That's a problem of having a single app store everyone has to go through. Why would you care about a thousand fart apps existing as PWAs online? They wouldn't affect you at all.

> They continue to restrict it because look at how much trash was (is?) on the Android store

You're saying this like there isn't any trash on the Apple App Store? Come on... Beyond the top lists or other discovery models, the Apple App Store contains bunch of things that will never even be downloaded by anyone...

It was more exclusive in the beginning, I give you that. But today, it has as much trash as any other app store.

The iOS app store has way more trash than the Android one. Android has lots of open source software. iOS has a bajillion crappy $2 apps instead. I got an iPad from work, and not only does it not have a calculator from Apple, it's really hard to find a lightweight, low-permission, ad-free calculator on the App Store. I eventually had to settle for one designed for iPhones.

I don't think that they care about not having useless apps. They care about the apps looking "integrated" in their system, right? I am an Android user and an Android developer, and I must admit that iOS apps usually look more consistent (in terms of UX).

And that's one of the values of Apple: this vertical integration that makes the overall thing look more polished (and probably easier to use to some extent).

Of course, they are happy to keep the restriction because they can take 30% commission on the paid apps, I'm not saying they are perfect and that there is nothing to improve. But I am not completely convinced that forcing them to lower their standards of integration (by allowing any kind of apps) is necessarily beneficial for the users.

After all, why do developers want PWAs? Probably mostly because it is cheaper for them, not because it's better for their users, right?

> After all, why do developers want PWAs? Probably mostly because it is cheaper for them, not because it's better for their users, right?

Wrong, PWAs can provide better services for users, and the lack of PWAs and enforcement of the App Store monopoly can hurt them[1]:

> The fact that Apple refuses to implement basic features in mobile Safari that Firefox and Chrome have had for years now, and the fact that they refuse to allow other browser engines on iOS is the reason why we can't have nice things like progressive web apps.

> I recently worked on a health app related to the COVID pandemic. The most common use case would be served really well by a PWA, and as such, there's no reason users would need to install an app on their phones to access the web app's full set of features.

> Despite the web app working perfectly on Android and across Windows, Linux and macOS without native integration, we now must dedicate time and resources to develop an additional iOS app just so iOS users, which over half of Americans are, aren't left out.

> This is an expensive endeavor time-wise and money-wise, during a pandemic where time is of the essence and resources are stretched thin. It shouldn't be this way, but it is.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26520148

You start by saying that PWAs provide better services than native apps (I don't believe it), and then you go on giving an example where it does not, but where you would like it to do because it would be cheaper?

Seems like you do confirm my points.

A non-profit lowering the amount of capital, labor and time it needs to meet users' needs during an emergency is an example of better benefits users can reap from being able to run PWAs versus being artificially limited from doing so by their phones' manufacturer.

Seems to me that you are generalizing from a far-fetched example.

I am not saying that users can never benefit from PWAs. I am saying that globally, I am not convinced that PWAs will improve the life of iOS users. Just like I don't feel like Electron is improving my life. Slack would maybe have to make a proper app if they did not have Electron, it's not like Salesforce doesn't have the money. I could even go further: if it was actually expensive for such companies to write apps for the platforms they need to support, maybe they would open their APIs. Slack/Discord are glorified IRC messengers, I would love to have a lightweight client to use them (instead of getting a full copy of Chromium for each).

> They continue to restrict it because look at how much trash was (is?) on the Android store; they restricted it even more in the early days because of the torrent of low effort fart / gag apps.

A yet there are a ton of low effort and literal fart apps on the App Store[1].

[1] https://i.imgur.com/AINmvSf.png