back to article Apple makes it official: No Home Screen web apps in European Union

Apple confirmed on Thursday it will not support Home Screen web apps – commonly referred to as Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) – on iOS devices in European Union member states under its forthcoming iOS 17.4 release. As The Register noted last week, the second beta release of iOS 17.4 – which includes code intended to comply with …

  1. simonlb Silver badge
    FAIL

    Yes, you really are the product

    "Addressing the 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 given the other demands of the DMA"

    All weasel words to avoid actually doing something. The only reason that integration architecture doesn't exist in iOS is because they don't want to support it so are deflecting and saying it's too hard. I suppose once you're already making a trillion dollars a year by selling apps in your walled garden, it's also just not worth the effort so fuck the consumer.

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      Re: Yes, you really are the product

      Indeed. The fruit cart is not there to work, it's there to rake in the dough.

      And rake in the dough it does, by the cargo ship load.

      What it will take for Apple to actually commit to this architecture is for Android to start making a killing with it and for Apple to lose market share because of that. That would make things move.

      But it will never happen, because people who buy Apple don't change, they stay Apple.

      1. Lord Elpuss Silver badge

        Re: Yes, you really are the product

        "people who buy Apple don't change, they stay Apple."

        You say this, but... I speak as a strong Apple fan for more than a decade. And I've seen how the iPhone experience is losing ground to the competition year by year. And how my current MacOS experience is degrading almost by the day; I'm seeing crashes, freezes and the beachball of death more now under Sonoma than I ever remember, with at least one full forced restart a week now. I'm getting sick of it.

        Right now, the Apple experience is mediocre, while some of the new crop of Android phones combined with Windows are actually really, really good. And genuinely interesting.

        And I'm more than trivially considering whether my next phone/laptop will be Apple or not.

        1. mantavani

          Re: Yes, you really are the product

          Same story as Lord El here. My iOS loyalty is only as strong as my distaste for the chocolate factory, and that's stretchable but not infinite. If only MS hadn't killed Nokia stone dead and we had Meego as a viable platform, or heck even Windows Mobile.

          1. werdsmith Silver badge

            Re: Yes, you really are the product

            Meego wasn'k killed stone dead, it went into Sailfish, and depending on your requirements for viability, is actually pretty good on Sony XPeria 10 III for example.

            But not enough people want it, because Apple and Android is enough already.

            1. mantavani

              Re: Yes, you really are the product

              No, it was Nokia they killed stone dead, in handset terms at least, and while I've considered Sailfish (and even Ubuntu Touch when it was still a thing), without that critical hardware and app ecosystem it's always going to be more niche than niche. Apple and Google's bipartisan stranglehold seems inevitable now but it was surely as much accident as investment. Parachuting an MS exec in to Nokia to kill of anything that wasn't Windows Phone was a huge tactical error even before it was clear Windows Mobile was unlovable, and who would have thought Blackberry would drop the ball as catastrophically as they did.

              1. CJ_C
                Linux

                Re: Yes, you really are the product

                Ubuntu Touch *is* still a thing, supported by UBports (see https://ubports.com/), used by thousands, now based on Ubuntu 20.04, and running on modernish hardware such as PIxel 3a and Fairphone 4. It might seem very barebone to those used to modern smart phones, but it is Google and Apple free and it suits me.

        2. Empire of the Pussycat

          Re: Yes, you really are the product

          Yep, Mac OSes have gone steadily downhill since Snow Leopard, poorer reliability, endless bloatware that can't be deleted/disabled, unwanted/unavoidable 'features', and relentless attempts to lock users into Apple's system.

          I never saw the attraction of the iPhone/iPad, so fortunately dodged the bullet there.

          Probably going to be a Linux laptop next time, 25+ years of Macs.

          1. FirstTangoInParis Bronze badge

            Re: Yes, you really are the product

            I’ve been a Mac etc user since 2012 and never looked back. Meanwhile my corporate Windows laptop has been replaced more times than I can remember due to some drop off or other. Mac bloatware? Ever checked how much free disk space there is once you’ve installed the OS? There is just no comparison.

            And just this month the Patch Tuesday was just an almighty clusterfudge that should never have got out the door.

