Progressive Web Apps

Yeah of course, I’m a web dev so prepare for a partial rant :)

PWAs have kinda felt like that thing Apple has reluctantly kept around to show the world that they aren’t trying to lock you into their App Store ecosystem. They’ve always been slow to implement new PWA features and address bugs (they just added notifications last year while it’s been supported on other devices for a while now). They drip-feed developers just enough PWA features and fixes to keep their brand image up, but not too much to where it could grow to threaten to their App Store profits.

Now, it feels like they finally have someone else to blame for getting rid of PWAs so they don’t look bad doing it themselves. It’s the moment they’ve been waiting for. They can keep their brand image looking good, and cut something out that has the potential to affect a bit of their profits. I would not be surprised if they start incrementally dropping PWA support the next chance they get.

Now, the only way to release an app-like experience for EU customers (one with notifications and other native features) is by going through their App Store ecosystem in some way. Meanwhile, macOS has PWA support and the ability to use whatever browser engine you’d like.

Granted, I haven’t looked in-depth into what these new policies are requiring of Apple, but for those of us that have spent years wresting with iOS Safari (sometimes called the new Internet Explorer) it sure leaves a bad taste. At the very least, it’d be nice to have some resources and recommendations from them beyond a small announcement/apology inside a collapsed menu at the bottom of a page.