Comment by nomel
8 months ago
> if your app's entire functionality could be done in a regular website or PWA, then you can't put a native app on our stores
A very silly threshold, since this would knock out probably 95% of the app store, including games, since "websites" are extremely capable these days, with full 3d graphics, etc. Then, each time safari added a new modern browser feature, more would get knocked out.
I think that's a little overstated. Part of a game's functionality is performance and native controls. A website can technically do those things, but the JS and WGL requirements will significantly hamper performance, and getting a browser to hand over native, first-class control of the device to the website is largely impossible and usually ends up an awkward mess.
And that little asterisk would end up getting abused by pretty much everyone. After all, we wouldn't be able to add the same functionality to the website because the developers we employ for this are only proficient in `<native language here>`.
By-intent, it would definitely be a big chunk of the apps out there, but I would argue that's a good thing. I don't want an App for every brand I interact with, especially since I know what they're doing (harvesting my data to sell to brokers to make a fraction of a penny more per transaction).
Why is that a bad thing? Wouldn't we be better off with all of them being PWA's?
It's not a bad thing for users. It would reduce the ability of Apple and Google to extract revenue from their stores though, so they're motivated to do the opposite.
For more complex apps, efficiency could be a considerable issue. As capable as the web has become, it’s not very battery friendly for more advanced use cases.
1 reply →
How many apps that could be websites have in app purchases of digital goods?
Gotta love the HN bubble. Users want apps, not PWAs.
If Apple wanted to make PWAs look like apps, users wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Except that's not what Apple wants at all.
7 replies →
I don't think the average non-technical person would know one from the other aside from the installation process. This situation didn't come about because users demanded native apps, but because companies profit more from them.