Spend money to lose money, not a great investment in their eyes.

Of course they could. They looked at the cost of rewriting the entire integration and framework for running PWAs and said, "eh, nah."

They'll have to allow some kind of app installation API to allow for alternative app stores. If Google implements some kind of WebAPK technology on iOS, they may just be able to launch a Google Play for iOS to work around these PWAs as a workaround, and Safari will be down a feature.

I have the feeling Apple is betting on Google not caring enough about the PWA platform to try to compete. Maybe they're right, but if they're not, they're only making the browser wars worse for themselves.

> I have the feeling Apple is betting on Google not caring enough about the PWA platform to try to compete.

I don't think it's about Google, I think they assume consumers won't care, and they're probably right.

My guess is it's easier for developers to throw their website into Cordova than to start paying Apple a Core Technology Fee and convince users to download an alternative app marketplace to support what is effectively a differently packaged Cordova app.

Or they could just not.

What's the benefit for you as a user to side with Apple on things like this?

> What's the benefit for you as a user to side with Apple on things like this?

Looking at these things as sides is a mistake. Instead of just being tribal, it's better to look positions on their merits.

I've been asking these people for the merits of Apple's decisions for years, and all I ever get in response is "Apple knows best, I don't need these features."

That seems like a perfectly reasonable argument on the merits. What user actually needs web apps? What's the market for apps whose developers can't stomach a $99 developer fee and/or with functionality not allowable by app review?

Well shit, what user needs an app store to begin with? It was never about need, it was about what they could convince users to put up with.

Why do you think an app store isn't something people want, rather than something they put up with? What about the pre-app store world made it the one preferred by consumers in your mind?

> Why do you think an app store isn't something people want, rather than something they put up with?

Because it seems to be that way on MacOS. On Mac, the App Store is absolutely useless and exclusively something people do not want. It does not distribute the software users want, it charges them extra fees, and limits the type of app you distribute.

Judging by every single professional Mac user I've met, circumventing the App Store is a functional necessity for some. Most of them absolutely "put up with" the limitations and issues of MacOS.

> What about the pre-app store world made it the one preferred by consumers in your mind?

The freedom? The cheaper software? The stronger OS security models and lack of social-manipulation-as-a-security-feature?

If the post-App Store world is so great, people will keep living in it even when alternative stores exist. I suspect that most users will not give a rats ass about convenience if there's a 30% cheaper subscription elsewhere.

> If the post-App Store world is so great, people will keep living in it even when alternative stores exist

Bear in mind I'm replying to someone who's saying app stores aren't necessary in general:

> Well shit, what user needs an app store to begin with

In a reductive sense, they're right. Computers existed for upwards of three decades without App Stores, and we distributed software just fine without 'em.

Apple could sign software the same way they do on Mac and effectively turn the App Store into an IPA-downloading PWA.

One user saying they don't need apps outside the App Store is an anecdote. Every person you ask about this matter over years saying they don't need apps outside the App Store is data.

I hope you realize the irony that this just your personal view on what is reasonable and what is or isn't a merit. I don't see the point in bullying someone who is simply expressing an opinion - which happens to be anti-Apple - and one which makes a lot of sense to me.

Can you point out what I said that could be described as "bullying"?

I made a web app that I use which makes use of the Web Push feature for timely notifications. Why should I pay Apple 99/year to get my own notifications on my own phone?

> it's better to look positions on their merits

How do you do this when any value a "merit" could have is based in this dichotomy of vendor/user?

It's not based on that, as far as I can see. Saying "browsers are extremely complex from a security perspective and we will only allow the one we made on to our platform" is in service of making a better product.

You might say that that's not true, and browsers are easy to secure, but that would be arguing the point on its merits. Not on the tribalist lens you're seeing this situation through.

> Instead of just being tribal, it's better to look positions on their merits.

I agree. English is not my main language and maybe I should have used a different word than "side".

Above someone said that this seems to be an OS problem, which should be fixed by Apple. The person I replied to said "Or they could just not."

And that's why I asked why they were siding with Apple here. What's the benefit for users if iOS doesn't work as expected when a different rendering engine is used for a web app? How is this good for EU users? I don't get it.

I don't care about PWAs and would generally prefer companies not have the option so they can't try to push me into one. Anything that makes that less-viable is good for me.

I wish Apple'd held a hard line on the "no apps that should be a web site" rule(s) for similar reasons. Alas, they did not.

I agree. My experience with PWAs is they are usually downgrade from a safari bookmark... they are created to benefit the provider, not the user, by taking away browser abilities from me (back, forward, copy url, etc).

Apple has a decade+ track record of making devices that i really like. (At several points I’ve compared solutions across the market).

Instead of siding with Apple, why would I side with anonymous and random internet commentators who have never made devices I want to buy?

It is definitely odd to outsource your moral principles based on which mega corp you opened your wallet to.

Morals? You think you’re some kind of righteous crusader?

