That is really terrible. I don't like the closed nature of Apple's practices anyway, but the way in which they are stifling PWAs is truly abhorrent.
I do feel they'll lose this battle eventually, even if it takes a few years. Cross platform apps without a required compile step or walled garden are almost certainly the end state I expect we'll reach within the next decade (probably sooner).
You seem to be conflating "PWA" with the Safari + Home Screen integration that allowed users to add a web[site|app] (PWA or not) to the iOS Home Screen. Apple had to remove this to comply with the DMA.
It's now the responsibility of alternative browser engine vendors to integrate with Shortcuts so that you can add PWAs and other web[sites|apps] to the Home Screen using your browser engine of choice. The additional benefit of this is that different PWAs can use different browser engines.
You emphasized “all” to imply there are so many, but honestly I can’t think of much beyond what they’re already mitigating to comply with the DMA.
You’ll get a browser selection screen now, other engines will be allowed, default browser choice gets further expanded in terms of implementation so it essentially ensures you never have to touch Safari.
The only thing that is being torn out is PWA installation on Home Screen because it would be yet another significant architectural change that comes with some significant engineering effort during a time of crunch, when the install rate of PWAs is abysmal as it is, even on other OSs.
If Siri would be the one benefiting (which is what you seem to be saying?) then it wouldn’t give Safari an unfair advantage.
No virtual assistants have been designated as gatekeepers under the DMA so preferential treatment of Siri would still be allowed.
That said, to my knowledge Siri doesn’t “learn” from Safari in the sense that it improves or trains on Safari user data.
Instead Safari, and all other apps, including third party apps, can provide information to Siri to be shown during search as well as providing shortcuts so the app can be controlled via Siri.
Users have control over this to a degree so they can exclude information from certain apps.
Alternative voice assistants offer similar APIs to receive information and support voice commands for third party services.
From Apples own documentation I get the feeling that someone discovered that there was no easy way to allow their PWA support to work with other browser engines. Due to a lack of priority, running out of time and general malicious compliance they just nuked PWAs instead of fixing them.
I wonder if the DMA contains some sort of requirement that features not be removed. To force Apple to make PWAs interoperable with other browser engines instead of just nuking them.
With iOS 17.4 in the EU, you can no longer make a web app (PWA) that uses a full screen window with no browser ui controls. No longer use local storage for the web app's data, and no longer send push notifications and show badges on the home screen icon for web apps.
Third party browsers can't add this functionality back. How do you expect them to make push notifications work with PWAs?
> With iOS 17.4 in the EU, you can no longer make a web app (PWA) that uses a full screen window with no browser ui controls.
Are you sure? Go to https://sindresorhus.com/screenfull/, tap "Request", and you should see a full-screen website. Any [website|webapp|PWA] can do this with Safari. (Screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/CTWFPol) Third-party browsers using their own browser engines can do whatever they like.
> How do you expect them to make push notifications work with PWAs?
Third-party browsers using their own browser engine will have to create their own support for web notifications, just as Apple does for Safari. Presumably, they'll leverage the same infrastructure they use on non-iOS platforms.
But those that are are all claiming that all their PWAs are no longer full screen, lost all their local storage, and push notifications stopped working.
Using shortcuts might be a solution in the future. Would be much better if Apple updated their PWA support so that users could select a browser engine instead.
https://www.macrumors.com/2024/02/08/ios-17-4-nerfs-web-apps...