AFAIK, such prompts are regular HTML with links to the AppStore. If so, how do you suggest Apple make it impossible to add those to a site?
The ones under discussion are not: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/webkit/promoting_a...
Apple controls the experience. The developer just tells Apple which AppID is connected to this website, and Apple chooses how to present this information.
Smart App Banners also react to whether the app is currently installed or not, which random websites obviously should not be able to determine for privacy reasons.
If PWAs weren‘t arbitrarily restricted there’d be no reason to link to the app store because…you’re already in the app.
Spamming users to hit the install button would be like spamming users to bookmark your website. That doesn’t seem to be a problem (though that’s probably because people don’t keep their bookmarks on their home screen)
Now there are a couple nice things:
- if an app is not installed you can dismiss for a particular site and you will never see it again. The website has no way to trigger it, the API is more like “Hey Safari I have an app” than “trigger a prompt”. - unfortunately if the app is installed you can’t dismiss the notification to open in the app. This I quite dislike because many sites have certain pages on their site with no equivalent in the app. Sometimes I have an app and just want to visit the site without being nagged.
I still don’t see why “then the mechanism that let's websites prompts to install apps should be removed so apps are on the same level as web apps. Otherwise, the situation is part of the anti-competitive lock-in.”.
Web sites drive this, and can choose whether they let iOS show a “download the app” or a “install on home screen” option. It’s not Apple making that choice.
Right now, the install process for PWAs is needlessly obtuse compared to what users experience with a Smart App Banner.
I saw someone elsewhere comment on the number of taps required with both methods, and I would point out that not all taps are equal. The simple, guided flow that the Smart App Banner gives users is tremendously easier for users to figure out than the “Add to Home Screen” flow that currently exists.
Apple pretty obviously can support a similar UI for PWAs as for native apps. If they don't, it's just them doing the bare minimum required by regulators while still keeping PWAs as an uncompetitive second class citizen. And if the argument is that these banners are bad UX and will be abused (because that's always Apple's argument for why something should not be allowed in browsers), then they should own up to it being bad UX for native apps too and remove it.
For Chrome (desktop or mobile), if you have similar attributes in your manifest.json, then Chrome will show the 'Install' button to install the webapp to your home screen.