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by adamddev1 18 days ago
I really wish PWAs were more well-known among average users. If people knew and expected they could install certain websites as apps, that would simplify things so much and really balance the power of the app stores.
3 comments
realusername 18 days ago
It's not well known because it's annoying to install ... and it's annoying to install because the stores are huge cash printing machines so that's not going to change.
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Ajedi32 18 days ago
It's not that hard to install. The website can just have a button you click to trigger an install prompt: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Progressive_web...

But of course...

> This is not supported on iOS.

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LAC-Tech 18 days ago
But on the same page

> On iOS 16.4 and later, PWAs can be installed from the Share menu in Safari, Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Orion.

So you can't have an install prompt, but it's still pretty easy. If people can learn hamburger menus they can learn this.

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jbverschoor 18 days ago
My problem with PWA, is that it usually completely ruins the multiple tabs/windows of the same app/data
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notnullorvoid 18 days ago
On desktop or on mobile?

On mobile it's rare for apps other than web browsers to allow multiple tabs/windows and the ones that do (Ex: Gmail allows a draft to be a second window) have many multi window related bugs.

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JoshTriplett 18 days ago
> On mobile it's rare for apps other than web browsers

One more reason I'd rather have a site than an app: because I can open multiple copies, open a link in a new tab, open different installations of the same site, and all the other things that browsers automatically support.

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giraffe_lady 18 days ago
Unfortunately apple accomplished their goal of killing that entire idea. The time for it to take off was 10 years ago. They begrudgingly support it now but it's too late. gg
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