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Apple Walks Back Decision to Disable Home Screen Web Apps in the EU (www.macrumors.com)

submitted 6 months ago by ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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Following the release of the second beta version of iOS 17.4, it emerged that Apple had restricted the functionality of iOS web apps in the EU. Web apps could no longer launch from the ‌Home Screen‌ in their own top-level window that takes up the entire screen, relegating them to a simple shortcut with an option to open within Safari instead.

The move was heavily criticized by groups like Open Web Advocacy, which started a petition in an effort to persuade Apple to reverse the change, and it even caught the attention of the European Commission. Now, Apple has backtracked and says that ‌Home Screen‌ web apps that use WebKit in the EU will continue to function as expected upon the release of iOS 17.4.

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[–] randomaccount43543@lemmy.world 93 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (15 children)

Great news! Web apps represent the democratization of mobile apps, empowering independent developers free from the constraints of the App Stores

[–] smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de 23 points 6 months ago (11 children)

Ability to add any app repositories would be much better.

[–] fatalError@lemmy.sdf.org -1 points 6 months ago (4 children)

It would be good, but not better. Why do people like apps so much? I hate them... Like, there is so much browsers can do these days, there is no point in having to install so much crap on our phones...

Why would I have to download an app that has so many permissions, syphon my data, run in the background and drain my battery, when 90% of the stuff can stay in the browser?

The only few advantages I can think off that an app can bring are the following:

they can work offline, some of them at least, half my apps probably won't
better security, that's mostly for bank apps, not really needed for many other cases
marginally faster load times
higher complexity, devs have a bit more freedom I guess

Most use cases don't require either of these.

[–] StenSaksTapir@feddit.dk 8 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I'm using Voyager browse and interact with Lemmy. It looks more or less exactly like Apollo and it's a webapp. There's a few small things that's not exactly as a native app, like double tapping the top of a scrolling window to scroll to top, but it's really minor. I bet most people wouldn't know it was a webapp if they weren't told.

It even works with the sharing intent so I can share to native apps. Pretty awesome.

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