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?
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.
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.
We already have a "X company has an app" banner API on iOS, it seems fitting that webapps have an option to match.
And the Safari provided "X company has an app" banner is a lot less annoying than any third party "HEY WHY AREN'T YOU USING OUR APP" banners in that it goes away when you scroll down instead of being fixed to the top of your screen. If a native feature can keep people from making a shittier version and sticking it all over, then I vote yes.
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 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.
