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Here's How Web Apps Work in macOS Sonoma

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In macOS Sonoma, currently in beta, you can create individual web apps for any website that you frequent in Safari, and have them sit beside other apps in your Dock. Let's take a closer look at how it all works by turning MacRumors.com into a virtual Mac app as an example.

macos-sonoma-web-app-MacRumors.jpg

In macOS Sonoma, any website viewed in Safari can be turned into a web app, thanks to a new "Add to Dock" option in the File menu. In other words, no work is required on the part of web developers to make a site web app compatible, although there are some elements of web apps that developers can have control over (see below).

How to Turn MacRumors into a Web App

  1. In macOS Sonoma developer beta, navigate to MacRumors.com in Safari.
  2. Choose File -> Add to Dock in the menu bar.
  3. If you want, you can change the MacRumors icon by clicking it in the Add to Dock window. You can also edit the web app's name using the title field – "MacRumors" is more succinct, for example.
  4. Click the blue Add button.
macos-sonoma-tidbits6.jpg


You will now see the MacRumors web app sitting in your Dock, ready for use independently of Safari. The web app works with Mission Control and Stage Manager just like any app, and can also be opened via Launchpad or Spotlight Search.

On opening the web app, you'll notice its window includes a simplified toolbar with navigation buttons (note: Website developers can control whether these are shown). As you can see in the image, the MacRumors theme color for the site blends into the toolbar for a more seamless look.

web-app-MacRumors-macos.jpg

In terms of navigation, the scope of the web app is dictated by the host of the webpage – in this case www.macrumors.com – so you can navigate anywhere within the MacRumors website, but if you click a link outside of the host page, such as the MacRumors Forums, which is separately hosted at forums.macrumors.com, this will open the linked webpage in Safari. Therefore, if you are a frequenter of both the MacRumors website and the MacRumors Forums, you should create separate web apps for each.

Web developers have the ability to refine the scope of a web app to a specific path on their site if they wish. For example, MacRumors could theoretically provide a facility to make web apps dedicated to navigating only how-to articles or guides. This is something MacRumors may implement in the future.

Website Logins and Notifications

By default, Safari copies a website's cookies to its web app. So if you create a MacRumors Forums web app and you were logged into your account at the time, you will remain logged in inside the web app. Even if you weren't logged in, you can do so within the web app with minimal effort, since Apple has integrated support for Password and Passkey AutoFill.

If a website already supports web push notifications – as MacRumors does – and you have signed up to them, you will receive web app push notifications that display the corresponding MacRumors icon, giving you more context than a standard Safari notification and icon would.

The web app icon in the Dock will also show a badge when a notification is received. Web app notifications are silent by default, although developers can change them to play a sound. However, the end decision over sound and icon badges is left to the user in System Settings -> Notifications.

web-app-notifications-mr.jpg

Web apps also respect Focus modes, so you can include or exclude them from allowed notifications based on what you're doing. Lastly, with privacy in mind, Apple has added options to control web apps' access to camera, microphone, and location in System Settings -> Privacy & Security, just like for native apps.

For those who wish to delve further into macOS Sonoma, it is currently available to download as a developer beta, although caution is warranted, as beta versions can be unstable and buggy. For those willing to wait, the official public release is expected to land in the fall.

Article Link: Here's How Web Apps Work in macOS Sonoma
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2023/06/14/how-web-apps-work-macos-sonoma/
Last edited:
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This was the biggest eyeroll moment of the WWDC keynote for me. (I liked all the rest)

PWA's are a thing for years and years. They even got a spokesperson and demo for pinning a webapp and made it sound like they invented something magical and revolutionary that will enrich people's lives.

Can't believe it took them so long to add something that has been considered 'a basic feature' for years on other platforms and browsers.
 
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This looks great! I've been looking for something like this for a couple of years now. We use some web based cloud services for a lot of our work and I've always wanted to keep them separate from all my other browsing. I use another browser (chrome) just for those apps now but I've long wanted to be able to package these two apps into a stand alone app.
 
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atoqir said:
This was the biggest eyeroll moment of the WWDC keynote for me. (I liked all the rest)

PWA's are a thing for years and years. They even got a spokesperson and demo for pinning a webapp and made it sound like they invented something magical and revolutionary that will enrich people's lives.

Can't believe it took them so long to add something that has been considered 'a basic feature' for years on other platforms and browsers.
Click to expand...
It's apple, what do you expect . They self congratulated themselves for the "new" 15" design, almost sucking their own *censored* , and people cheering up

Still , the implementation is nice , and with the power apple has , it might make their web app and guidelines respected by devs

In all fairness I've no idea why theyve been waiting so long while iOS had it a deceny ago already

But yeah apple can afford to be late in any area they want
 
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Having used apps that turn sites into apps before the key thing is whether the apps you create still have the same access to auto fill and keychain as Safari, and also whether plugins work.

