> 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.
You don't – but why do you need loading screens, push notifications, or any of that other stuff either?
The web is great in concept for document-oriented information and some application uses. Mobile applications are greater for richer user interfaces and more device integration. They both have their strengths, and I think it's okay to accept that.
Well, actually they can, as Twitter has shown. It looks like Apple is trying to pull an Internet Explorer on us though.
Web applications are fine, and have their place. I'd argue that place is not as frequently-used, heavily interactive applications; native apps exist for that, and are better in most ways.
This is the thing – some publishers insist on using their stupid application when all I want to do is browse some content. Other publishers insist I use their shitty JS-HTML-Hybrid nonsense because they are too stingy to develop proper applications. I wish we could learn to more effective use technologies in the right places.
> This is the thing – some publishers insist on using their stupid application when all I want to do is browse some content.
That's exactly the problem PWAs solve. Those publishers want some features that on iOS are only available to native apps, and so have to make the experience suck for Apple users by using an installed native app instead of a web app. Both publishers and users have an aligned interest there for PWAs, which goes against Apple's own interest.