> Again, the iOS 17.4 situation. Apple claimed building PWA support for alternative browser engines wasn't "practical to undertake" due to security architecture requirements. They removed the feature. Two weeks later they brought it back. I'm asking one more time, what changed in those 14 days? If the architecture work was genuinely impractical, how was it completed so quickly?
The target changed. The EU rules implied that there was a requirement for parity between Safari and the other browsers. Implementing that parity by adding a tonne of new APIs for other browsers is understandably infeasible to achieve in a short timeframe. Can we agree on that?
So the other option to achieve parity is by removing the functionality from Safari. Which is what they did – in a beta not a release version if I remember correctly. That got a big reaction, and the EU backed off. So Apple no longer had to achieve this parity in a short timeframe, so they could just keep the status quo. And I think we can agree that keeping the status quo is easy to implement, right?
So what we’re really saying here is that adding a load of new APIs is hard, and not adding them is easy. In that light, Apple saying “hey this is hard” and then a few weeks later going “never mind” makes total sense. And since that time, they have been adding a load of new APIs for other browsers to achieve parity – just not on the super short timescale.
> Push notifications on iOS versus macOS. 2013 on Mac, 2023 on iPhone, same WebKit engine, same APNs backend. Apple controls the browser and the notification system on both platforms. Why the 10 year gap for what should be the same technical implementation?
I don’t believe Apple have ever claimed it was a technical limitation have they? If you ask real users – even here on Hacker News – a bunch of them will say they don’t want websites to send them notifications on their phone. The user demand isn’t as high as you think it is.
> even after iOS finally got push notifications, they only work for PWAs installed to home screen, not in Safari itself.
You will see this in a lot of Apple decisions around web standards. They see visiting a website and installing a PWA as expressions of different levels of trust and they are trying to avoid permission prompt fatigue. Do you want any random website to send you notifications? No. Do you want websites to constantly prompt you for permission? No. If they do that, will lots of users accidentally say yes? Yes. Are the answers to these questions different for something a user explicitly installs? Yes. If you read through the discussions on the web specification proposals, you’ll see this kind of thing come up several times, from Mozilla as well.
> You can argue Google is problematic (I'd also agree on that!) and also admit that Apple's decisions around PWAs are clearly driven by their conflict of interest to protect their $20+ billion dollar App Store business model.
I definitely think that Apple makes choices that deprioritise the web. But I also think that 90% of the things people here actually complain about are actually reasonable, and it’s only a small minority that are less justifiable. I also think it’s less a case of moustache-twirling “let’s hold the web back to boost native apps” and more “why should we?”
End-users strongly prefer native to web. End-users are not asking for PWAs in meaningful numbers. At this point people often blame Apple for holding PWAs back, but this isn’t the case.
Apple are not holding PWAs back on Android. Google implement all the APIs they feel like on Chrome for Android. PWAs on Android are not held back. PWAS on Android are a best-case scenario for PWAs. But end users still overwhelmingly choose native apps over PWAs on Android.
If PWAs were preferred by users and artificially limited by Apple, then we would see end-users pick PWAs on Android. Developers wouldn’t build native apps on Android so much, they would just build PWA+iOS and skip the native Android implementation. They don’t do that.
The causality is the opposite direction to what you think. Apple aren’t causing PWAs to fail; PWAs failing causes Apple to not care about them.
@dang can you please review these coordinated false flags? thank you!
> I need to address several evasions and fabrications of yours here with actual evidence.
> Source this immediately.
> That's pure gaslighting
> You are now dictating how I have to adjust the style of my writing so you can be bothered to finally answer my questions after you've repeatedly evaded answering question? You never had any intention of answering them. Apple's conflict of interest which you're hellbent on denying is indicative of your own conflict of interest. Shareholders tend to be defensive of their own investments.
> You evaded and dodged questions by Gish galloping and didn't expect that I would relentlessly press you on answering them. After you've realized that I will not give up on demanding substantiated answers to those inconvenient questions, you pivoted to arguing about tone. Your strategy is obvious.
> @dang can you please review these coordinated false flags?
You are being flagged because you are dragging this thread down into the mud. Note that your earlier comments where you were behaving more reasonably are not flagged, but as you descend into baseless accusations and conspiracies, your comments are getting flagged.
I pointed you to the site guidelines before:
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
If you make more of an effort to follow them, you might not get your comments flagged so much. But more importantly, you would stop making this thread an unpleasant distraction from the main topic.
>You are being flagged because you are dragging this thread down into the mud.
You're projecting and the quotes of mine you've listed are an adequate description of your debate strategy. Then you condescendingly link to the guidelines as if you weren't the one who broke them in the first place by consistently arguing in bad faith.
