them in the first place.

But all that is very much true for native app notifications as well. So it may be that you don't like notifications in general, not PWA notifications specifically?

Just because you don't like something doesn't mean it's not useful to other people. Case in point: my mom and a lot of her friends don't know how to use smartphones, or don't have one at all. But they like to stay connected with people on Facebook. The problem is, they hardly ever go to Facebook specifically, so the chrome notifications are very useful for them.

I think it's laughable that you differentiate between the notifications of an app vs the notifications from a web app. Both are opt-in, with web apps being even more explicit about the opt-in process, in my opinion. Also, once you disallow notifications, the web app will not be able to request permissions again. Why do you feel this is problematic?

It's easy to disable notifications for native apps (on iOS at least) - just don't grant the permission in the first place.

The reason I feel web notifications are more problematic is the nagging aspect that I think would happen (like, for example, the 'install our app' interstitials and prompts). That's annoying enough without adding notifications to the mix.

I sort of agree with you. The web is the wild west, reckless and unrestricted. The app stores are considerably more tame, yet intrinsically restrictive in many ways. Eventually we will tame the web app/PWA ecosystem, while keeping things much more flexible than the app stores. I agree some aspects of PWAs are a little rough round the edges (as you described), but there is plenty of polishing ongoing, and I bet PWAs will eventually emerge shinier than their native counterparts.

It doesn't matter. What matters is that web apps aren't on parity with mobile apps, which was the point here.

Okay. That's a different concern.

can iPhone play webms yet?

Safari imo is the worst offending browser when it comes to bugs/not implementing standards.

It's the new IE, I'm constantly implementing workarounds for Safari.

They won't add functionality that would compete with the app store.

Add to home screen is a good example

You have been able to add to home screen since 11.3

iOS 12.2's main updates are with regards to state management and authentication flows for PWA's.

https://hub.packtpub.com/apple-releases-ios-12-2-beta-1-for-...

11.3 was released less than a year ago, which would prove pier25's point that apple has been dragging its heels.

That's interesting, haven't cared about iOS in a long time though.

PWA's are since 2015, so mid 2018 does indeed seem pretty fast for Apple for implementing it.

I might believe it all when they have "approved 3rd party web rendering engines". Which is ( to be honest) the only thing that will change my opinion about it. Implementing it very slow is just a little better than not implementing it at all.

And i don't think Apple will ever do that. So, it's a rock-steady argument since 2010.

Edit:

If the user doesn’t use the app for a few weeks, iOS will free up the app’s files. The icon will still be there on the home screen, and when accessed the app will be downloaded again

So much for PWA's on iOS.

It's been available much longer than 11.3, was this a typo for 1.1.3 when it was actually added?

No, PWA add to homescreen is since 11.3

https://dockyard.com/blog/2017/09/27/encouraging-pwa-install...

They do even auto-delete the PWA-apps

[Quote]

If the user doesn’t use the app for a few weeks, iOS will free up the app’s files. The icon will still be there on the home screen, and when accessed the app will be downloaded again.

Not very trustworthy for using a PWA on iOS it seems :)

I agree that better/modern PWA support was added only recently, but the actual "Add to Home Screen" option has been around since 1.1.3.

I'll admit it's been little more than a fancy way to add a bookmark to your home screen with the option to hide the browser chrome, but it's been there for a long time.

This applies to all apps, not just PWAs, and can be enabled/disabled. I don’t know what you’re quoting as it doesn’t appear in the link (apologies if it does, perhaps my ctrl+f is malfunctioning), so I don’t know if your source is claiming otherwise.

Is it enabled by default? My source just mentioned auto-removal for PWA, which seems like a weird decision for local databases

Serious question: Do non iOS users actually add PWAs to there home screen?

It's basically equivalent to bookmarks.

Browsers have been working had to make people not want bookmarks, but everybody that I show how to get them is just loves them.

(But well, they would be better if the mobile web didn't suck.)

Yes, over 30,000 of our users have installed https://usebx.com/app to their home screen on Android.

Yeah. I made a few low-tech iot control panels this way.

I have 3. But I guess that doesn't say much.

Websites can show a 'add to homescreen' button.

Yes, i have a couple of them. halve of them is home-made though.

I think that "add to home screen" is a stupid browser API, serving no genuine technical necessity. Feature creep of browsers must be forcefully stopped.

I'm with you. The potential for websites to add themselves is far too dangerous; the web being open, wild, and dangerous, adding a website to the home screen should only ever be a browser-based task.

