[TobyTheDog123]

Because Safari sucks.

The reason iOS and Google/Android PWAs suck is because Apple does everything in its power to make them suck:

- Complex and user-unfriendly "add-to-homescreen" functionality

- Limited/trailing functionality for native APIs

- The obnoxious url/browser bar persistent at the bottom of the page, with horrendous and uncustomizable hiding/showing of said bar.

People advocate for PWAs, but I never use them because as an end-user they're awful to use, because developers can't create them to the quality of native applications because of these limitations. Of course the complaints go to Safari in that case.

They absolutely could have PWAs be of higher quality, but they don't, for obvious reasons.

[MBCook]

I get why they suck on iOS.

Why aren’t they on Android? Windows? Linux? MacOS?

Existing PWAs should be better known, especially in HN-like/tech circles.

But that’s not what I see.

[TobyTheDog123]

I can't entirely speak for Android, but I assume that Google has similar nonsense (as evidenced by sideloading being a pain to the average user)

For Windows, Linux, and MacOS, there's no real need for them, or not enough need for them to exist. There are no policies or guidelines to follow, there is no 30% tax.

The browsers people use on desktop devices provide everything that developers need and can reasonably expect of the platform. There aren't any usability differences, there are barely any performance differences, and there are barely any feature differences.

In fact, I think many desktop end-users would prefer the app to be web-based because it feels so native.

In addition, it's what another commenter said - if it can't be on iOS, then what's even the point of having one?

[pjmlp]

Because many countries hardly have an iOS presence and there are tons of companies that only care about the local market.

[saagarjha]

You can hide the URL bar with the right meta tag, no?

[TobyTheDog123]

If the user adds the PWA to their homescreen through the user-unfriendly process, I believe so.

But users won't (and don't) go through that.