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Comment by dspillett | Hacker News Reader

> The year of the PWA is the new “year of Linux on the desktop”.

Because Apple, a large part of the market, are actively fighting to stop it.

> No user is asking for web apps

And they shouldn't. They should not have to care if their app is a PWA or not. Developers need to care so they use the right tool for the job (native if they need the benefits offered by that, such as a performance boost or device wide access, PWA in most other cases where cross-platform concerns are more important than that) but the user shouldn't have to clamour for either.

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So because Apple ID fighting it, companies aren’t creating PWAs for Android to avoid the “Google tax”?

Cross platform concerns and worse performance are never a benefit to the user.

Firstly, I said absolutely nothing about any “Google Tax”. If companies are creating PWAs to avoid appstore tax are doing it to avoid Apple Tax as well as Google Tax. I ignored that straw man in your previous post.

The problem is developers who want to easily create cross-platform apps and games, who are finding it harder to do so because Apple won't let them, because the tool they want to use might reduce Apple's ability to unfairly tax developers.

Apple tax is the why. Apple potentially inconveniencing everyone by breaking existing features in a hissy-fit is the how.

It’s not a straw man at all. The main motivation according to people on HN is creating a PWA helps avoid the “Apple tax”.

If PWAs are good enough on Android, why wouldn’t developers be motivated to avoid the “Google tax” even if they couldn’t avoid the Apple tax?

On that same note, since most companies create a website anyway, why not just tell Android users to use a web app instead of also creating an Android app?

And as far as games, most game makers make money from in app purchases of loot boxes and coins for pay to win games (this came out in the various Epic vs Apple trials). As much as they whine about the “Apple tax” they love having direct access to whale’s wallets via in app purchases.

And no they aren’t just going to get users to fork over their credit cards to random sites and there are plenty of people especially kids who have access to the in app purchasing mechanism who don’t have access to credit cards.

What point are you actually trying to make? That because some people might not want to create PWAs you think it is OK for Apple to break the existing functionality for everybody in order to flip the bird at the EU?

It’s not just “some” people. Given a choice, to the first approximation, no one is leaving the Google Play store in favor of PWAs even though theoretically PWAs are so great on Android and that developers could avoid creating apps for the web and Android and avoid the “Google tax”.

Apple is not going to lose revenue even if did have perfect PWA support since most of its money from the App Store comes from pay to win games that wouldn’t monetize nearly as well.

Apple doesn’t care enough about PWAs because users don’t care.

> Apple doesn’t care enough about PWAs because users don’t care.

Maybe you are right.

But what is a PWA?

Maybe I have special website and users can configure Bluetooth devices via that page. No need to install a native App, no need for pwa.

All you need is a browser which supports the latest specs.

Most people can't image what could be possible without installing a native App.

We only know what we are used to. Much more could be possible without the need for native apps.

I am deeply relaxed, I am old. Hypes come and hypes go. The current hype for native apps will decline. The web is the only universal platform.

Well in the case of Bluetooth, both Mozilla and Apple said they wouldn’t support the API for privacy reasons.

https://caniuse.com/web-bluetooth

And even with Chrome, much of the support is behind flags.

As far as universal platform - if you’re that old, you should know how much “universal platforms” for GUI apps have sucked since Java Swing.

You should also know how every mobile platform has said at one point that you can “build great apps with web technologies” - Rim, Palm, Microsoft, Android and even Apple - and they have all failed and sucked.

You seem very determined to make this matter of Apple breaking existing features and accepted standards, into an issue about Google…

Again you have failed to state what relevance one set of devs not wanting to use PWAs has on anyone else who might want to use them, you've just restated your previous case that some people don't want to use them.

> Apple doesn’t care enough about PWAs because users don’t care.

As already stated in response to your previous statement about users not caring: the users shouldn't need to care if the developers are free to choose the right tool for their task (native application or PWA) and platforms implement those options well.

Apple should care about PWAs if it cares at all about providing a standards compliant environment. It certainly seems to care enough to try to derail them as a petty consequence of being told to do something they don't want to do.

It’s not an issue for Google at all. It’s an issue that as I said to a first approximation no one cares about PWAs. If PWAs were so compelling and if it were only Apple holding adoption back, why aren’t they more popular on Android - 70% of the market?

If absolutely no one cares about PWAs, is this entirely thread, and those elsewhere, a figment of my imagination?

> as I said to a first approximation no one cares about PWAs

What you said was that no users care. That is fine: users shouldn't need to care. Users don't need to care about such implementation details if developers are free to choose the best tool for the job.

> why aren’t they more popular on Android - 70% of the market?

Largely because the apps have already been developed and there is no point rewriting for new tech just for its own sake. And for things like games (the main thing that has been mentioned here as not being done as PWAs ATM) a PWA might not be the best tool for the job as native can give better performance in some areas.

PWAs are more attractive for new projects, and those that don't need to take advantage of being closer to the hardware.

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