And no, asking the user for confirmation is never sufficient to stop unsuspecting people from accidentally causing their own compromise. It's a trust thing. Once they trust one dialogue from a legit website, they'll trust it over and over.

Let web sites leave the home screen on my phone the same way web sites have always left my bookmarks/favourites: alone

As far as I’m aware this Add to Home Screen API you’re describing controlled by the website doesn’t exist, adding a PWA is a process controlled by the browser which occurs according to its heuristics, on Chrome it’s something to do with repeated visits to the same site. The only control the website has is a manifest, which sets the icon, loading screen colour, and whether the website can run without browser chrome.

Edit: It looks like Chrome may have changed this, what I’m referring to above was the initial implementation. I think it’s a reasonable objection to say this should be under the control of the browser. But Safari could just implement the former without the latter.

My main gripes with Safari at least with my use of webapps is that it doesn’t allow users to install PWA’s without the browser chrome, and its implementation of service workers is subtlely broken. Those are the biggest usability issues.

If a user goes out of their way to go to the share menu, scroll along and click ‘add to homescreen’ why not allow them to specify to use what is clearly an app-like link without browser chrome? And why implement Service Workers but not according to the standard?

I thought you could trigger mobile Safari to hide its chrome when added to the home screen via some meta tag.

You can, and that should be sufficient.

What?? This makes no sense.

It's just about showing a banner to add to home screen, and the person is not wrong — there is no technical necessity for it. There is already, and always has been, an "Add to home screen" button in Safari. Since the very start.

Having said that, if PWA support in iOS moves forward I wouldn't be surprised if that API is added to iOS, since then it'd be part of a bigger-picture thing.

> Since the very start.

Technically not quite the very start (but it was added in iPhoneOS 2.1 so close enough).

The banner is relevant to those users who haven't figured out that they can do that.

Your example, though, directly contradicts the point you're trying to make. Apple does have a native feature for showing when there's a native app available, and -yet- we see those third-party banners.

Having the native API to do something doesn't make the third-party crap banners go away.

Yes, not every site wants it to be unobtrusive, they view the nagging as a feature. But for sites that aren't assholes I think they should have a standardized option like the app store's smart banners.

I guess the real question is "If we didn't have smart banners, would even more websites use obnoxious full screen popovers and fixed position headers that pop back up every time you visit the page?" I think the answer is yes, fixed position headers are a really easy/lazy thing to tack onto a webpage, and not bothering to persist the fact that you already closed it 10 times is easier than saving that preference and checking it.

If you want people to consider doing it the nicer way you have to make it just as easy.

> I think the answer is yes

I think the answer is no: smart banners only increased the pop-over spam, and adding a smart banner is pretty much free, it's a single line to add to a header and is guaranteed to only trigger on the relevant / target population. A hand-rolled version not only is significantly more expensive to implement but it will misfire and lose visitors.

> There's an add to home screen button, but it's buried deep in the share sheet and the average user doesn't know about it.

What? It's a single tap to open the share sheet and the button is in the system row "above the fold" (because there aren't even enough items for anything to even be below the fold). If that's "buried deep" I'd shudder to know what you think of uninstalling an application or adding a keyboard.

Ah, maybe my share actions are in a nonstandard order, I have to scroll way to the right to find that one.

And in answer to your last point, I'm not optimistic about the average user's ability to add a keyboard either.

> Add to home screen is a good example

You mean the thing that's been there since iPhoneOS 2.1? (https://appleinsider.com/articles/08/10/03/latest_iphone_sof...)

Or are you just whining about other implementors not adopting Chrome's proprietary crap wholesale?

Apart from stuff that competes with their app store, like web push, of course

And Service Workers, though admittedly that implementation took long and is apparently still brittle.

If the user doesn’t use the app for a few weeks, iOS will free up the app’s files. The icon will still be there on the home screen, and when accessed the app will be downloaded again

So much for PWA's on iOS... Apple's willingness to embrace web technologies is a joke.

I don’t see your point. This happens with native apps as well.

Source? Can't find it

Settings > iTunes & App Store > Offload Unused Apps

Enabled by default? Probably not

The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming. Their W3C compliance is abyamal, and it's certainly NOT because they care for the user.

The way they banned Steam from streaming games, by retroactively changing app-store rules, it appears like the motivation is to increase (app-store) revenues, by crippling the iOS browser.