Apple also holds this sort of features back on their browser on the open desktop platform (macOS). Judging from that I'd say there must be another reason.

Safari for macOS has push notifications, arguably the most important component of PWAs.

I might buy into that theory if they didn't have Apple Pay in the browser.

You mean the feature that lets them take a cut of every transaction that goes through it?

Yes, the feature that massively reduces friction for paying for things on the web for which Apple collects about 1/200th the fee that they do when you buy in their store.

If you are a web app developer who wants users to pay you, Apple Pay is awesome in that it takes away a lot of friction.

Good. The "browser is a mini-OS" metaphor has proven to be an absolutely terrible experience for both developers and end-users. Time to find another way.

Let the market decide? If it's so obviously terrible it will fail.

Like with cigarettes.

Please don't make unsubstantial comments on HN. You're not being as clever as you think you are.

Edit: The context of my pro-free-market comment is app stores. Of course it's not absolute. You very well know this. Please don't argue in bad faith.

The comment was not unsubstantial, nor was it “clever” in the way you suggest was attempted. Cigarettes were quite a popular market driven product for literally decades. The point being, obviously, that “the market decides” isn’t necessarily a good way to determine or identify quality, or what consumers actually want or need.

The "what about cigarettes?" argument would be relevant if one of the market participants in this scenario was literally killing people (or otherwise harming society in some way).

An honest reader would not interpret my pro-free-market comment as being 100% absolute in any and all circumstances. An honest reader would consider the context. You're not arguing in good faith.

Try again?

> An honest reader would not interpret my pro-free-market comment as being 100% absolute in any and all circumstances.

FWIW, based on my experience, whenever I see Americans arguing pro-free-market, I am going to assume that they genuinely argue in absolutes. ("FWIW" because I can see from your profile that you're Canadian.)

Generally fair I guess, but extending the argument from electronics all the way to something as universally reviled as cigarettes? That's quite a leap! I mean, why stop there? Why not flame throwers and ballistic missiles? :-)

This is exactly the kind of thing that makes me want to participate less and less in online discussion. HN's rules require people to interpret comments charitably but it's still full of stuff like this. It's exhausting.

I just don't have the energy for it anymore and honestly that makes me quite sad.

Yes. To avoid the crappification of mobile, where everything it's a bunch of slow, memory and battery draining Electron apps, doing whatever they want, each with custom UI...

Definitely that and not to avoid the potential for circumventing their lock-in. If Apple were that obsessed with performance, their LLVM backends wouldn't be closed source.

How is that not what exists? Aren't many apps based on web technologies, and/or have custom UIs? There's little standardisation even among 'real' native apps.

>How is that not what exists? Aren't many apps based on web technologies, and/or have custom UIs?

Yes, but

(a) some, as opposed to all which is the dream of the pro web-app camp.

(b) forbidding custom JS and web engines helps keep this low

(c) even the crappy mobile-webview apps at least have to be wrapped in an app container, be installable and uninstallable the same way, be notarized, use the same payment system with central control, and be tied to the same policies (e.g. regarding privacy, notifications, use of apis) as native mobile apps