You may want to email hn@ycombinator.com. It's not clear if the string @dang does anything.
Thank you! Done.
Can you give provide a source for your iOS 17.4 "parity" claim? Apple's actual statement: "complex security and privacy concerns associated with web apps using alternative browser engines would require building an entirely new integration architecture that does not currently exist in iOS and was not practical to undertake." That's what they said. Security architecture requiring new engineering work, not parity between browsers.
Second, "the EU backed off." can you provide a source for that? Apple reversed their decision after massive backlash from developers and users. If you're claiming the EU changed their position instead, provide a source from which you derived that.
Third, here's crucial context you're ignoring, Apple just threatened to stop shipping products to the EU entirely rather than comply with the Digital Markets Act. (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/sep/25/apple-cal...) They've called for the DMA to be repealed. They've deliberately delayed features and explicitly stated "EU users' experience on Apple products will fall further behind." Those are Apple's own words.
Notice the pattern? iOS 17.4: remove PWAs, cite security concerns, reverse under pressure. Now Apple threatens to withdraw products entirely, cite security concerns, fight DMA in courts, hold an entire market hostage. This is the same company you're arguing has no conflict of interest and is just making neutral technical decisions about web standards?
Let me ask you directly, does Apple have a conflict of interest here? They run a $20+ billion App Store business that takes 15-30% of digital transactions. PWAs would let developers bypass that entirely. Do you acknowledge this financial incentive structure exists, or are you seriously claiming Apple has no motivation to limit PWA capabilities?
Because your entire argument requires believing that Apple's decade of PWA underinvestment, the iOS 17.4 removal and reversal, the current threats to leave the EU market, the active legal fights against the DMA, and the systematic feature gaps compared to Android are all just coincidental technical decisions completely unrelated to App Store revenue. That's not remotely plausible.
On push notifications, your logic contradicts itself. You're saying users don't want them and Apple chose not to implement them for a decade, but then Apple implemented them anyway in 2023. Why? If there's no demand, why spend engineering resources on it? And why did macOS Safari get them in 2013 if user demand is so low? The 10-year gap between platforms using the same technology stack still has zero explanation from you.
Your Android argument actually proves our point, not yours. PWAs need iOS support to be economically viable for developers. Without iPhone users being reachable, the entire cross-platform proposition fails. Developers can't justify PWA investment if they can't access the iOS market. Saying "PWAs fail on Android" when iOS support is systematically hobbled just demonstrates exactly what we're arguing: Apple's gatekeeping shapes the entire ecosystem.
And your claim: "PWAs failing causes Apple not to care about them." That's pure gaslighting through reversed causality. Apple's systematic underinvestment, active obstruction (iOS 17.4), and decade of feature gaps cause PWAs to struggle on their platform. Then you point to that struggle as justification for Apple's behavior. That's circular reasoning designed to absolve Apple of responsibility for the situation they created.
You've shifted explanations three times in this thread. First it was Google doing embrace-and-extend. When that didn't explain Apple-specific behavior, you pivoted to "parity requirements". Then "user preferences" (with no supporting data). Now Android market dynamics (which proves our point about gatekeepers). Every time evidence contradicts your previous explanation, you invent a new one. That's not reasoned argument, that's motivated reasoning to protect a predetermined conclusion.
So I'm asking again, directly, do you acknowledge that Apple's App Store business creates a financial conflict of interest regarding PWA development? Yes or no? Because everything you've written requires us to ignore the obvious incentive structure and believe Apple is just making innocuous technical choices while coincidentally fighting regulations, threatening to leave markets, and maintaining decade-long feature gaps that happen to protect their most profitable business.
[flagged]
Okay, when I said start again with a new comment, I did not mean remove the first sentence and copy and paste the rest.
I have explicitly been trying to find common ground with you:
> Can we agree on that?
> And I think we can agree that keeping the status quo is easy to implement, right?
You, on the other hand, are basically calling me a liar and barking orders at me:
> Source this immediately.
> That's pure gaslighting
I’m approaching this as a discussion, you are approaching this as some sort of war.
I will have a discussion with you. I will not have a flame war with you.
[flagged]
> You are now dictating how I have to adjust the style of my writing so you can be bothered to finally answer my questions after you've repeatedly evaded answering question? You never had any intention of answering them. Apple's conflict of interest which you're hellbent on denying is indicative of your own conflict of interest. Shareholders tend to be defensive of their own investments.
I have given you plenty of time and written lengthy responses to you.
You have responded like this, so I am quite obviously not going to waste any more time on you.
I suggest you read the site guidelines:
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
This thread is failing them, so we should stop.
[flagged]
[flagged]
> I need to address several evasions and fabrications of yours here with actual evidence.
Start again with a new comment and I’ll respond. I’m not reading past here.