3. PWA in reference to a suite of technologies is amorphous and has no clear referent. Some technologies are almost always considered part of the core PWA set: Service Workers, Web Manifest, Notifications API, Push API (and related protocols). But other things may be considered PWA, Fugu, or just normal web technologies, depending on the day of the week. We don’t find such an amorphous grouping to be a useful way to think about web technologies.
2. When we intend to refer to installed web apps, the term “PWA” is ambiguous. Sometimes it refers to web apps that _can_ be installed, other times web apps that _have_ been installed. When we’re talking about different capabilities or extra behavior, we generally only mean web apps that have actually been installed, so we try to be more specific.
Some anecdotal evidence that people use Add to Home Screen on iOS more than we might think, even with the indirect UI. Another reason it’s important to make the Web App experience great.
https://blog.mozilla.org/ux/2023/02/people-do-use-add-to-home-screen/
This is interesting...
”People do use Add to Home Screen… Recently we were testing some prototypes on iOS… Of the 10 people we talked to, 4 were familiar with this flow and had saved various things this way. When I mentioned this to others on the UX team a few shared similar stories… What does that tell us? It tells us that it’s something that at least some regular people do and that it’s not a hidden power user feature… it’s a good reminder to check your assumptions.”
https://blog.mozilla.org/ux/2023/02/people-do-use-add-to-home-screen/
@hi_mayank @jensimmons if you mean as a user - there is a Safari setting for that (and in any other WebKit-based browser that cares to expose the setting).
For those of you asking about how to setup and configure Focus — here’s some info about it: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212608
@naton I see. Unfortunately, server-side web development is beyond my expertise, so not sure how much I can help. There are general tutorials out there for how to set up Web Push and send a push notification from the server. We don’t have WebKit-specific docs beyond that.
@abhibeckert @ffScala @siracusa I believe it’s after 30 days, and specifically days of Safari use during which you didn’t visit the website. The clock resets in a site visit. But it’s correct that Home Screen web apps are uncapped.
@naton essentially it works the same as in other browsers. We found most websites that supported Push for other browsers just worked, as long as they didn’t have a hardcoded user agent lockout.
It’s hard to express how excited I was to get to tell all of you today about what’s in Safari 16.4 beta 1 and iOS & iPadOS 16.4 beta 1 for Home Screen web apps. This represents many, many months of work by some really amazing people, all across Apple. It’s built on foundations that took years to create, especially things like Focus — which let us get the experience of Web Push just right. I am so proud of our team. And feel lucky every day I get to work with them.
@ffScala I know people who use Elk saved to home screen as a Mastodon client on iOS instead of the various native options. It's not super duper popular, but maybe more so with this feature?
Today is the day. Web Push on iOS.
https://webkit.org/blog/13878/web-push-for-web-apps-on-ios-and-ipados/
Safari 16.4 beta 1.
Want a sneak peak into what’s coming?
Read the beta release notes at https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safari-release-notes/safari-16_4-release-notes
WebKit is bringing Web Push to iOS home screen web apps, with a full suite of native-like functionality including badging and focus modes. Read all about it: https://webkit.org/blog/13878/web-push-for-web-apps-on-ios-and-ipados/
https://webkit.org/blog/13851/declarative-shadow-dom/
Declarative Shadow DOM is in WebKit.
@Cameo barely survived a zombie attack.
@mluisbrown I’m not super familiar with Streep’s filmography, but I did find a video of clips showing her doing a wide range of accents and dialects. Pretty impressive acting! Lynskey is on a whole other level though. She sounds unmistakably middle American when performing. I was so confused I had to rewind during the post-show.
Head of
@webkit
engineering at Apple. Also networking APIs. Opinions are personal unless stated otherwise.