Technology

This is probably motivated by the EU decision that since no uses iMessage in the EU, Apple is not legally a "gatekeeper". Perhaps no one (i.e. fewer than 40 million people) uses web apps in the EU, therefore they are gambling that they are allowed to legally gatekeep in that market

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Apple is officially axing support for progressive web apps for iPhone users located in the European Union.

While web apps have been broken for EU users in every iOS 17.4 beta so far, Apple has now confirmed that this is a feature, not a bug.

In an update to its developer website spotted by 9to5Mac, Apple says it’s removing homescreen apps for users in the EU because bringing them into compliance with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) would involve “an entirely new integration architecture” that’s “not practical” to build on top of the other changes it’s been forced to make.

In its post, Apple argues that web apps are built “directly on WebKit” — the engine used by Safari — allowing web apps to “align with the security and privacy model for native apps on iOS.” With the change to iOS 17.4, websites added to the homescreen now act only as bookmarks that open a new tab in your browser, rather than (potentially) standalone services capable of doing things like sending notifications and showing badges, a feature Apple just added to web apps last year.

Progressive web apps on iOS are also capable of storing data separately from your browser instance, which comes in handy if there’s a site you want quick access to and don’t want to keep signing in.

“Still, we regret any impact this change — that was made as part of the work to comply with the DMA — may have on developers of Home Screen web apps and our users.” Apple cites “very low user adoption” of homescreen apps as another reason for the lack of support.

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I was starting to love pwa... But this is going to kill the momentum it was starting to have 😢

That shit brand created a cult for dimwits thinking they are better and smarter than everybody else by becoming platform slaves, and thus be exploited, as their only benefit of their deficiencies and dependency is consumism.

I like there hardware but I don't like what they do with it and what they do with the software

How will this affect the Lemmy client Voyager? Is it considered a web app? My understanding was that it was.

A lot of kerfuffle over not much. If you’re going to release a web app instead of a proper app, then I’m quite happy to have a bookmark to the web page instead of a bullshit fake app wrapping the same bookmark. Don’t clutter my phone with that garbage.