It’s a beta version. They must’ve changed quite a bit around Safari integration and home screen icons. Unless it’s still broken in the final release, this is a nothing burger.
“Beta software has a bug, probably in a system that’s been in iOS since v1.0. Is Apple doomed?”
This kind of thing has happened before. Something very important breaks and stays broken right up until the end of the beta cycle because they were retooling base-level code. Then, without any warning, the final build is released and everything magically works again.
Yeah, it looks bad (especially with the recent EU regulations), but it’s best to wait and see.
oops they did it again.
Imagine a webview integration in performance and api on par of app-niveau.
Imagine every app could be as easily opened/reached/surfed-to as a website.
The crippling of the Webview Engine on Mobile spawned the success of the AppStore/PlayStore.
They didn’t had an AppStore. But they realized the potential. They went for it. Apple promoted HTML5 (Draft 2007, Initial release 2008) as the new technology for everything UI, killed Flash with it, and were left with a free path for a marketplace with binary applications vending with advanced performance and permission structures than the browser market was able to create. HTML5 lays in a ditch with a knife in its back, idling of its latest 5.2 release (2017). Look at this table (wiki). Is this what a sprawling, innovative, free and healthy release tree looks like for a 16 year periode where millions of developers create stunning HTML5 Applications that are on par with Apps? No. And Apple wanted it like that since they knew what they had in their Hands in 2006 with their first mobile-internet-touchscreen-prototypes that later became the iPhone. They were part of the HTML5 Development (2009 Article) and even brought their own Webkit Engine to the table. They knew they need Applications on a mobile device. But as soon they found out after the release, that the AppStore is a viable way to have a walled garden and saw the revenue estimations, they stabbed HTML5 in the back and even took protectorate approaches to not let the webview alternative strive, even tho it was their own creation they helped to build up and now had to constrain in a cage.
They crippled the Webview and therefore the web and what people were able (or allowed) to do on a mobile web or make out of a mobile web. And the key to keeping it in check, was not allowing any other engine on the phone, other than their own (caged) webkit engine, to clamp down on limiting what a mobile webview experience was able to deliver.
Bastards.
You don’t develop webapps in HTML5, though? You use a combination of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript (or any of a number of other technologies that reduce to the same thing, or to WebAssembly, etc), to build apps. Of those three, JavaScript does the heavy lifting and its development hasn’t stagnated. Even the spec is still undergoing heavy development - https://github.com/tc39/ecma402 - with annual releases every year in June since 2015.
That said, Apple’s PWAs have historically been behind the curve and Safari frequently lacks features that other browsers have. I’m still glad Safari exists and has a significant market share thanks to iPhones, because Firefox’s < 5% market share isn’t enough to keep us from a completely Chrome-dominated internet. I want Apple to do better but I also don’t want Google to be more free to do worse. And this isn’t an example of Apple doing “worse” unless it actually gets released to a non-Beta branch.
Imagine using beta software as a daily driver
Arch be like (I’ve been daily driving arch for 4 years, now fell back to debian)
Dude, that’s messed up… Honestly, Apple kind of sounds like a dick - why do you even hang out with them anymore?
Good heads up. Just turned off software updates so my Voyager don’t break.
Why not use the TestFlight version?
Would it work if the underlying OS doesn’t support web apps?
I believe web apps are essentially just a full screen safari window. If “web content in a native app” isn’t working, a very large number of apps would be dead in the water and I doubt it would be released, even as a beta.
But I could of course be wrong.
But as far as I can tell, that is exactly what the article implies. And AFAIK, Voyager is the only web app I use currently.
No, a web app, otherwise known as a Progressive Web App or PWA, are just shortcuts on your home screen that open a fullscreen instance of Safari to the originally provided URL. The article explicitly talks about apps that don’t follow Apple guidelines, which means they wouldn’t be able to get a TestFlight, nor into the App Store.
My web apps on 17.3 work perfectly fine, I’m typing this through one. The biggest issue I’ve had is connectivity through transitions
Now I’m happy that I’m forced on iOS 16 with my iPhone X, lol. But well, most webApps still don’t work great on that version of mobile safari… Hope to see real gecko libreWolf on iOS soon, if apple counts Switzerland as in EU…
don’t support fascism