All too often I used an app to turn something like Gmail into an app but each and every time i started it I had login afresh and also had to type my details rather than have them auto fill. Cookies weren’t shared either. And plug-ins like adblockers wouldn’t work either. It was just too much of a PITA.
 
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atoqir said:
This was the biggest eyeroll moment of the WWDC keynote for me. (I liked all the rest)

PWA's are a thing for years and years. They even got a spokesperson and demo for pinning a webapp and made it sound like they invented something magical and revolutionary that will enrich people's lives.

Can't believe it took them so long to add something that has been considered 'a basic feature' for years on other platforms and browsers.
Click to expand...

Is this your first Apple keynote? They do this with at least 2 or 3 features every. single. year. It never fails and is a running joke at this point.
 
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woolypants said:
Having used apps that turn sites into apps before the key thing is whether the apps you create still have the same access to auto fill and keychain as Safari, and also whether plugins work.

All too often I used an app to turn something like Gmail into an app but each and every time i started it I had login afresh and also had to type my details rather than have them auto fill. Cookies weren’t shared either. And plug-ins like adblockers wouldn’t work either. It was just too much of a PITA.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I've yet to find one that works the way I want it. The main issue I have with most is that when clicking links that take you out of the domain you usually end up with a broken PWA. Looks like this solution avoids that (although maybe being able to whitelist subdomains would be even nicer).
 
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How does cookies work here? I like PWA (especially on mobile) to avoid using apps as much as I can but if every website can access each other's cookies it defeats the purpose.

I always use Safari in Private Mode because cookies are stored independently for each tab.
 
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I've wanted something like this for a long time in order to use Gmail.... I hate the way the mail app on MacOS handles emails... wish it was more like the iOS version... But this is a nice alternative.
 
What about browser extensions, in particular adblockers, I'd be curious to know if they can somehow be enabled. But not only adblockers, other extensions have become very useful and I'd hate to lose them by using a web app. Honestly it seems kind of redundant, having a web app when you can just open up a web page.
 
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Nice to see they added it through Safari.

Been doing this for a couple years on Mac using Chrome for things like Hulu, Netflix, etc.
 
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This could be very useful from a Parental Controls standpoint.
One of the biggest frustrations is how difficult Apple makes it to enable one or a few specific websites on a child's laptop. For example, good luck giving a child a MacBook with only Epic (children's books) enabled.

Yes, "Screen Time" provides a way to enable whitelisted sites only - but the feature is nearly useless because what the Mac does is route ALL Internet traffic on the system through that whitelist filter - not just Safari traffic. So things like Weather, Microsoft Office Accounts and Updates, iCloud, etc. all have to be painstakingly added to the whitelist; and the vendors all use many hosts and even sometimes bare IP addresses to facilitate all the back-and-forth underneath an App. Giving my child a laptop with whitelisting enabled means constantly managing the whitelist - I swear no one at Apple has actually put themselves in the shoes of a real parent!

SO I am hoping with this new Web App what I can do is make an App for Epic specifically - and then just turn off Safari so that I don't need to use the terrible, no good, useless whitelisting feature of Screen Time at all.
 
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atoqir said:
This was the biggest eyeroll moment of the WWDC keynote for me. (I liked all the rest)

PWA's are a thing for years and years. They even got a spokesperson and demo for pinning a webapp and made it sound like they invented something magical and revolutionary that will enrich people's lives.

Can't believe it took them so long to add something that has been considered 'a basic feature' for years on other platforms and browsers.
Click to expand...
I know! I thought the same. Serious table-stakes feature. Nice to finally have on Safari, though.
 
Questions:

1) Is local storage permanent??
Safari (last time I checked) purges local storage for any site not visited for more than 7 days. If an app is a PWA on iOS, then this does not occur as the PWA storage is separate and protected. For example, if an app uses IndexedDB extensively, purging would be a real issue.

2) Does one need to be online for the app to load ??
I think I read that the html/js/css files that make up an app are not downloaded. Makes sense since there is no versioning information available in the manifest.

3) If there is a manifest, does Apple respect all current implementation features of a true PWA ??
iOS has been pretty exemplar wrt PWAs which always made the lack of easily installed PWAs in Mac Safari a conundrum.

Thanks In Advance, and Apologies for not finding these answers myself via Google.
 
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