I keep tooting this post, but that's partially because @rgadellaa keeps updating it as the history of Apple's uniquely colossal iOS web #fail gets more richly reported.
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Alex Russellreplied to Thomas Randolph :thomas: last edited by
@rockerest @rgadellaa @jalcine @janl The fully concocted cover story to excuse Apple over trying to kill PWAs is breathtakingly audacious. Say what you will, but Gruber hasn't lost his touch for hot boxing FruitCo PR with a willing gaggle of lookers on.
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Not sure I get it. If Apple's browser is sufficiently bad in the opinion of users, shouldn't that manifest in the form of more people buying other devices, persuading Apple to attempt to serve them better? That seems like the nature of competitiveness in action.
There's some good information here, but the overall case seems to be that Apple is anti-competitive because Safari is sufficiently bad in the opinion of (some) *developers.*
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Roderick Gadellaareplied to Steve Barnes last edited by
@Starfia @slightlyoff It's... Complicated. 1st of all, people don't easily switch between OS/device because of lock-in. So a lot of users are on iOS and will stay there. Because Safari is missing features and/or broken, many projects will never be built as web apps. So no one notices that the web can do better, because few websites take advantage of what is possible on Android.
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Roderick Gadellaareplied to Roderick Gadellaa last edited by
@Starfia @slightlyoff Look at it this way: on desktop, how much time do you spend in your browser? Intel has numbers of 60~80% of cpu time is spent in browsers.
Then look at mobile. Why are the numbers so much lower there?
Is it because the web apps on mobile just aren't as good?
Why is that?
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Roderick Gadellaareplied to Roderick Gadellaa last edited by
@Starfia @slightlyoff I (and many devs who know they could do more) are held back by what is possible on iOS. We can't afford to only build a web app for Android. It needs to work on iOS as well.
So iOS gets to set the ceiling of what the web can do
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Roderick Gadellaareplied to Roderick Gadellaa last edited by
@Starfia @slightlyoff ... that's the best I can do right now on mobile and freestyling
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Roderick Gadellaareplied to Roderick Gadellaa last edited by
@Starfia @slightlyoff Ok one more angle: the web's best selling point is that it works everywhere. That's why gmail is great. You can just go to the site on any computer and check your mail (don't forget to log out tho).
Apple has degraded that selling point by having 100% control of what works on the web.
Suddenly, you can't switch browsers, you have to buy another device.
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Roderick Gadellaareplied to Roderick Gadellaa last edited by
@Starfia @slightlyoff And then this kicks in:
https://elk.zone/mastodon.social/@rgadellaa/113211326370765485 -
Roderick Gadellaareplied to Roderick Gadellaa last edited by
@Starfia @slightlyoff Would you switch and buy an android phone just so you could use (for example) the gmail web app? Or would you just use some other native email app that allows you to use your gmail account (and doesn't require you to buy a new phone)?
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Alex Russellreplied to Roderick Gadellaa last edited by
@rgadellaa @Starfia The economic theory way to describe this is "switching costs". Apple makes the web less viable (and therefore less valuable) by comparison to native apps, and unlike the earlier era where developers could just recommend a different (free) browser, the cost to users of a better web is a new phone.
This is a material market distortion that disproportionately lands on an open, interoperable meta platform whose value is (was?) reach.