Apple breaks PWAs in EU

[Gilad Bracha]

A story that caught my eye: 

https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/15/apple-confirms-its-breaking-iphone-web-apps-in-the-eu-on-purpose/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAEFCExzdQKsbfdtiva_VJiiqQy9XJ5StrvajV-satgaAoW1H1QlZBrG1U1yMc_9i_V2mNk1K2Jn9I5CvUqPF1OrKmd__PWDPBvTeKAIAgIJ93pd8hR17L7wSiKhLjfhPPifgSIL7kyD6bMWb01a7D3PxiC6fTAvhABUwi4d0AFBh

The Newspeak PWA solution worked in Safari on IOS (though not on desktop Safari) and may continue to work outside of the EU. Apparently Apple is breaking this. TBH, as long as the web browsers work, and the PWA works on Chrome, it won't impact Newspeak in any real way, but it was a nice property to have.

It's all sort of ironic, because my current focus on Ampleforth was partly driven by Apple's tendency to break compatibility, and to address MacOS- iOS portability by dumbing down macOS apps. Specifically, it was the degradation of Pages and Keynote (and Pages incompatibilty with old versions). Happily, I don't use either of those anymore, as Ampleforth addresses my (admittedly unusual) requirements much better.

More generally, open source, live software is important if you want to retain control of your digital surroundings.

[Milan Zimmermann]

I do not use Apple products except for occational testing, but from this decision it also follows that someone who writes a PWA app (in Newspeak for example) will not be able to place it on Apple store in EU (or anywhere?) - something that can be done today on Google play for Android.

Other than that, I agree this should not affect Newspeak in a practical way.

Slightly off topic, other articles discussing this voice the decision to be a deliberate control grab by Apple rather than 'truth is in the middle' Techcrunch seems to conclude, for example

https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/16/apple_web_apps/

Milan

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Newspeak Programming Language" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to newspeaklangua...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/newspeaklanguage/21d94ed3-346c-41b4-ab29-9d37f98fc3d9n%40googlegroups.com.

[Milan Zimmermann]

Also: I am not too hopeful that advocacy helps in fighting those huge corps, but it is an option:

"Open Letter to Tim Cook, Sabotaging Web Apps Is Indefensible."

https://letter.open-web-advocacy.org/

[Gilad Bracha]

Sounds like they actually are folding in response to the backlash. We'll see.

[Milan Zimmermann]

Predictably, I was wrong again :) things seem on a better path, so far as I understand, iOS PWA would have to be Safari-installed only though (?) .  Apple probably understood pressure from the EU who planned to review their initial decision.

As a result I should test PWAs installed from Safari at least on iOS though, in addition to Chrome (and mention Safari in the help shortcuts).

Milan

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/newspeaklanguage/029aef45-4bdf-4d23-a026-2c5616a0fa1fn%40googlegroups.com.

[Gilad Bracha]

It was already Safari only AFIK. It was working for Newspeak before.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/newspeaklanguage/CAEc2VK0Pgiub9zOEsTz7ZZ8SXSs7Gs-Nrr3pFjOWBV2vSFnE5A%40mail.gmail.com.

--

Cheers, Gilad

[Milan Zimmermann]

That's good. I will try it (install and test Newspeak PWA in Safari) on a testing  iPad.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/newspeaklanguage/CAOq-cNxwsQaPqddn7QKuuOAEygXwsxzaxR%3D_PQ6XzFf5X0dz6A%40mail.gmail.com.