depends how you choose to comply with it
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Apple Confirms iOS 17.4 Disables Home Screen Web Apps in the European Union
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depends how you choose to comply with it
Europe represents 7% of App Store revenues.
That's not the sign of a large or healthy market.
The difference is that Apple restricts certain Web APIs so that they are only available in homescreen web apps, and not available in Safari.
iOS 16 introduced (with much fanfare, and 6 years after Android) the ability for web apps to support push notifications and icon badging, but only if they are saved to the homescreen. That functionality is now unavailable to iOS users in the EU, regardless of their browser choice. Homescreen web apps had separate data storage from Safari, and now that data is lost because it was not migrated back to Safari.
Apple's justification for making these features only available in homescreen web apps (and not in Safari) was that saving to the homescreen was a strong "intent to install" signal from the user. Web app developers argued that the option to save to the home screen was buried in the share menu and most users wouldn't know to find it there, and Apple refused to acknowledge that as a problem.
Now they're using the fact that most users don't save web apps to the homescreen as justification for dropping support.
Stop bringing facts into an internet argument.
I think this is just the start of some unintended consequences for EU users and some of the companies that clamored for the DMA. Apple has no choice but to comply, and they chose to do so in a way that was the less costly one.
Edit: Fixed typos
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DMA for the WIN!!! They’re empowering Microsoft to use the Apple platform to increase earnings!! Fighting for the little guy!
Thanks for explaining it in detail. My point was, that from a security perspective, web apps are not less secure than apps that run in Safari (the browser). Notifications and more permanent storage are still part of the browser stack. The only thing Apple killed is the small icon on the homescreen and some UI candy.
Don’t like it? Use Android!
Push notifications are not supported for web apps running in Safari. They are only available to web apps saved to the homscreen: https://webkit.org/blog/13878/web-push-for-web-apps-on-ios-and-ipados/
There it is!
Ring the bell 🔔
I was waiting for one of these very low hanging fruit responses to any objection to something Apple does.
Took longer than usual today.
I ask you, what is the incentive for Apple to innovate and offer those innovations to Europe anymore when it’ll instantly be crushed? Or if Apple is forced to give those innovations to everyone else for free? With an authoritarian EU, I predict there will be more and more features available to other markets while leaving those out in the EU in the future. I personally don’t care what you guys do since I don’t live in the EU, so if you guys don’t want new ground-breaking features, that’s your prerogative. (Yes, cue the memes for Apple not innovating anymore, my *). PWA may not be groundbreaking, but it’s started. Feature parity between regions is already starting to shift. Push too hard and Apple stops selling in the EU completely if they determine they can’t make any serious money in the region anymore. If that 30% drops to 10% because their OS’es get crippled or made to look just like Android’s, they may just do that. Then that 70% Android monopoly becomes 90% or 100%. You guys really want to make that 70% even higher? Unintended consequences…
I disagreed with Europe’s decision on Microsoft many years ago, too, when they forced Microsoft to release N versions of their OS’es because of apps like Internet Explorer. Oh, guess what? IE was crushed eventually and a new monopoly came out, Chrome, an inefficient, resource-hogging pig of an application that steals our data. Unintended consequences…
In economics, there are several different types of economies. One is monopolistic, one is perfectly competitive, and another is monopolistic competition. The third is the type that most economies try for in order to maximize growth and innovation. In a perfectly competitive market, all widgets are identical and there’s no reason to get one over the other. In a monopolistic competive market, everyone makes different widgets that serve the same purpose, each with competitive advantages over the widgets the other companies make. The best widget wins. In the EU, they’re trying to make all the widgets the same, so nobody has any competitive advantage. That erases any incentive for innovation.
One apple has more than 30% and 2 the other company is complying and has been complying with the law for law and day one was a lot closer to compliance with the the law so saying they are going after harder on the smaller one is incorrect. The bigger one just does not close itself off as much as the other.
The DMA doesn't make this distinction.
