[streptomycin]

Random data loss happens on Android quite a bit too. Source: I have a PWA with a lot of users, and my #1 complaint is data being lost on both Android and iOS.

This is true even if you use Google's own tool to wrap your PWA and put it in the Play Store, and even if you use the so-called "persistent storage API" to have users request their data not be deleted - still get random data loss, and it makes it very hard to maintain a 4+ star rating when there are a bunch of 1 star reviews about users losing all their data.

[iuvcaw]

Genuine question - not defending Apple/google - does your pwa not use a dedicated server / db for user’s data? And then localstorage just as a cache if needed?

[streptomycin]

It doesn't... started as a hobby project in 2012, wanted to see if it was possible to make an app that stored a lot of client-side data in IndexedDB. Now, my app is successful so I don't really want to move to another platform, but also it creates too much data to easily and cheaply sync to a server. So I'm in a weird situation. https://basketball-gm.com/ if you're curious.

I realize I'm a bit of an edge case. But also, ideally we could make PWAs that operate with similar data guarantees as native apps. That's kind of the idea of PWAs, that web apps should be able to mostly be the equivalent of native apps.

And it almost works, except for the data loss issue. Kind of sad. Cause there are so many other advantages of a PWA... like being able to target all platforms with one PWA is incredible. Having no gatekeepers to "approve" my app updates is incredible. But the cost is sometimes users lose all their data :)

[tomcam]

Wait why not just charge a small amount?