I’m talking about toys and gadgets. The ability to view memes.

If that's your use case, then great!

My iPhone connects me to my government, my bank, my school, my family on the other side of the world, my portfolio, and perhaps most importantly; critical safety services (local avalanche forecasts in my case).

You can be damn well sure I'll be passionate about how it's controlled, and what capabilities the manufacturer is derailing in the interest of record profits.

(For clarity - I'm not the person you responded to, but this is HN so I thought I'd chime in on why some people are so passionate about this so called "toy")

Let me correct some of your misunderstandings.

The comment you were replying to, correctly, pointed out that there is no benefit to the user to side with Apple's anti-user stance. This story, and comments about the story are having to do with a users right to install a browser of their choice, choose a payment method of their choice, etc - which is collectively under the DMA that the EU passed into law - democratically. Apple has repeatedly tried their best to spin this, but it is easy to see past the spin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Markets_Act

You opened your wallet to the same megacorp. The only difference is you're sitting on your high horse for some reason.

I agree that it is the users right to install a browser of their choice, use a payment method of their choice. The recent EU law, which was passed in a democratic system, supports this right.

You're free to make up your own mind.

BTW, My morals, despite my personal failings, are superior to Apple's on this particular issue. Its an interlinked economy with interlinked dependencies on various entities that you may or may not agree with. That doesn't mean you're not allowed to protest them. Otherwise nobody can protest climate change if they drive a car - which is ridiculous.

Perhaps we should side with Apple when they do something good and but not when they do something that isn't that good?

I'm writing this on a Macbook Pro which I really like, but this decision has downsides for me as user and I'm not convinced by Apple's justification.

A seat at Steve Jobs' table in the lunch cafeteria in he...aven?

The sides in this debate are: Apple, Chrome advocates (with a little bit of separation), and the EU. It's not that perplexing to choose the first.

He's not necessarily siding with Apple. He's pointing out they don't have to do that.

I think we all know that a company doesn't have to improve their OS. What I'm trying to understand is why are they defending/coming up with an excuse for something that doesn't really benefit them.

Pretty simple: I like the way Apple does most things. I'm rarely disappointed by the culmination of all of their decisions. I'm frequently disappointed with how other companies do things therefore I don't want their disease to spread to things I'm perfectly content with.

I couldn’t put my feelings into words but this sums it up fairly well. Apple, for all their flaws, typically creates an outstanding product from a security, privacy, and general end-user perspective.

At the end of the day, Apple has earned my trust to make choices that maybe aren’t the most “open” choices, because usually they end up being the best experience for me as an end consumer.

Apple typically makes good decisions, but they don't always do that or act in your best interest. And that's the problem with supporting all their decisions without checking if they're good or not for you.

In this case, iOS isn't capable of handling different rending engines well. So instead of asking them to improve iOS so this isn't a problem (like it isn't on Android and even other iOS apps), you side with their decision of breaking/removing a feature, even though it doesn't benefit you in any way.

I'm sure you can see the problem with this.

Please drop the tribalistic vitriol and be an adult about this. The statement is “or they could not”. It’s factual. It’s what Apple did. It’s not a religious stance.

The question was "What's the benefit for you as a user to side with Apple on things like this?". There's no vitriol there. Jumping to the defense of a trillion dollar corporation seems religious or at least tribalistic to me.

And lest I be dismissed as a hater, I currently own five Apple computers, an iPhone I've upgraded every year since they came out, an iPad, a watch, and a virtu^wspatial computing heads^wdevice. But that's because of the transactional value they provide, not because I believe Apple loves me and has my best interests at heart. They love my money and that's where it ends.

I use several PWAs and I will be very disappointed if this is the stick Apple uses to close the window on this short period of time where we had a reasonably interoperable standard for making "apps" using web technologies. I can run Elk in a browser, but it's suboptimal.

Advocating for security and user privacy protection.

The comment I replied to wasn't advocating for either of that. It was essentially an excuse to support Apple's decision to remove/break a feature because their OS isn't capable of handling a different rendering engine.

From my point of view, I don't benefit if 1) Apple removes this option in my region and 2) there's no good reason for me to be against iOS handling better permissions of web apps and other rendering engines, like it already does for all other apps (and something that Android handles without problems).

There are lots of things that Apple could do to benefit me that aren’t reasonable.

boots taste good and these kids are too young to recall why any of this matters.

There's little benefit to the user for many of Apple's design decisions; that seems like an odd way to predict their behavior.

The fact that Apple controls the entire stack means that they can provide better guarantees for security and experience and also make optimisations that are difficult or impossible when integrating 3rd party software.

They could develop APIs to support alternate browser engines but could not allow them to install sandboxed web apps on the system? Like all other OSes do, including macOS?

How surprising.

The whole point is that doing so would privilege safari over other browsers, which is illegal.

Are not some of the changes in the EU so that people won’t have to rely on Apple’s APIs?