            1. doublelayer Silver badge

              Re: Yes, you really are the product

              Ah, so you don't need to replace your Mac but the Windows one has lost support? So what version of Mac OS are you stuck on? No 2012 model has software support. Just to let you know, pretty much all computers from 2012, including your 2012-era Mac, are supported using Windows 10 until 2025. So I'm curious if you could name a single "drop off" that actually exists. It might be that your corporate laptop is replaced more often than necessary or that they buy underpowered equipment that needs faster replacement, but neither speaks badly of Windows, but instead your employer's equipment acquisition plan.

            2. sad_loser

              Re: Yes, you really are the product

              was dedicated apple user until crappy keyboard and price gouging got out of hand.

              now POP-OS on a NOS carbonX1 with 4TB = £1500

              not as quite as powerful but half the cost and no idiot tax, no crapware, I decide when it patches. I decide what is on my desktop. I decide if I am writing a letter.

              all my apps are free - dropbox, teams, zotero, plex, pycharm all work out of the box.

              welcome to the promised land. been solely on linux for 5 years now - not going back

              what do I miss? Filemaker Pro for RAD, BBEdit still the best editor

          2. Law

            Re: Yes, you really are the product

            Snow Leopard is probably the pinacle of osx for me... everything that came before or after was worse. It was:

            - lean due to the cleanup of PowerPC

            - lean due to being pre-iOS features infesting osx/macos

            - clean due to having a simple and stable UI

            - open - the appstore wasn't the main focus of installing software at this point (from what I remember)

            - hardware it supported / sold on was upgradable (RAM / HDD).. think this was around the start of the unibody form factor though

        3. John Robson Silver badge

          Re: Yes, you really are the product

          I was with you up until windows...

          I mean, put linux on there and I might follow along :p

          1. Lord Elpuss Silver badge

            Re: Yes, you really are the product

            Doesn't work for my use case. Or age, quite frankly. I'm 3 years off pension, and not up for trying a new OS at this stage.

            1. navarac Silver badge

              Re: Yes, you really are the product

              I went Linux at 75. Just saying ....it CAN be done.

              1. Lord Elpuss Silver badge

                Re: Yes, you really are the product

                Not with my use case, you didn't.

            2. RegGuy1 Silver badge

              Re: Yes, you really are the product

              Try it. You might be surprised. It beats having to try a new OS every time Microsoft updates Windows.

              1. Lord Elpuss Silver badge

                Re: Yes, you really are the product

                You're not listening. It's not just about 'trying it'; it's about the fact that it quite literally will not work with my use case, which involves (amongst other things) working with customer's legacy applications and sending/receiving data in specific formats.

                Even if *I* could make the switch, my customers would also need to change their ways of working to comply; and as I'm not the only person out there offering the services I do, they would most likely simply switch to a different vendor that's easier to do business with. And then my little one man band goes under.

        4. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge

          A Kodak Moment?

          Right now, the Apple experience is mediocre, while some of the new crop of Android phones combined with Windows are actually really, really good. And genuinely interesting.

          Whatever happened to Kodak? What will happen to Apple?

          1. Lord Elpuss Silver badge

            Re: A Kodak Moment?

            Well, quite. Apple are a lot bigger and more influential than Kodak ever were, but the point is still valid; you can be the best, most innovative and most efficient company; but if you're delivering last year's product instead of next year's, you're still going to die. Having deeper pockets doesn't change the outcome, just the timeline.

  2. KittenHuffer Silver badge

    Did anyone ....

    .... really expect the Fruity Ones to just roll over and give in to EU law by complying in good faith with the required changes?

    I would love to see a significant fine applied to them for malicious compliance. But I doubt it will happen.

    1. DS999 Silver badge

      Re: Did anyone ....

      How can they be fined if they are complying with the letter of the law? If the EU wants them to act differently, they will have to change the letter of the law which is within their power to do.

      1. abend0c4 Silver badge

        Re: Did anyone ....

        The law isn't that specific: it's about ensuring reasonable access to the platform by third parties. It isn't yet clear whether Apple's efforts will be acceptable: they'll have to be evaluated when the full picture is available.

