[ImPostingOnHN]

"nobody cares about PWAs" says commenter in reply to post that seems to care about PWAs

also, I care about PWAs

glad we could make your day by introducing you to something new

I think if it were a viable option on an iphone, a nonzero number of people would choose the more privacy-preserving aspects of a PWA over installing a random app

[CharlesW]

> also, I care about PWAs / glad we could make your day by introducing you to something new

As the creator of pwascore.com, I'm in your elite club of the teensy percentage of people who care about PWAs.

> I think if it were a viable option on an iphone¹, a nonzero number of people² would choose the more privacy-preserving aspects of a PWA over installing a random app

¹They are, and ²they don't. It'd be nice to blame this on HN's favorite boogeyman, but the reality is that (1) PWAs work fine today (pwa.com), (2) the tech industry is anti-PWA, (3) almost no consumers even know what PWAs are, and (4) consumers who do know also prefer "real" apps.

[Rohansi]

Lets say you were making an app and had to decide between native or PWA. You don't need much more than push notifications so there shouldn't be a big difference between the two. You do your research and find that you can either have:

a) Native app: publish to App Store, make links on your website directly open the App Store page where the user can install your app

b) PWA: your app is usable directly on your website, but push notifications don't work unless your users add the page to their home screen. You can't have a button on your website to install it - you must instruct the user to navigate some Safari menus to find an option which is hidden *six* taps away

Do you think b) is a viable option? I don't, and I'm sure that's one of the reasons the tech industry is anti-PWA. It also doesn't help that Apple drags its feet with supporting new standards (web push only supported in iOS Safari from 2023, but 2016 in other browsers).

[nozzlegear]

Native apps can't send push notifications without asking for permission on iOS either. If all you need is push notifications, that shouldn't be your deciding factor.

[Rohansi]

I didn't even cover push notification permission in my comment. The PWA also needs to ask for permission to send push notifications after the user adds it to their home screen, so they're the same.

> If all you need is push notifications, that shouldn't be your deciding factor.

I'm dealing with this right now! Rewriting a React Native app as a PWA because reasons. Current plan is to ship it as a WebView app to avoid Apple's PWA installation hurdle. Everyone else will be able to easily install it as a PWA.

[Tepix]

I agree that Apple is hiding the "add to homescreen" option and I think it's despicable.

Still, I count 4 taps ("...", Share, "To home screen", "Add") and one swipe.

Don't get me wrong, I do blame Apple for the fact that people don't know about PWAs.

[JustExAWS]

This is completely illogical. There are a lot more dark pattern tracking that websites can do across websites than native apps without a user’s permission