Among others section (?) 49 has some language about a gatekeeper not favouring their own browser. Also article 6, paragraph 3.
Maybe Apple could get away with supporting full screen web apps in only their own browser engine as long as the user had chosen Safari as the default browser but I understand why Apple wouldn't take any chances on something which isn't important to them.
I wish the mods on would just step in and say using dont like it, use Android is against the rules.
That is the same saying dont like your country, town etc well move. It completely ignores a lot of things and the logical issues. Any one in the EU using the dont like it buy and Android as the argument the only correct response is well you dont like the law leave the EU it is that simple.
The EU is trying to turn iOS to android. Apple is trying to have iOS remain iOS.
You missed my point. The walled-garden approach IS the method by which Apple is seeking to gain market share from Android. By going directly after Apple’s advantage, and giving it to Android, does more to strengthen Android, who is already overwhelmingly dominant in the EU. It’s a silly strategy. And it isn’t really about so-called duopolies, etc. It’s simply the EU understanding they have no real players in this market, so instead of incentivizing their own business to get better and compete, they’re just trying to regulate and fine the other players.
Not true according to my source
Apple sales revenue by country/region 2025| Statista
The Americas are Apple’s largest regional market, bringing in net sales of ***** billion U.S.
www.statista.com
You conveniently left out the middle part of the story. IE was the worst browser at the time and MS was actively hampering the web by not complying with standards and inventing their own. Chrome was (and still is) pushing web technologies forward and is mostly standard compliant. If you ask developers today, they say Safari is the new Internet Explorer.
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I love how people on this forum are basically saying: “ good for them, this will show them”
I grew up watching movies where when a prisoner finally dig his way out with a spoon, the others cheers and laugh at the guards.
the inability for the modern consumer to critically think and understand that a tech company should not be able to prevent users from fully taking advantage of your devices. Even Sony and Xbox should not, which is is why I jumped to pc gaming.
a lot of the time apple takes features and makes changes which is not beneficial to the user and the app developers, and if I could sideload I would. Now the best part of side loading is it’s not obligatory. And apple could have a contract with distributors which will force them to sell their devices with no side loaded apps.
And at last, for an ecosystem which is designed for creative people we are treated as non- adaptive, with no personality and no agency. Based on apple attitudes, you are too stupid to costuming, personalize your experience.
I grew up watching movies where when a prisoner finally dig his way out with a spoon, the others cheers and laugh at the guards.
the inability for the modern consumer to critically think and understand that a tech company should not be able to prevent users from fully taking advantage of your devices. Even Sony and Xbox should not, which is is why I jumped to pc gaming.
a lot of the time apple takes features and makes changes which is not beneficial to the user and the app developers, and if I could sideload I would. Now the best part of side loading is it’s not obligatory. And apple could have a contract with distributors which will force them to sell their devices with no side loaded apps.
And at last, for an ecosystem which is designed for creative people we are treated as non- adaptive, with no personality and no agency. Based on apple attitudes, you are too stupid to costuming, personalize your experience.
I’m all for diversity of opinion and I’m very, very far from Apple’s greatest fan these days, but I find it odd that some people seem so emotional about a walled garden approach that Apple has been employing since Noah took sailing lessons.
Why did you guys ever become so invested in an ecosystem that you hated? Asking for a friend 👍
Why did you guys ever become so invested in an ecosystem that you hated? Asking for a friend 👍
I agree "easily" is subjective term.
If this word triggers you, just remove it. My point stands. One of the biggest companies of the world should be able to implement appropriate APIs within the time frame of two years - which is the period the DMA form has been out.
I understand they don't have to do it and so they choose not to do so. But it's anti-consumer and this bad and simplest implementation was just Apple's own decision.
I am charitably assuming this is somewhat rhetorical…
But if not, the answer is one of a long time period for many of us that goes back to being invested in the Mac and having the ecosystem lock in sort of “grow” until it was so all consuming it became more of a problem.
Basically sort of just happened