Re:Do not download the app, use the website
by JimDabell on Sunday July 27, 2025 @07:21AM
(#44700468)
> > There isn't just Apple, there's also Google which is a big promoter of PWA's, and in fact they popularized the term.
> Google is the primary champion of PWAs, they have a vested interest in its success.
Yes, and time and time again, people choose to build native Android apps. If PWAs matched native quality, this wouldn’t happen. Even if PWAs didn’t work on Apple platforms at all, if PWAs matched native quality then it would be a clear win to build web + native iOS over web + native iOS + native Android. But people keep building native Android apps.
You can’t blame that on Apple. Apple don’t control what happens on Android, and Apple aren’t making the PWA experience on Android worse. As you note, the maintainer of the Android platform is a big promotor of PWAs. And people still want native Android apps. Blaming Apple is an excuse. PWAs on Android already have the best case scenario – full support and advocacy from the platform vendor. And users still want native Android apps.
This is the entire reason the App Store exists – when Apple launched the iPhone, they put a huge amount of work into making mobile Safari “a desktop-class web browser”. It was a watershed moment for the mobile web. It was the biggest leap forward the mobile web has ever had. Steve Jobs explicitly told people that if you want to build iPhone apps, build them as web apps. And what happened? People demanded native apps. People were finding vulnerabilities in iPhoneOS just so they could install toolchains to build them. So Apple built the App Store and the native iPhoneOS SDK.
People want native apps. People have wanted native apps since before the App Store even existed. People want native apps even when the platform vendors tell them to build web apps. This is not an Apple conspiracy. People want native apps.
> That's just the lazy manufactured and false narrative that I've already thoroughly debunked. I'm not going to repeat it, since you would just ignore it again.
They were replying to your first post in this thread. This is far too aggressive and egotistical a response. They are not obligated to research your opinion before replying.
> Google is the primary champion of PWAs, they have a vested interest in its success.
Yes, and time and time again, people choose to build native Android apps. If PWAs matched native quality, this wouldn’t happen. Even if PWAs didn’t work on Apple platforms at all, if PWAs matched native quality then it would be a clear win to build web + native iOS over web + native iOS + native Android. But people keep building native Android apps.
You can’t blame that on Apple. Apple don’t control what happens on Android, and Apple aren’t making the PWA experience on Android worse. As you note, the maintainer of the Android platform is a big promotor of PWAs. And people still want native Android apps. Blaming Apple is an excuse. PWAs on Android already have the best case scenario – full support and advocacy from the platform vendor. And users still want native Android apps.
This is the entire reason the App Store exists – when Apple launched the iPhone, they put a huge amount of work into making mobile Safari “a desktop-class web browser”. It was a watershed moment for the mobile web. It was the biggest leap forward the mobile web has ever had. Steve Jobs explicitly told people that if you want to build iPhone apps, build them as web apps. And what happened? People demanded native apps. People were finding vulnerabilities in iPhoneOS just so they could install toolchains to build them. So Apple built the App Store and the native iPhoneOS SDK.
People want native apps. People have wanted native apps since before the App Store even existed. People want native apps even when the platform vendors tell them to build web apps. This is not an Apple conspiracy. People want native apps.
> That's just the lazy manufactured and false narrative that I've already thoroughly debunked. I'm not going to repeat it, since you would just ignore it again.
They were replying to your first post in this thread. This is far too aggressive and egotistical a response. They are not obligated to research your opinion before replying.