> 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.
Maybe because it's a business app, and the loading screen checks whether you are on intranet (corp wifi) or not.
> I don't want push notifications, I barely enable them for native apps.
I would enable them for important apps (eg. business apps), so I want the technology, but I absolutely hate the popups on news sites for notifications.
So nobody wants that on mobile, but they still want to be able to use notifications when they start using an app from which they want to get notifications. It's that simple.
Let's say a fitness app. Let's say a basic simple fucking calendar app. Or a whatever run of the mill business workflow shit app, that requires your attention from time to time. And it'd be easier if there were no need to build for every fucking platform.
> why would I want to make the web worse by sticking icons for pages on my home screen?
Maybe people have great spatial memory (I like organizing icons on my home screen on Android), maybe you don't want to type?
> And browser-guided dialogs to put more icons on my home screen? Seriously?
Yeah. Consistent UX and security. Why not? It can be OS provided.
Yeah I wouldn't have been a Mac or iOS user if I wasn't anal about every single app on my system being a good citizen. From the simple fucking calendar app, fitness app, or whatever. I expect the developers of those apps to be as passionate about the pixels I interact with as I am.
Attention to detail is a reason these platforms are so loved. Encouraging "simple fucking calendar" apps to disregard the platform in their design is exactly the opposite reason I chose this platform to begin with.
> And it'd be easier if there were no need to build for every fucking platform.
It's easier to build badly for every platform. But no matter what technology stack you choose, if you want to build well for every platform then you are in for a lot of work. Cross platform is not going to make it easier because writing code is not the hard part.
I want to be passionate, but - let's say - I know CSS/HTML/Java and a bit of C#, and so while I could spend time building an Android app and maybe fiddle a bit with a Windows Phone app, but there's no way in hell that I want to venture into OS X territory, ObjectiveC creeps me out more than Haskell and f#, so I can't. (Okay, Swift is nice, but I'm still not allowed in the closed garden, because I don't have access to Xcode.)
I would gladly pay the 100 USD for the Apple Store Developer privilege if I'd get to use nice Web APIs. It can be whitelisted on the Store settings, and it can even integrate into the store, that'd be almost better.