[1]: https://twitter.com/mhartington/status/1089292031548145666
Nah, useless functionality. I've got feedly if I'd like to keep track of their news.
That being said I work in ad arbitrage, so I understand the presumed efficiency of these notifications. As they say our business is middle-aged Americans who can't use the Internet.
I know what you mean, but that's usually traditional news sites and the like. Having the Spotify web app notify you of the currently playing song or a remainder app reminding you of an appointment is of course a different case, Hence the "web site" vs "web app" distinction I made.
But besides the point: imo the semantics of these notifications severely differ between applications. Moreover, the usefullness of them heavily depends on the ability for someone to integrate them in the whole ecosystem.
Thus notifications from news websites fit right in: they don’t need a snooze button as it in for OS X Calendar app. But they are the least useful.
So we are back to square one: if you allow notifications, then what kind of? Do you allow any HTML payloads or only some?
That being said my reply is re. subj.: I understand why Apple doesn’t like them. Because they are generally useful only for a small amount of use-cases, 99% of which is spam. And an average user is going to blame Apple for allowing him to accept them in the first place.
The reason I feel web notifications are more problematic is the nagging aspect that I think would happen (like, for example, the 'install our app' interstitials and prompts). That's annoying enough without adding notifications to the mix.
It's the new IE, I'm constantly implementing workarounds for Safari.
Add to home screen is a good example
Having said that, if PWA support in iOS moves forward I wouldn't be surprised if that API is added to iOS, since then it'd be part of a bigger-picture thing.
Technically not quite the very start (but it was added in iPhoneOS 2.1 so close enough).
We already have a "X company has an app" banner API on iOS, it seems fitting that webapps have an option to match.
And the Safari provided "X company has an app" banner is a lot less annoying than any third party "HEY WHY AREN'T YOU USING OUR APP" banners in that it goes away when you scroll down instead of being fixed to the top of your screen. If a native feature can keep people from making a shittier version and sticking it all over, then I vote yes.
Having the native API to do something doesn't make the third-party crap banners go away.
I guess the real question is "If we didn't have smart banners, would even more websites use obnoxious full screen popovers and fixed position headers that pop back up every time you visit the page?" I think the answer is yes, fixed position headers are a really easy/lazy thing to tack onto a webpage, and not bothering to persist the fact that you already closed it 10 times is easier than saving that preference and checking it.
If you want people to consider doing it the nicer way you have to make it just as easy.
I think the answer is no: smart banners only increased the pop-over spam, and adding a smart banner is pretty much free, it's a single line to add to a header and is guaranteed to only trigger on the relevant / target population. A hand-rolled version not only is significantly more expensive to implement but it will misfire and lose visitors.
What? It's a single tap to open the share sheet and the button is in the system row "above the fold" (because there aren't even enough items for anything to even be below the fold). If that's "buried deep" I'd shudder to know what you think of uninstalling an application or adding a keyboard.
And in answer to your last point, I'm not optimistic about the average user's ability to add a keyboard either.
And no, asking the user for confirmation is never sufficient to stop unsuspecting people from accidentally causing their own compromise. It's a trust thing. Once they trust one dialogue from a legit website, they'll trust it over and over.
Let web sites leave the home screen on my phone the same way web sites have always left my bookmarks/favourites: alone
Edit: It looks like Chrome may have changed this, what I’m referring to above was the initial implementation. I think it’s a reasonable objection to say this should be under the control of the browser. But Safari could just implement the former without the latter.
My main gripes with Safari at least with my use of webapps is that it doesn’t allow users to install PWA’s without the browser chrome, and its implementation of service workers is subtlely broken. Those are the biggest usability issues.
If a user goes out of their way to go to the share menu, scroll along and click ‘add to homescreen’ why not allow them to specify to use what is clearly an app-like link without browser chrome? And why implement Service Workers but not according to the standard?
You mean the thing that's been there since iPhoneOS 2.1? (https://appleinsider.com/articles/08/10/03/latest_iphone_sof...)
Or are you just whining about other implementors not adopting Chrome's proprietary crap wholesale?
Websites can show a 'add to homescreen' button.
Browsers have been working had to make people not want bookmarks, but everybody that I show how to get them is just loves them.
(But well, they would be better if the mobile web didn't suck.)
iOS 12.2's main updates are with regards to state management and authentication flows for PWA's.
https://hub.packtpub.com/apple-releases-ios-12-2-beta-1-for-...
PWA's are since 2015, so mid 2018 does indeed seem pretty fast for Apple for implementing it.
I might believe it all when they have "approved 3rd party web rendering engines". Which is ( to be honest) the only thing that will change my opinion about it. Implementing it very slow is just a little better than not implementing it at all.
And i don't think Apple will ever do that. So, it's a rock-steady argument since 2010.
Edit:
If the user doesn’t use the app for a few weeks, iOS will free up the app’s files. The icon will still be there on the home screen, and when accessed the app will be downloaded again
So much for PWA's on iOS.
https://dockyard.com/blog/2017/09/27/encouraging-pwa-install...
They do even auto-delete the PWA-apps
[Quote]
If the user doesn’t use the app for a few weeks, iOS will free up the app’s files. The icon will still be there on the home screen, and when accessed the app will be downloaded again.
Not very trustworthy for using a PWA on iOS it seems :)
I'll admit it's been little more than a fancy way to add a bookmark to your home screen with the option to hide the browser chrome, but it's been there for a long time.
So much for PWA's on iOS... Apple's willingness to embrace web technologies is a joke.
The way they banned Steam from streaming games, by retroactively changing app-store rules, it appears like the motivation is to increase (app-store) revenues, by crippling the iOS browser.