        If the overall effect is that the modifications result in a terrible platform that's equally bad for everyone, the EU would have no grounds to object. If. however, the result is a sufficiently degraded platform for potential new entrants that Apple's gatekeeper status is not materially changed, then they would. Currently, it looks like Apple might be doing both simultaneously.

        1. katrinab Silver badge
          Megaphone

          Re: Did anyone ....

          The effect of this is that it is now going to be *more difficult* to deploy an app outside of the App Store than it was before.

          PWAs are good enough for some use-cases, like the ones I work on. Now, instead of just sending the appropriate webmanifest with your website, you have to jump through all the hoops to provide an alternative app store, and you have to actually build the App for iOS.

        2. Povl H. Pedersen

          Re: Did anyone ....

          Apple is going to put all browsers even.

          I see nothing wrong in that. But I hate that is causes PAAs to go away.

          PWA was the way for 3rd parties to deliver Apps without any Apple requirements and fees. But that was not enough for Fortnite.

          Now Fortnite will come back in an alternate App Store which I will not allow my children to access. And those supporting EPIC games will be forced to wrap their solutions into real apps. That is still a possibility. But it will be a burden on developers and cost $99/year. Unless Epic games store is used and they charge less.

        3. dwaite

          Re: Did anyone ....

          > If the overall effect is that the modifications result in a terrible platform that's equally bad for everyone, the EU would have no grounds to object. If. however, the result is a sufficiently degraded platform for potential new entrants that Apple's gatekeeper status is not materially changed, then they would. Currently, it looks like Apple might be doing both simultaneously.

          That seems to be exactly what is happening here. The DMA says that alternative browsers need access to all the platform features that Safari has, Safari has features which require deeper integration than they want to share with third party browsers, so they are turning those features off.

          Specifically, "add to Home Screen" with PWA settings actually creates a local ad-hoc native app, which is not part of the system browser but instead uses the webkit engine. These have separate permissions and separate storage. Apple would need to allow anyone who claims to be a third party browser the ability to create local ad-hoc native apps, trust that they do so securely, and deal with any business ramifications that come from that.

          If iPadOs is eventually covered by the DMA, a third party browser could use the windowing support to create a native experience, albeit without a custom application icon. iOS does not have multi window support.

          Their reason as stated is not part due to requirements for alternative marketplaces, but for alternative browser engines with equivalent capability access.

          Unless someone points to a "PWA App Marketplace" and makes a case for it, removing these features likely doesn't run afoul of the DMA as it affects individual developers, not marketplaces.

          Speculation on my part, but I suspect the late arrival to their DMA documentation is due to a late decision from legal on whether a "native app wrapped PWA" is considered a platform experience or a web experience. "Ad to Home Screen" has been supported for third party browsers as part of their ramp-up for DMA, in and outside the EAA. I would further speculate the right guidance from regulators that PWAs could be offered as a WebKit-based native app experience would cause the feature to be re-enabled.

          1. gnasher729 Silver badge

            Re: Did anyone ....

            The problem is not “deeper integration”. The problem is apple needs to know that the browser does nothing insecure. With Safari, apple knows. And if there are problems due to Safari, apple can fix it. For any other browser, apple doesn’t know and can’t fix problems.

      2. NightFox

        Re: Did anyone ....

        Unlike in the US where the 'letter of the law' tends to be the only thing that matters, European courts give much more weight to the actual intent of the law.

        Turning round the question that somebody posed above, does Apple really think the EU is just going to go "Oh, OK, you sure outsmarted us there Apple. Well done and carry on"?

        1. Phlegm

          Re: Did anyone ....

          The intent of all EU business regulations is solely to line the pockets of the EU, not to benefit the suckers who allow their lives to be dictated by the corrupt and unnecessary bureaucracy of the EU.

          1. IGotOut Silver badge

            Re: Did anyone ....

            "dictated by the corrupt and unnecessary bureaucracy of the EU."

            Yeah screw the consumer with their compulsory 2 year warranties, right to repair, breaking up abusive monopolies and on and on...

          2. RegGuy1 Silver badge

            Re: Did anyone ....

            On what evidence do you come to that conclusion? I would be very interested (because I don't think it exists) in what you mean by corrupt bureaucracy.

            1. Casca Silver badge

              Re: Did anyone ....

