[scarface74]

So now there is a great conspiracy by both Apple and Google? Maybe web technologies just aren’t as good as native?

In the history of computing there has never been a cross platform general purpose GUI framework that didn’t suck.

Not to mention most Android devices in the wild are low end and don’t handle complex web pages well

[arcturus17]

> So now there is a great conspiracy by both Apple and Google?

What conspiracy?

They have huge economic disincentives to further PWAs - there is no need for any conspiracy.

In the first presentation of the iPhone, Steve Jobs laid out a vision where the smartphone would run web apps, using fundamental web technologies (HTML, CSS, JS). He quickly backtracked when he realised Apple could impose a 30% tax on transactions in the platform.

> Maybe web technologies just aren’t as good as native?

No one said they are, but that's no excuse to drag your feet in implementing simple things like push notifications.

> In the history of computing there has never been a cross platform general purpose GUI framework that didn’t suck.

What GUI framework? I barely even know what we are talking about anymore. You don't need one with PWA - again, you're using fundamental web technologies, and enabling them to make system calls.

> Not to mention most Android devices in the wild are low end and don’t handle complex web pages well

So that's another excuse to not further PWAs, huh?

[scarface74]

> What GUI framework? I barely even know what we are talking about anymore. You don't need one with PWA - again, you're using fundamental web technologies, and enabling them to make system calls.

Let me ask you this then. Name one cross platform framework that wasn’t meant to build command line tools that hasn’t sucked?

QT? Java Spring? React Native? Electron?

> In the first presentation of the iPhone, Steve Jobs laid out a vision where the smartphone would run web apps, using fundamental web technologies (HTML, CSS, JS). He quickly backtracked when he realised Apple could impose a 30% tax on transactions in the platform.

He “backtracked” because his “sweet solution” wasn’t good and everyone wanted native apps and web apps were called “a shit sandwich” by developers.

Do you know the history of creating “applications” using “web technologies”? They failed for RIM, Microsoft, and Palm. Web apps suck not to mention the clusterfuck of the front end ecosystem.

Every single platform that went down the “we can do great web apps” backtracked. They have never been good enough.

> So that's another excuse to not further PWAs, huh?

You mean making an app that’s actually performant on the majority of phones out there?

[arcturus17]

> He “backtracked” because his “sweet solution” wasn’t good and everyone wanted native apps and web apps were called “a shit sandwich” by developers.

Sure, the 30% cut of all sales was just a sweet coincidence.

> You mean making an app that’s actually performant on the majority of phones out there?

Twitter and Uber have PWAs for countries where low-end devices are the majority of phones.

> They have never been good enough.

Complete bollocks, there are plenty of excellent web apps out there, and it's one of the most important mechanisms for software delivery nowadays, in both the enterprise and consumer spaces. You are a fundamentalist and there is no point discussing anything here anymore

[scarface74]

Were you around back then when developers were clamoring for native apps? It came out in the Epic trial that 80% of all app revenue came from games with in app purchases.

Besides that, most of the biggest players like Netflix and Spotify don’t even allow in app purchases.

Where are all of the great web apps for mobile? Have you tried using any of these web apps on Firefox for Android or is Firefox also involved in the conspiracy?

No one is clamoring for cross platform web apps accept web developers who want to foster a shitty Electron like experience on mobile.

And look at all of the server side work that Uber had to do.

https://www.uber.com/blog/m-uber/

And this wasn’t done to avoid the “30% tax” since Uber doesn’t use in app purchases. You do have Apple Pay as an option. But that’s a standard credit card transaction.