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debeluhar ,

An update from Apple. Apple actually reversed that decision. Finally. Tested on latest stable version of iOS 17.4 and it works. (from https://developer.apple.com/support/dma-and-apps-in-the-eu/#dev-qa ):

Why don’t users in the EU have access to Home Screen web apps?

UPDATE: Previously, Apple announced plans to remove the Home Screen web apps capability in the EU as part of our efforts to comply with the DMA. The need to remove the capability was informed by the complex security and privacy concerns associated with web apps to support alternative browser engines that would require building a new integration architecture that does not currently exist in iOS.

We have received requests to continue to offer support for Home Screen web apps in iOS, therefore we will continue to offer the existing Home Screen web apps capability in the EU. This support means Home Screen web apps continue to be built directly on WebKit and its security architecture, and align with the security and privacy model for native apps on iOS.

Developers and users who may have been impacted by the removal of Home Screen web apps in the beta release of iOS in the EU can expect the return of the existing functionality for Home Screen web apps with the availability of iOS 17.4 in early March.

Finally, some good news.

unionagainstdhmo ,
@unionagainstdhmo@aussie.zone avatar

This f*cking sucks. I hope they don't bring this to Australia, I want to make my native app a web app to save money so I don't have to pay their bullshit fees and own their shit computers

rikudou OP ,

Unless you force them to open up their system for 3rd party stores and browsers like EU did, I think you're fine.

unionagainstdhmo ,
@unionagainstdhmo@aussie.zone avatar

I wish we were doing that here too. Hopefully when we do we'll take some learnings based on Europe's experience.

ps: Thanks for the Auto TL;DR bot, has saved me a lot of time assessing articles

rikudou OP ,

Glad I helped you!

feef ,

What are some popular examples that would be affected by this?

StrayingTimbuktu ,

Here's a list of Non-Open Source web apps: https://www.neoito.com/blog/best-progressive-web-apps/

Here's a list of Open Source web apps: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_free_and_open-source_web_applications

The barrier of entry for these apps are just so low. You don't have to download anything for them to work and (for now) they're crossplatform.

If you haven't yet, you might want to try voyager on your lemmy instance: https://vger.app/

overdevs ,

my own reddit viewer https://rdx.overdevs.com

sugartits ,

He said "popular"

overdevs ,

one day sugartits, one day

planish ,

Popular? None.

But we don't only have to build an environment that allows the doing of popular things. We also need to maintain a society in which unpopular or unusual things can be done. The doing of unpopular or unusual things is itself popular.

DolphinMath ,

Cryptee is one that comes to mind.

Katana314 ,

If I'm understanding right, I believe Xbox Cloud Gaming and Geforce Now have used this. They get access to better video APIs by running as a home screen webapp, and aren't at risk of popping the address bar from touch confusion.

Voyager, a client for Lemmy, also installs as a webapp. Similarly, it doesn't show the address bar when you scroll up and down.

sunbeam60 ,

Mind you Voyager has a wrapped iOS app already. Posting from it right now.

KyuubiNoKitsune ,

Queue the Apple dick riders defending their precious megacorp from being a POS company

Reddfugee42 ,

*Cue

jj4211 ,

Nah, they are lining up to defend their favorite company.

DarkNightoftheSoul ,
@DarkNightoftheSoul@mander.xyz avatar

Que?

Piemanding ,

Queue?

Abnorc ,

Qwayway?

Foofighter ,

My guess is that the majority doesn't know what web apps are. Most people I know either have an app for that or consider a function not worthwhile or necessary.

NegativeInf ,

Nah. They are just locking down a pathway for using whatever you want on a device you purchased.

gearheart ,

It's all about brand and glam. Majority of people that need validation from others "need" to have an iPhone.

Xeroxchasechase ,

Don't forget the walled garden. Apple does have a reputation they worked hard to achieve, and people who don't know better feel compelled to try, but than, switching to Android becomes a very difficult task

SpaceCowboy ,
@SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca avatar

Apple being Apple again. Just why does anyone actually like that company?

Marketing and build quality goes a long way to making people feel like a company is good.

rikudou OP ,

What's this fabled build quality that other phones in the same price range don't have?

SpaceCowboy ,
@SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca avatar

Sure others have the same build quality, but not the decades of marketing that Apple has. You gotta have both to get people to be irrationally loyal to a company.

ghostblackout ,

I like there hardware but I don't like what they do with it and what they do with the software

SnipingNinja ,
@SnipingNinja@slrpnk.net avatar

They do have good software in some things but their limitations make it not worth it

eagles_fan ,

Another reason to keep hating apple. Fascists corporate america

Eggyhead , (edited )

Welp, this might be kbin for me. It’s the only circumstance I’ve really found a PWA necessary, although I’ve considered making PWAs of some online shops I frequent.

I suspect Apple is eliminating PWAs from safari in the EU just because they don’t want to be forced to allow 3rd party browsers to do the same. Let’s go ahead and throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I’ve actually got a U.S. apple account on an iPhone bought in Japan, and living in the EU temporarily. It’ll be interesting to see how this is going to play out for me.

yildolw ,

This is probably motivated by the EU decision that since no uses iMessage in the EU, Apple is not legally a "gatekeeper". Perhaps no one (i.e. fewer than 40 million people) uses web apps in the EU, therefore they are gambling that they are allowed to legally gatekeep in that market

rikudou OP ,

I don't think so, they're just trying to make the experience worse and then say "it's the EU that made us do it".

smileyhead ,

Or like others speculate, to not allow third party browsers to do PWAs.

