jc_dc (u/jc_dc) - Readit News

jc_dc commented on Apple confirms it's breaking iPhone web apps in the EU on purpose techcrunch.com/2024/02/15... · Posted by u/M2Ys4U

noirscape · 2 years ago

Android doesn't do scare screens actually. The only real difference between installing an APK from the play store and an APK you found on the internet is that the application calling the installer has a one time "OK" to make sure you are the one who wants to install an APK; Play Store has this as well, but the default distribution has it turned on, by going in the settings you can fiddle with it and turn it off if you want to.

The only thing actually needed for feature parity with the Play Store is mostly just that F-Droid can't auto-update; the Play Store can skip the update/install prompt screen, F-Droid can't. They added install origins to APK files last year iirc, so there's a likely chance they're allowing it though.

jc_dc · 2 years ago

Yeah, still have what equates to a scare screen. Tells you file may be harmful upon download, then you need to change a setting which is streamlined to what it was before, but still a scare screen. Now you can allow from source…but the source isn’t the web address, it’s the initiating application eg. Chrome or Files so there’s a huge security hole with this implementation presumably on purpose to manufacture the incident they need to justify their behavior.

jc_dc commented on Apple confirms it's breaking iPhone web apps in the EU on purpose techcrunch.com/2024/02/15... · Posted by u/M2Ys4U

noirscape · 2 years ago

Android doesn't do scare screens actually. The only real difference between installing an APK from the play store and an APK you found on the internet is that the application calling the installer has a one time "OK" to make sure you are the one who wants to install an APK; Play Store has this as well, but the default distribution has it turned on, by going in the settings you can fiddle with it and turn it off if you want to.

The only thing actually needed for feature parity with the Play Store is mostly just that F-Droid can't auto-update; the Play Store can skip the update/install prompt screen, F-Droid can't. They added install origins to APK files last year iirc, so there's a likely chance they're allowing it though.

jc_dc · 2 years ago

I’ll have to test this tomorrow. Last time I tried sideloading direct from our website I had to flip a switch in settings which came with a scare dialog. If I remember correctly, it was a system wide setting too and didn’t allow for trusting specific sources. If we can self distribute on Android, that will be 3 out of 4.

jc_dc commented on Apple confirms it's breaking iPhone web apps in the EU on purpose techcrunch.com/2024/02/15... · Posted by u/M2Ys4U

alexdbird · 2 years ago

> why PWA’s are awesome

You've described some advantages to you as a developer. For the average user, apps that change all the time and effectively make them a tester aren't such a no brainer!

jc_dc · 2 years ago

Resolution time on native is longer than web. Bugs happen, native, web, doesn’t matter…bugs happen.

Re benefit for who. We will invest our time where it makes the most sense. If you’re familiar with platform risk, you’ll understand that we’re not exactly eager for our existence to be subject to the whims of Apple and Google.

jc_dc commented on Apple confirms it's breaking iPhone web apps in the EU on purpose techcrunch.com/2024/02/15... · Posted by u/M2Ys4U

noirscape · 2 years ago

Kind of, it's just that the approach Google takes is a lot more palatable than Apple's. As someone who has written a PWA (albeit one that almost entirely relies on SSR), Google's PWA approach is definitely better than Apple, but there's some marked issues.

For one, the actual PWA packaging process gets shunted off to a Google server; I think you can make a "thin client" APK from a manifest using a tool they wrote some time ago[0] (Twitter Lite is one of these), but I've not really looked into it. It's not quite the extension to Chrome you'd really want it to be; if you use a non-Chrome browser on Android, it means you can't really ditch the Chrome dependency if you want to use a PWA. (Further not really helped by the fact that Google is basically the only PWA implementer on Android, since Firefox does not consider PWAs a priority whatsoever.) Similarly, Google's servers need to be able to read out the manifest declaration, which makes them unfeasible for intranet software unless you want to punch a temporary hole and expose it to the internet for a bit.

The other kinda annoying thing Google does is really aggressive degradation between PWA and homescreen shortcut. If the manifest isn't entirely up to snuff in terms of what's listed, there's no attempt at trying to resolve the issue, it just instantly degrades to a homescreen shortcut. A basic example of this is the requirement to use a service worker (even if the service workers entire job is to do nothing); it's not really stated in the manifest spec that it's required, but if you don't have one, the PWA straight up refuses to install as a PWA.

Google's strength with the play store really mostly comes from their bundling advantage; Play Services and the attached Store and Google Apps are required for OEMs to add to their devices (might change with the DMA?). That's the kinda odd reality that makes Apples desire for control seem so extreme - we know what an open platform looks like on Android. It works pretty well for the most part and the incumbents advantage for a store is large enough that almost every app developer submits to the Play Store regardless.

[0]: It's called Bubblewrap - https://github.com/GoogleChromeLabs/bubblewrap

jc_dc · 2 years ago

Tend to agree with all of this. Manifest is way too finicky.

Would be interesting to see how the play store changes in the event of Android honoring code signing for side loading like windows. Eg..no scare screen on side loaded apk’s as long as they’re code signed.

I suspect the App Store would live on as a consumer focused App Store and the enterprise apps would direct distribute which makes sense anyhow cause IAP does t understand account based pricing.

jc_dc commented on Apple confirms it's breaking iPhone web apps in the EU on purpose techcrunch.com/2024/02/15... · Posted by u/M2Ys4U

MrDresden · 2 years ago

I think you are conflating the relationship between consumers/developers and the corporation (that you work for?).