              He is most probably a brexiter

          3. Casca Silver badge

            Re: Did anyone ....

            Sure...

        2. NATTtrash
      3. mantavani
        Coat

        Re: Did anyone ....

        You mean this letter of the law, Apple being the gatekeeper?

        "The gatekeeper shall not degrade the conditions or quality of any of the core platform services provided to business users or end users who avail themselves of the rights or choices laid down in Articles 5, 6 and 7, or make the exercise of those rights or choices unduly difficult, including by offering choices to the end-user in a non-neutral manner, or by subverting end users’ or business users' autonomy, decision-making, or free choice via the structure, design, function or manner of operation of a user interface or a part thereof."

        https://www.eu-digital-markets-act.com/Digital_Markets_Act_Article_13.html

        1. DS999 Silver badge

          Re: Did anyone ....

          If Apple is making the change for ALL browsers, and not creating an exception for Safari, it is a level playing field. There is no law requiring Apple to support PWAs. If the EU wants one, I guess they should write it - but if they start legislating what phones/PCs have to support that's going to be a road paved to hell as all the special interests will want to get in and claim their pet standard needs to be one of the blessed ones with government mandated support.

          I mean, Google would love it if the EU mandated that web browsers have to show ads so that every browser had to prevent add ons that blocked ads. Or mandated some Javascript support and didn't give end users a configuration option to turn it off or block certain scripts. Why should PWAs get some special treatment from the EU? Do you want them to mandate WebAssembly next? Do you want browsers required to implement all of Google's evil HTML standards that allow browsers direct access to USB devices, bluetooth and so on? There's a reason Apple (and Mozilla) refuse to implement those, and no one who cares about security wants it, but Google does.

        2. OptiPes

          Re: Did anyone ....

          They did not degrade a service - they simply quit providing it.

          Malicious compliance? Definitely yes.

          But it seems to be perfectly legal...

          1. doublelayer Silver badge

            Re: Did anyone ....

            It depends what the courts think "service" means. If it's PWAs only, then your logic works. If it's the operating system in general, not so much. They can point to the fact that PWAs are still supported outside the EU, not inside the EU, and say that the operating system's compatibility has been degraded. I don't know that they will, but if we're working on literal meanings, that one fits as well.

        3. Povl H. Pedersen

          Re: Did anyone ....

          Yeah all will be even. All or none can do PWA.

          BTW: I had alternate browsers from App Store for years. Allowing me to access Bluetooth.

    2. SundogUK Silver badge

      Re: Did anyone ....

      "malicious compliance"

      Can you even hear yourself?

      1. Lord Elpuss Silver badge

        Re: Did anyone ....

        ""malicious compliance"

        Can you even hear yourself?"

        Oh, I believe it. No question.

      2. MonkeyJuice Bronze badge

        Re: Did anyone ....

        Dude, they literally torched PWAs in the EU, while providing no way for the other browsers to fill the gap. How is that patently not malicious compliance?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Did anyone ....

          Well it's not clear that it is compliance at all. So that just leaves plain old malicious.

        2. gnasher729 Silver badge

          Re: Did anyone ....

          Compliance = equal playing field for all. And that’s what they provided.

    3. NoneSuch Silver badge
      Mushroom

      Re: Did anyone ....

      They should establish a 100 million Euro a day fine until they comply fully.

      Then donate that money to Open Source initiatives.

    4. gnasher729 Silver badge

      Re: Did anyone ....

      The required change is equal playing field for all browsers.

      These apps worked with safari and were secure. Part of the security came from apple controlling safari so they know it doesn’t anything dodgy. Any other browser, apple would obviously not be secure.

      So apple has two choices: move security from browser to api which is difficult and costly. Or stop the api. Apple did the latter. Fully compliant and in the spirit of the judgement. Inconvenient for users.

  3. Lord Elpuss Silver badge

    ""We expect this change to affect a small number of users," the fruit cart wrote in an explanatory note"

    Fruit cart <sniggers>

  4. imanidiot Silver badge
    Flame

    "Look at what you made me do"

    Seems like the classic abuser line of blaming the receiving party for their behaviour. *Smashes your things* "I wouldn't have to do this if you just did what I wanted and not got these laws passed EU. Really this is your fault. I don't want to, but you leave me no choice"

    Piss off Apple. May your revenue decline and profits falter.

