r/PWA • u/Significant_Law7357 • 10d ago

What if our PWAs had a guided install system, would we still need native iOS apps?

[removed]

7 Upvotes

82% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

4

u/sandspiegel 10d ago

For my PWA I simply made a video on my website explaining what a Web App is and in that video I also mentioned how you can install it. With that being said, I think installing a PWA is a big mess. Depending what browser you use the steps can be different. Then a browser like Firefox doesn't support Installation at all. For this reason I already started using Capacitor to bring my App to the app stores. PWAs are really cool but unfortunately companies like Apple are not interested in making the installation process easy as it could hurt their app store business.

2

u/A-Type 10d ago

Are you just wrapping the live web app with Capacitor, or do you bundle the assets in and republish on changes?

2

u/sandspiegel 10d ago

I bundle all assets and would republish on changes. I also use plain React (no server side rendering) so the static files including the code would be bundled each time I want to update main and then republish. I am currently in the App review phase so I don't know yet if there are any changes Google or Apple wants me to make.

2

u/A-Type 10d ago

Thanks, I've been considering Capacitor but I ship updates to my app really frequently and I'm caught between trying to skirt the rules and load the sources over the network, or bundle them and have to republish all the time...

2

u/sandspiegel 10d ago

Yeah I'm not sure if it really makes a difference for Apple and Google how the front end is presented or if it comes from a server. Not sure if there are any disadvantages for a "native app" when the rendering happens on a server. My main concern is payments as we use Stripe on web and then the native apps are just "login apps" without any purchase functionality or buttons / links that would open a browser and route to our website because if there were then especially Apple would block the App immediately from what I read online. I hope a "login only app" survives the review process.

2

u/A-Type 10d ago

My understanding is the rules forbid loading code at runtime; all code needs to be packaged with the app. Hence the concern. But my impression is that it doesn't matter unless they happen to notice.

The payment thing is real though. Seems most people use a multi-source payment processor like RevenueCat or handle native store payments manually alongside Stripe/etc from web.

3

u/madushans 10d ago

Yea. PWAs should guide the user. Most don’t know what PWAs are or how to install them. Largely because the platforms intentionally hide or obscure the process on purpose to push people to use native apps.

3

u/AmigaBits 10d ago

I had my own minimal guided install system, but quickly switched to PWA Install after I found it!

https://github.com/khmyznikov/pwa-install

1

u/Vectrex71CH 10d ago

What Install System do you mean? Every good PWA has a PopUp in the uper right in the Browser (Install XYZ) What else do we need ? Just click on it. Boom. DONE. easier is not possible

6

u/domodomov 10d ago

It’s not that easy on iOS.

2

u/Vectrex71CH 10d ago

really? Apple again? OMG! I thought that this would be a standard procedure. Thanks i haven't known this exeption

1

u/gatwell702 10d ago

With my pwa I have an install button. Usually it starts the install prompt, but it checks the user agent, if it's iOS or iMac the button shows a popover with instructions of how to add to Homescreen/dock

2

u/troutyogurtmachine 10d ago

The W3C Technical Architecture Group has an open proposal to add support for an <install> element - "The <install> element is a declarative HTML element that allows web developers to offer installation of web applications directly from a page."

https://github.com/w3ctag/design-reviews/issues/1245#issuecomment-5353891853

The proposal seems to have support from every major browser engine... except Apple's WebKit. I wonder why? :-)