Do any of you have an example of a good offline-only PWA that will be affected by this?
But if you look at native apps, especially ones I use on desktop OSes, they're dominated (at least in my usage) by offline-first or offline-only apps---and for me, this is a feature, not a bug. This doesn't have to mean they don't have sync, by the way, it just means that's separate from the main functionality of the app.
A perfect example of this is Dropbox: it syncs to your local disk by default. It's easy to forget how valuable this is until you go camping (or similar) and suddenly you realize you forgot to star that one directory you care about. Now your mobile phone is useless, but your laptop works no problem. And due to this being factored out into a separate app, all my files now work regardless of file type (I don't need separate offline support in every app I use, since that's the default).
There are two ideas that go together well:
* The app can work offline
* The app doesn't need a server to function
Neither of those prevent a sync function from existing.
Right now, apps can do both of those. Why don' we want PWA's to be able to do the same? Why do I have to go through Apple's walled garden in order to so? Especially when said alternative is in a sandbox?
This sounds like a seriously poorly thought out idea. Want to clear tracking data from random websites I've been to? That's great. But you don't mess with the data stored by apps I have specifically _chosen_ to install on _my_ device.
Where is Apple's famous UX here? What legitimate argument is there for clearing data of an app the user has added to their home screen?
Just because current apps are buggy doesn't mean we should enforce those bugs at a platform level.
Plus a local note-taking app I created a while ago