    1. Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch Silver badge

      Re: "Look at what you made me do"

      For a moment, I thought it was going to be, "May your touchscreen chip and shatter."

  5. jmch Silver badge

    The core truth...

    ...of why Apple did this is very neatly encapsulated here: "...the idea that users could install safe and secure apps that Apple can't tax, block, or control is terrifying to them"

    The EU ruling forces Apple to not completely lock in users, and if it was just that, very little would happen because users don't really care that much one way or the other. But as soon as that gate in the walled garden is open, developers are given an option to provide with a web app that exact same functionality as with a native app, without having to pay Apple 30%. Again, the users wouldn't really care much if it's the same functionality and they're paying the same price. But as a developer, why would you provide a native app and give 30% to Apple* if you can provide a web app and keep all the revenue. So it's unsurprising that they're digging a moat around the open gate and filling it with piranhas.

    *actually there is a reason, which is discovery in the App Store to users who might otherwise not find you. It's instructive that the companies looking to use Web Apps the most are probably those like Epic, Adobe etc that are big enough to have their own customer base who are looking for their apps, and don't need to be 'discovered' in the App Store

    1. Lord Elpuss Silver badge

      Re: The core truth...

      ""...the idea that users could install safe and secure apps that Apple can't tax, block, or control is terrifying to them""

      Yes this terrifies them. But to be fair... any marketplace is only ever going to be as secure as the curators can make it; which for PWAs is sweet bugger all.

  6. totosh

    No problem

    You can use android if you’re not satisfied with the platform.

    In my opinion, I don’t want more security loopholes in the platform.

    I can understand developers that wishes to have a WebApp that can be installed on every devices.

    I always prefer native applications because WebApps take too much resources so it’s no way on my Mac or on my phone.

    there are many companies that made a native application afterwards to make it better.

    And the web is a hell of a security problem.

    1. Outski

      Re: No problem

      You can't use Android if Apple is mandated by your employer.

      1. werdsmith Silver badge

        Re: No problem

        If you find Android is even worse than Apple then it's not much of an option.

      2. Lord Elpuss Silver badge

        Re: No problem

        "You can't use Android if Apple is mandated by your employer."

        Very true. But that's not to say that you can't use your work equipment purely and simply for work, and buy other solutions for personal use that work for you. That way, any productivity or usability issues are the company's problem and not yours.

        Back in the days when I worked for IBM, we were issued ThinkPads and a Nokia 6310i. The Nokia was brilliant. The (IBM-built) ThinkPad software image was shite. There was no differentiation by jobrole, so everybody had laptops with 30-odd startup items, of which YOU would use maybe 3. The rest was just bloat slowing everything down. I remember Intranet Labor Claiming (ILC) as this angry little red icon sitting in the taskbar that was completely useless to me as I didn't use it in my job, yet regularly consumed 100% CPU and brought everything to a standstill.

        Because it was a company laptop, I stopped stressing about it. Just explained to my boss that ILC crashed my laptop AGAIN, and the tech spec that needed to be at the customer by 3pm had been lost. They'd now have to wait until after the weekend, but that's really not my problem. Sorry. Enough of those kinds of situations, and bosses higher and higher up started to put pressure on to get us some decent kit.

        Last I heard they'd moved to MacBooks. That was after my time though.

        1. M.V. Lipvig Silver badge

          Re: No problem

          That's exactly how I look at it. Sorry, Boss, but <program> crashed again so I can't do my job. Here's the trouble ticket. No, I don't know why, if I was a programmer I'd be working for a different company.

      3. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

        Re: No problem

        "You can't use Android if Apple is mandated by your employer."

        So what on the Apple phone you have for work doesn't work for your work, then?

        Are you saying they mandate something that doesn't work for the work it's meant for?

      4. gnasher729 Silver badge

        Re: No problem

        If your employer mandates iOS for your work, that’s what they do. Your employer can’t mandate iOS for your private use.

    2. heyrick Silver badge

      Re: No problem

      Funny, it seems to me that far too many proper apps are just wrappers for the web site, but with added telemetry (like the ability to run at startup, full internet access, some degree of location, and whatever else they might throw in just because). Not all of this can be blocked on an unrooted device.

