trot
Working on this project is great but ten minutes into it and I already miss the resilience of the web. I miss how you have to really fuck things up to make a browser yell at you or implode.
Browsers, not apps, are the future of mobile - Inside Intercom
There’s a whole category of native apps that could just as easily be described as “artisanal web browsers” (and if someone wants to write a browser extension that replaces every mention of “native app” with “artisanal web browser” that would be just peachy).
Here’s some more thoughts along the same lines:
We’re spending increasing amounts of time inside messaging apps and social networks, themselves wrappers for the mobile web. They’re actually browsers.
There’s an important take-away to this:
The web is and will always be the most popular mobile operating system in the world – not iOS or Android. It’s important that the next generation of software companies don’t focus exclusively on building native iOS or Android versions of existing web apps.
Just make sure those web apps render and work well in the new wave of mobile browsers – messengers. Don’t build for iOS or Android just for an imaginary distribution opportunity. Distribution exists where people spend most of their time today – social and messaging apps, the new mobile browser for a bot-enabled world.
Related links
Daring Fireball: One Bit of Anecdata That the Web Is Languishing Vis-à-Vis Native Mobile Apps
I have to agree with John here:
There’s absolutely no reason the mobile web experience shouldn’t be fast, reliable, well-designed, and keep you logged in. If one of the two should suck, it should be the app that sucks and the website that works well. You shouldn’t be expected to carry around a bundle of software from your utility company in your pocket. But it’s the other way around.
There’s absolutely no technical reason why it should be this way around. This is a cultural problem with “modern front-end web development”.
Apple backs off killing web apps, but the fight continues - Open Web Advocacy
Hallelujah! Apple have backed down on their petulant plan to sabatoge homescreen apps.
I’m very grateful to the Open Web Advocacy group for standing up to this bullying.
Home Screen Advantage - Infrequently Noted
This is exactly what it looks like: a single-fingered salute to the web and web developers.
Read Alex’s thorough explanation of the current situation and then sign this open letter.
Cupertino’s not just trying to vandalise PWAs and critical re-engagement features for Safari; it’s working to prevent any browser from ever offering them on iOS. If Apple succeeds in the next two weeks, it will cement a future in which the mobile web will never be permitted to grow beyond marketing pages for native apps.
Also, remember this and don’t fall for it:
Apple apparently hopes it can convince users to blame regulators for its own choices.
Manton Reece - Apple is twisting the truth
When it benefits Apple, they take the DMA requirements much further than intended. When it doesn’t benefit them, they lean back on the “integrity” of iOS and barely comply at all.
Related posts
Web App install API
It’s kind of ridiculous that this functionality doesn’t exist yet.
Rotten Apple
Apple are planning to kill mobile web apps. This is not an exaggeration. We must stop them.
In between
Between the physical and the digital. Between native apps and the World Wide Web.
A bug with progressive web apps on iOS
Opening an external link in a web view appears to trigger a reload of the parent page without credentials.
The principle of most availability
Reframing the principle of least power.