On: Apple’s refusal to support Progressive Web Apps is...

[aedron]

Since the article did not go into details, and many of the points seem nonsensical, can someone elaborate?

Why can I not "Create an app loading screen" without service workers? Why can I not "Create an initial app UI to load instantly"? Seems these are trivially possible with regular Javascript, but maybe I'm misunderstanding?

Similarly, "Use push notifications", "Add offline support" and "Prompt installation to the home screen" do not sound like APIs that are dependent on service workers, but I guess they are? (or the article makes no sense)

(By the way, the 300ms tap delay that he gripes about can be hacked away, see fastclick.js)

[gregblass → aedron]

I'm aware of fastclick.js, and I've been using it. I was just excited to remove an extra dependency when they removed the delay from mobile Safari. Checked it into git, deployed...then realized it was still there in fullscreen mode. My point is that they develop stuff for mobile Safari, but then leave fullscreen mode in the dust.

[mnarayan01 → aedron]

> Why can I not "Create an app loading screen" without service workers? Why can I not "Create an initial app UI to load instantly"? Seems these are trivially possible with regular Javascript, but maybe I'm misunderstanding?

If you're waiting on async requests than everything is fine without Service Workers, but if you're performing computation then the whole UI will be blocked.

[MaxLeiter → aedron]

Offline support and push notifications require service workers (or some other API that doesn't exist yet[1])

And for prompting installation, I think the author wants it to appear native.

(Apple does have their own notification API but it requires an account).

[gregblass → MaxLeiter]

Telling your users how to add your app to the home screen should not be a thing. It makes your product look unprofessional. Prompting a user who has used the web app a bunch of times should be a thing on iOS like it is on Android.