    3. Mike007 Bronze badge

      Re: No problem

      > I can understand developers that wishes to have a WebApp that can be installed on every devices.

      Our clients prefer paying us to write 1 app that works on all of their devices.

      I guess on Monday we are going to have to tell the client who had to do a major upgrade of their previous system last year because they couldn't install the old app on newly purchased iPads that the brand new system that was specifically built to not have that problem has been blocked because apple are having a tantrum after losing a court case...

      > You can use android if you’re not satisfied with the platform.

      Do you think the client are going to pay for yet another workaround to keep the iPads working for 6 months until the next time apple decides to fuck them over, or throw all their iShit in the bin and buy new hardware from a more reliable company (such as Xi's budget hardware emporium)?

      > I always prefer native applications because WebApps take too much resources so it’s no way on my Mac or on my phone.

      I don't even know where to start. You think an iPad is incapable of handing the "resource requirements" of opening a web page? Or do you think native apps don't use extremely bloated frameworks?

      1. Justthefacts Silver badge

        Re: No problem

        Of course you are right, the client won’t have the budget to allocate writing two separate apps. Assuming you are an app developer:

        If you and client are both in the EU, then yes you will have to present your client with the options: a) use these apps in-browser, b) switch to Android, c) transition to website only (no app to be written). The client can’t dump you because anyone else will tell them the same. I have no opinion which is best option. But most likely they will accept in-browser use, because there’s still an icon to dib, right? It’s just non-optimal to use on iPad. I think it’s unlikely they are going to throw $700 items in the bin, just because Push notifications don’t work. But in that case, Apple made the right decision (for them), because they’ve avoided a huge spend (and risk) on massive re-architecture for something that isn’t their fault, and had no impact on buying.

        The problem (for you). is if you and client are in different zones EU and non-EU. Either way, you can’t reproduce whatever issues the client is having going forward, because it works a different way for them. You won’t be able to debug. So, you simply lose those contracts, because you just aren’t in the position to take the job. On the minus side, you’ll lose all your ex-EU contracts. On the plus side, all the EU companies can no longer contract out to an ex-EU app developer, as they just can’t do the work (or suck it up to go Android-only), so you’ll get some new customers. Whether the positives outweigh the negatives depends on your business balance. For most businesses, 80% of customers are ex-EU (for mine it’s about 98%+), so it’s strongly negative. Balkanisation. It sucks. But it’s what the EU voted for.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: No problem

          > Balkanisation. It sucks. But it’s what the EU voted for.

          No, it is a weapon being used by Apple - they are the ones that have created the situation you describe.

          Assuming that your description is correct and can't be totally foiled by posting a 'phone bought in the US to be used by the debugger in the EU and vice versa. Just don't let them update locally. You know, the same way that you already keep around a 'phone with the previous OS, and stop it updating locally, to test for clients who haven't updated their kit yet.

          1. Justthefacts Silver badge

            Re: No problem

            So, ironically, whether your solution works or not depends on whether you are correct about Apple doing this deliberately and maliciously.

            If I am right, and this is just a necessary technical consequence (for Apple) of EU legislation…..then yes your solution will work. But if *you* are right, and this is intended to deliberately disable features within the EU to poke them in the eye…..then Apple will just add a GPS location check. So if you are correct, then you *are* screwed. But if your company survives, then your entire paranoid world-view is wrong. Quite a puzzle eh. Do the experiment, find out.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: No problem

              > your entire paranoid world-view is wrong

              My "entire ... worldview"? Ah, veering into ad hominems; you are on the downwards slope of credibility now :-) [1]

              > Do the experiment, find out.

              Good point - which, btw, also applies to you as well. Obviously, we are all waiting to compare everyone's experimental results, to determine just how this is *actually* working and how to get around it.

              [1] Unless you are such a serious fanboi that you *truly* believe that only the permanently paranoid could *ever* think ill of Apple. If that *is* the case, then apologies for the ad hom accusation.

