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Comment by exo-pla-net | Hacker News Reader

Whatever their merits, PWAs are not a Google side project. The idea was first proposed by Steve Jobs and Microsoft is excited about it, too [1]. In other words, all the big players are in on it.

It's a good idea and frankly superior to the current Store+PhoneApp approach to making stateful apps that can run on mobile devices. Contributing helps. Being sour, not so much.

[1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/progressive...

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Some of the functionality listed on this site is not part of the web platform, but rather Blink-only APIs Google implemented unilaterally that have been explicitly rejected by Mozilla and Apple.

Apple wants to keep in control with the app store. PWAs threaten that control. So much so apple doesn't allow other browsers.

That argument would work if it were only Apple rejecting them. Mozilla rejects them on the same grounds.

Mozilla rejects stuff like webusb while apple is blocking add to home screen, push notifications, etc. Stuff that is needed to replace many app store apps.

Firefox supports both add to home screen and push notifications.

PWAs already support push notifications and add to home screen on iOS.

Or by “add to home screen”, are you specifically referring to BeforeInstallPromptEvent / prompt()? That isn’t a web standard. It’s something Google alone have implemented, it’s a Chrome-only feature. Firefox hasn’t implemented it either.

> Status of This Document

> This specification was published by the Web Platform Incubator Community Group. It is not a W3C Standard nor is it on the W3C Standards Track.

https://wicg.github.io/manifest-incubations/

While Google wants as much access to your phone as it can get. Why would that be?

What access does Google gain here?

If its that simple then why is Apple blocking the most useful features like push notifications and add to home screen? Those aren't particularly useful for tracking.

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