> Here are a list of things you still can’t do with mobile safari due to Apple’s refusal to support them:
>
> Create an app loading screen
> Use push notifications
> Add offline support
> Create an initial app UI to load instantly
> Prompt installation to the home screen through browser-guided dialog
Why do I want these things, as a user. App loading screens?
I love the web. I love hyperlinks, text and images. The web of connections that lead you to information. Everything in that list is detrimental to a good experience on the web.
I don't want push notifications, I barely enable them for native apps. And it bugs the hell out of me when every second website in desktop Safari prompts to send me push notifications. No. Why would I want this on mobile?
Same thing with the home screen. I love the fact that the address bar in my web browser is my history, my reminders, my bookmarks, my open tabs. I start typing what I want and I'm there. Finding native apps on my home screen is only just getting to the same place with Spotlight, why would I want to make the web worse by sticking icons for pages on my home screen?
And browser-guided dialogs to put more icons on my home screen? Seriously?
This author's post is a great argument against web apps on mobile.
Why do I need a native binary, tens of thousands of lines of code, an app with a massive permissions access to my device...
To read a news article?
To book a flight?
To comment on an internet post?
Adding a few more "app features" to light web pages sounds a whole lot more attractive than banishing all useful functionality into the den of apps, where only larger teams and more experienced developers can roll out even basic functionality.
> To read a news article?
I refuse to use a native app for this (e.g., Apple News, Flipboard). I love reading my news on the web. In a browser. Where the page is the content and the browser is the convenience. Even better is having Safari's "Reader Mode" enabled constantly so every article is consistently and nicely formatted and I get just the text and links.
> To book a flight?
Same thing for booking a flight, last time I did that was on a web site. With some forms and a few "Next" links to go to the next page until I was done.
It was nice to get the boarding pass in Apple Wallet though and then use that to board.
> To comment on an internet post?
I'm commenting on this post right here in Safari. I wouldn't ever want to use an app for it.
I don't need more "app features" on light web pages. Especially not the ones mentioned in the article.
On booking a flight: I'm not sure how doing this offline helps? Last time I did it, I did have to wait for pages to load after clicking links but it was on the order of seconds or less. And not anything frustrating.
On commenting on an Internet post: Doing it offline is not really interesting to me, and I'm not sure how that would work (which is why I'm happy to do it in a browser). Hacker News is more than fast enough. It's really minimal.
Sure, but PWAs allow for so much more than that. For example, you could not only read the article offline, but also _comment_ on it offline and have your comment automatically posted next time you have a connection. Or you could click a button to have all future articles from a particular news site automatically synced in the background while you're on WiFi so they're available for reading next time you're out; no manual downloading of each individual article required.
> On booking a flight: I'm not sure how doing this offline helps? Last time I did it, I did have to wait for pages to load after clicking links but it was on the order of seconds or less.
A PWA would allow much faster interaction than that. Seconds or less? That's terrible compared to the performance you _could_ be getting out of a PWA (i.e. near instant, like what you'd expect from a native app).
> Doing it offline is not really interesting to me, and I'm not sure how that would work (which is why I'm happy to do it in a browser). Hacker News is more than fast enough. It's really minimal.
Sounds to me like you're already content with the experience you're getting from the web. That's fine, but it's no reason to oppose features that would make the experience even better for those of us who do want them.