[jarm0]

Actually nowadays it's not that bad anymore. Android browser itself offers installable PWA and there is an event called beforeinstallprompt event (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Window/befo...), which can be used to perform PWA installation on user interaction. Of course it's not supported in every browser.

iOS is more difficult since user needs to understand that "saving to home screen" is same as installing "app" and there's no way to trigger it programmatically or help user in any other way than with visual illustrations.

[callalex]

In iOS it’s also buried deep in the “share” menu which makes absolutely no sense as you are not sharing the website with anybody.

[kaba0]

The share menu is used for everything on ios, I had to get used to it at my first apple device’s case.

One notably stupid usage of the Share option was (I believe it is no longer how it’s done) adding an image to a hidden folder — that’s something you definitely don’t want to share, yet quite easy to accidentally send to someone during this process.

[Tsiklon]

Thankfully this insanity is changing in the upcoming release due in September. A button for a 3 dot/hamburger menu appears in the bottom right when you select photos.

[lotsofpulp]

That menu does far more than share, such as opening the URL or document or whatever you are viewing in a different app or saving it somewhere.

[scarface_74]

How is it buried when it’s on the same level as everything else?

[hn_throwaway_99]

Because it doesn't make sense that it's part of the web share functionality to begin with.

The native share dialog is about "I have this piece of content, now share it with one of these other apps", e.g. saving a document locally, or sending it with AirDrop, or saving to Google Drive, or sending as an email attachment, etc.

Installing a site as an app on your homescreen has absolutely nothing to do with sharing content to begin with.

[scarface_74]

So the toolbar on iOS has 5 buttons

Go back | go forward | share | bookmarks | see all windows

Do you think there should be a separate button just for “Add to Home Screen”?

Or could you just put the standardish share icon on your page and below it say “click here and choose add to Home Screen to…”?

Is that really that much harder than to tell someone to go to the app store?

Most people know how to scroll.

[scarface_74]

> and there's no way to trigger it programmatically or help user in any other way than with visual illustrations.

It literally took a two second Google search

https://web.dev/web-share/

[jarm0]

Not sure this can be used to "save to home screen" e.g. trigger PWA installation flow like on Android.

[siva7]

That’s not a PWA. Saving to home screen literally creates a link shortcut which just opens a new tab on your safari app. Apple never supported PWAs.

[hn_throwaway_99]

> Apple never supported PWAs.

That's not really correct. "PWAs" actually just describe a suite of APIs, most of which Apple supports: https://firt.dev/notes/pwa-ios/.

The biggest "missing link" has been support for push notifications, which iOS 16.4 added: https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/16/23603042/apple-push-notif...

[c-hendricks]

This is incorrect.

If the app is a valid PWA, it's displayed like any other app on your device. There is no browser UI, it gets its own entry in your app switcher, etc.