I don't hate Apple, but rather realise that it's bottom line and fiduciary duty to its shareholders is stronger than what is best for us (consumers/developers).

I do not trust the corporate marketing one bit (and honestly, why should I?).

This behaviour of Apple just further supports that view. As a company, it seems to believe that it is somehow above following the rules meant to benefit consumers/developers, which goes against what the company has been marketing its self with since the 80's.

So lets stop the 'Leave Apple alone (and us that work there)' crying, and just acknowledge what the whole thing revolves around.

jc_dc · 2 years ago

It’s possible to hate them and recognize why they’re doing at the same time though…although I do think there’s also a hefty dose of arrogance and self importance in there. I’m old enough to remember when we (devs) felt this way toward Microsoft…so if I was Tim Apple I’d include that risk in my calculus cause what came next was two decades in the penalty box.

Seems like they hate us (developers) back though so it’s a mutual relationship I suppose.

jc_dc commented on Apple confirms it's breaking iPhone web apps in the EU on purpose techcrunch.com/2024/02/15... · Posted by u/M2Ys4U

troupo · 2 years ago

> They paint us as a pack of crims trying to steal from unsuspecting Apple users.

Have you seen the world around you for the past 20 years or so? I'd say this characterises developers (well, companies they work for at least) quite well, don't you think?

jc_dc · 2 years ago

No, I’d say the vast majority of reputable developers are not trying to scam you.

But there are some trying to scam you…and some of those are also in the App Store…as long as they use IAP to scam you all is well.

jc_dc commented on Apple confirms it's breaking iPhone web apps in the EU on purpose techcrunch.com/2024/02/15... · Posted by u/M2Ys4U

dangus · 2 years ago

Google should in theory have the same play store revenue motivation to hide PWAs, right? Granted, they also want people to stay on the web to continue using Google.com, so I guess those are two competing priorities.

That to me is a bit of an indicator that Apple just doesn’t believe in the merits of the technology. I think they might be asking the same question in asking: what problem is this solving?

Every platform with a web browser has a better way to run applications, which is to just run an application. A web site that is masquerading as an installed application is basically just a less capable application.

As a side note, I’m also not really sure how an app store can be considered scammier than the entire web. The web is a Wild West with far fewer “rules” than the Play Store.

jc_dc · 2 years ago

Google have an interest in moving people away from desktop applications because they don’t have a desktop OS (not counting Chromebook).

We run 3 SaaS apps. One is strictly native, and the other two are strictly web. Writing for 4 platforms on the native app is an extremely expensive exercise and then we are also subject to the insanity that is the App Store. Long story here, everything from App Store review times on mission critical software to the fact that their billing mechanism simply doesn’t work for B2B SaaS…and by the way, we get zero traffic from the App Store as that’s simply not where our customers are looking for the solution we provide. Fortunately, bulk of our customers start on desktop where we self distribute (code signing on windows and notarization on mac) with ev ssl on marketing sites. Why is the App Store scammy over the open web…search for any number of popular apps and look at how many have been cloned. Sure, you can do this on the web with paid ads and enough SEO effort but it’s much harder.

To this day, Apple continue to allow keyword stuffing, advertising on trademarked names, and blatant copyright infringement in app descriptions and even I (fairly tech savvy) accidentally purchased a clone of poly bridge for my kid cause they’ll list the clone above the real one on an exact term search. What was apples response when I said I purchased the wrong app? Tough cookies!

This is the same reason I hate shopping on Amazon. I simply prefer to have a direct relationship with the companies I buy things from, and from what I can tell, our customers prefer have a direct relationship with us.

But back to why PWA’s are awesome…simply put, iteration time. We can publish dozens of improvements every day and roll back instantly when an issue arises. We simply can’t do that with native as long as the Apple / Google act as a gate keepers. When we allow proper sideloading without the scare tactics and dirty tricks, we’ll take the time to build native again.

jc_dc commented on Apple confirms it's breaking iPhone web apps in the EU on purpose techcrunch.com/2024/02/15... · Posted by u/M2Ys4U

overstay8930 · 2 years ago

Windows doesn’t have a reputation. It’s the default. Nobody actually likes using windows you just have to. Do you really think there are people out there asking for advertisements in their start menu?

jc_dc · 2 years ago

To this day, I prefer windows, and I have to switch between Mac and windows all day every day.

jc_dc commented on Apple confirms it's breaking iPhone web apps in the EU on purpose techcrunch.com/2024/02/15... · Posted by u/M2Ys4U

M4v3R · 2 years ago

You have to trust someone if you're using a computing device connected to the Internet. The point of being in Apple ecosystem is that you trust Apple, and then (supposedly) you can not trust anyone else. To many that's a very strong proposition.

jc_dc · 2 years ago

And to a degree, that’s why developers tend to hate Apple. They paint us as a pack of crims trying to steal from unsuspecting Apple users.

jc_dc commented on Apple confirms it's breaking iPhone web apps in the EU on purpose techcrunch.com/2024/02/15... · Posted by u/M2Ys4U

zer00eyz · 2 years ago

Without this type of isolation and enforcement, malicious... camera, microphone or location ... Browsers ...

30 some million lines of code in chromium browsers.

Thats bigger than the linux kernel.

The HN crowed might not LIKE apples response but they have a very defensible position.

Edit: Its not like we haven't seen this play out on the desktop recently: https://www.theverge.com/24054329/microsoft-edge-automatic-c...

jc_dc · 2 years ago

I don’t buy it. Apple build iOS and I’m sure they will sandbox alt browsers as they do with every other 3rd party app on the phone.