NeoNachtwaechter ,

Some services, like Facebook Gaming, use web apps as a way to get around the Apple App Store and its fees.

Smell coming out from this little hole here :)

rikudou OP ,

Well, now they can use their own Facebook App Store on iPhones in EU, so not sure it really changes anything for them.

yildolw ,

Their own Facebook App Store would have to pay the same fees to Apple as the Apple App Store under Apple's generous terms. Losing the web app escape hatch is a 30% revenue loss

rikudou OP ,

Yeah, I'll wait until EU has their say, because the shit Apple came up with goes against what EU is trying to achieve.

RagingRobot ,

Why should I pay apple because my user decided to buy a shitty phone

lovesickoyster ,

I moved from android to iphone 2 years ago. As soon as this piece of crap dies, I'm moving back to android.

rikudou OP ,

Heh, welcome back soon!

lovesickoyster ,

looking forward to being able to have separate volumes for notifications and ringer again... "#/(%)&#)$%&

Chriswild ,

For me the notifications were the biggest gripe.

SnipingNinja ,
@SnipingNinja@slrpnk.net avatar

Unfortunately that's not a stock Android thing, so weird

IMALlama ,

Really? Pixels have had that function for a while now. I always assumed it was stock.

SnipingNinja ,
@SnipingNinja@slrpnk.net avatar

I have a Pixel, notification and ringer are combined

lud ,

I am not a huge fan of Apple but they will probably be stuck on iOS for a while. Their phones last quite a long time and get updates for very long.

rikudou OP ,

As does every good phone in that price range.

lud ,

Updates though?

rikudou OP ,

This year's top Samsung has 7 years of updates guaranteed.

lud ,

How was it earlier?

SnipingNinja ,
@SnipingNinja@slrpnk.net avatar

5 years, before that 3 years, before that worse and not even standardized.

lovesickoyster ,

honestly, the shitty user experience might make me chuck it into the trash before it actually dies.

lud ,

Haha, that's fair enough.

lovesickoyster ,

i find it absolutely hilarious when iphone fans talk about a polished user experience, it's a joke.

gnuplusmatt ,

no one complains about their phones more than iphone users

rhebucks-zh ,

welcome back, let's hope Play Integrity has an exploit found in case you bought a Xiaomi or Alcatel or whatever.

Link ,

Does this affect the UK as well as they aren’t in the European Union anymore?

rikudou OP ,

Most likely not, UK does not use EU laws anymore.

tigerjerusalem ,

Man, they're seething against the EU, totally pissed that the legislators worked against their abuse over developers and rubbed against their cash cow.

Apple is all about money and fucking the user, being no different from Meta or Google. All they have is shinier hardware.

brlemworld ,

I'd argue they have better hardware. I'd love to have an iPhone running stock Android.

olutukko ,

I mean the og comment literally said "all they have is shinier hardware"

Lesrid ,

Just read it wrong since Google was mentioned right before the start of the final sentence

itsJoelle ,

That would be the dream :)

EngineerGaming ,
@EngineerGaming@feddit.nl avatar

Costs a fortune, hard to repair, no SD slot, no headphone jack, until recently could not be used with the chargers you have for everything else... At least for me it is a "no".

rikudou OP , (edited )

Much worse than Google IMO, at least when it comes to fucking with rules made by EU. Google usually tries to appeal legally and if it doesn't work out, they do what they must. This Apple bulshittery with 3rd party app stores is a new one. Someone here in this thread said that the worst EU can do to companies breaking DMA is forcing them to sell the division. I would love for Apple to push EU that far.

menemen ,
@menemen@lemmy.world avatar

Companies working against technical standards are basically working against society.
And no one fights standards quite like Apple.

tigerjerusalem ,

But but but muh innovation! Standards ruin that! /s

Hamartiogonic ,
@Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz avatar

What about privacy though? Google runs an ad network, so clearly they have financial incentive to spy hard.

tigerjerusalem ,

So does Apple, the difference being they grabbed it all to themselves. This is why they have "no tracking" options, to seal competition off while selling themselves as the privacy champions and also selling their in house ad solution. That and the fact that they worked with the government behind users back, and having a shoddy work to secure their OS.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56995192

https://www.vox.com/recode/23045136/apple-app-tracking-transparency-privacy-ads

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/apple-admits-to-secretly-giving-governments-push-notification-data/

https://arstechnica.com/security/2023/10/iphone-privacy-feature-hiding-wi-fi-macs-has-failed-to-work-for-3-years/

https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/01/hackers-can-id-unique-apple-airdrop-users-chinese-authorities-claim-to-do-just-that/

Apple is not any better than Meta, they just lie better.

rottingleaf ,

Apple is scary because they succeeded at creating a sect by frontal assault, so to say.

Google did that very subtly and precisely in the 00s, and like a decade ago firmly diverted to the MS way.

MS didn't go in the cult direction, they slowly and steadily capitalized on their monopolistic power with moderation and modesty.

While Apple almost from the beginning just shat on everybody and everybody asked for more. They even took the counterculture niche partially in the 90s and 00s. And for clueless people it's still them.

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