The problem is that they prevent other browsers to add these features, because they prevent them from using their browser engines. That way, they prevent these browsers to really compete with theirs (Safari). Because if we could run the real Chrome on iOS, with all the APIs it supports, it's obvious everyone would ditch Safari straight away.
And more importantly, that way they prevent Web apps from competing with native apps. Because obviously, who would use a Web app which can't even send push notifications instead of a native app with all the native APIs it has access to?
So the problem is not Apple not caring enough about the Web. The problem is Apple having anti-competitive behaviour regarding Web browsers and application platforms on iOS.
You'd be running features that both Mozilla and Safari consider harmful and will not implement.
And if I'm not happy with that, maybe I'll switch to Firefox, which doesn't support them while not holding the Web back on many other features and with many unfixed bugs for years, like Apple does with Safari.
That's the advantage of competition, if you're not happy with a product, you can use another one instead.
Most frontend devs that I know making PWAs complain endlessly about the number of exceptions and workarounds for Safari, and indeed it does slow down development and ends up being a justification for contemplating dedicated mobile apps.
Apple doesn't have to do anything, they just have to stop blocking others from doing anything.
Anything else, like two iOS versions, is simply a provocation on the level of "we cannot unbundle IE".
This is where this line of reasoning goes wrong.
People will be persuaded to go out of the App Store ecosystem regardless of whether it is good for them or not.
Tens of billions of dollars and the most valuable advertising real estate on Facebook, Amazon, and the front page of Google, not to mention Epic and the other TenCent owned games companies will all be used to convince users to install alternative App Store.
Facebook and Amazon will presumably bundle stores directly into their apps. Why wouldn’t many other companies do this. Presumably TikTok would.
But it doesn’t matter, because all this is effectively false in practice. The overwhelming majority of people can barely be bothered to change their desktop browser, and even then they mostly do it only when directed (by their IT or their power-user of reference). This idea that they will all suddenly go tweak-crazy and install every appstore under the sun is simply an exaggeration, a strawman propped up to defend Apple’s utterly anticompetitive practices.
You’re going to need to explain this. I don’t see anything in what I wrote that leads to the conclusions in your first paragraph.
1. Users may not understand the security/privacy benefits until after they have sacrificed them.
2. There will be very large competitors trying to persuade them that there are no benefits. E.g. https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/16/22178068/facebook-apple-...
3. Alternate stores will pay for exclusives and users will be forced to use them or lose important apps.
4. Key apps such as Facebook itself will just build stores into their apps.
As to your second paragraph:
“The overwhelming majority of people can barely be bothered to change their desktop browser, and even then they mostly do it only when directed..”
This is true, which is precisely why only Facebook and Google plus Amazon and a few others, E.g. Epic, will have the resources to persuade users to establish large alternative stores. Google advertised Chrome on the front page, and on TV. This is exactly what would happen with alternative stores.
“This idea that they will all suddenly go tweak-crazy and install every appstore under the sun is simply an exaggeration..”
A strawman is when you present a deliberately weak version of another person’s argument, and then attack it. This paragraph of yours is a strawman. Nobody alluded to anyone going tweak crazy etc. Nobody defended Apple.
My comment was a response to this:
“People who want to stay safe in the Appstore garden have nothing to do, and everyone else can go the extra mile if they want to.“
Which is clearly an unrealistic depiction of how things would be.
This. We devs do a great/horrible enough job of this already being lazy with implementations and saying “Chrome is the only supported browser”
Over the past 10 years, how many companies chose to build native apps for iOS instead of web apps running everywhere? How many people bought iOS devices instead of competing products because of that rich app ecosystem (working only on iOS devices)? How much money did they make through the App Store fee that app developers could have saved if Web Apps had been a viable option? How much money was poured in the native industry instead of the Web?
Apple has been preventing the growth of the Web as an app platform for years, it's time for a change, and it's time they pay for it.