              1. Justthefacts Silver badge

                Re: No problem

                Well, *my* worldview (and career experience) is that in a large corporate tech company, the kind of meeting where those decisions are taken, is an eyeball-stabbingly dull place. Typical discussion is about deadlines, existing commitments, staffing levels, technical risk, overcost, and our friends SAM and ARPU. The unspoken subjects are internal politics, whose fault it is, departmental responsibilities, compensation alignment. External politics? Taking revenge on a government? That sort of lack of self-control and poor judgement is going to get you taken aside after the meeting, asked if everything is Ok at home, and whatever it is they don’t GAF but either way leave it at home or be re-assigned to the Quality Department.

                I await the evidence outcome with baited breath. Maybe some manager at Apple brought their politics to work. But I bet you 10:1 odds they didn’t.

                1. doublelayer Silver badge

                  Re: No problem

                  Think less a supervillain laughing uproariously about how the EU will rue the day they tried to meddle, which is not what anyone was saying, and more a boring legal meeting that sounds like the boring technical meetings. I've been in the boring technical meetings where the discussion is how we're going to get around the performance bottleneck without introducing too much technical debt. This one was probably how they're going to get around the new requirements. As with the technical meeting, there's usually a nice option which could be but isn't taken:

                  Technical: "In order to improve performance, we're going to rewrite the module from scratch to run faster. It will take a month for a few people."

                  Legal: "We're going to comply with the requirements by doing exactly what the law intends here. It may cost us some control and therefore some money."

                  And the actual solution:

                  Technical: "We're going to get around the performance issue by using a solution that's more time efficient but very space inefficient. It will only take a week to write, but every user will find half a gigabyte more RAM used than before and a bunch of cache files so it doesn't have to be recomputed every time. A few months from now, we may have to have another meeting about cleaning those up, but maybe we'll ignore it."

                  Legal: "We're going to comply with the law, maybe, by just dropping stuff. Either they'll change the law or we'll never have to deal with PWAs again. In a couple months, we may have to have another meeting about what to do about the complaints from business customers who want their PWAs and security updates, but maybe we'll ignore it."

                  1. Justthefacts Silver badge

                    Re: No problem

                    I agree the broad angle, that’s a plausible account of what actually happened. They will also have had: Snr Product Manager to give a view on the current PWA take up rate and project a financial impact (with numbers). And from engineering, a Snr Architect for Job-To-Be-Done, Director for resource estimate, Sr Director for impact of resource allocation on other programs. What I don’t know, and nobody who doesn’t work on IOS at Apple knows, is what the numbers actually are on that spreadsheet.

                    And at the end of that, the decision would be an easy “seems like costs outweigh revenue, drop PWA’s in EU, build a business case for their re-introduction if necessary. And it’s got the added benefit of starting the internal process-change of having a separate EU IOS, which the next or next next regulation is going to force anyway”

            2. gnasher729 Silver badge

              Re: No problem

              There must be something in this EU ruling that says exactly what phones it applies to. Could be phones sold in the eu. Could be phones used in the eu so the GPS check would be correct. Could be phones owned by eu residents. Could be phones using a EU App Store. There could be a switch in Settings that must be set on phones sold in the eu and can be changed by the user.

              And I would assume that all changes are made in the exact same circumstances.

            3. Casca Silver badge

              Re: No problem

              Says the apple fan boy

      2. FIA Silver badge

        Re: No problem

        I guess on Monday we are going to have to tell the client who had to do a major upgrade of their previous system last year because they couldn't install the old app on newly purchased iPads that the brand new system that was specifically built to not have that problem has been blocked because apple are having a tantrum after losing a court case...

        Could you write a small native app that just exposes a webview? If you're installing it as an enterprise app then you can self cert, so no app store requirement.

        1. Mike007 Bronze badge

          Re: No problem

          An option on an app by app basis. We transitioned to using web apps for everything because of the ease of deployment compared to native apps... Both automated and manual deployments were easier along with the hardware flexibility.

          The skeleton app with a full screen browser is probably what we will do where we do need iPad/iPhone support, but my point about that client is that they have been screwed over by apple multiple times and they are not going to be happy when we tell them it happened again...

    4. Groo The Wanderer Silver badge

      Re: No problem

      All I heard was "I'm a fan-boi, so I buy into ALL of Apple's BS excuses."

    5. MonkeyJuice Bronze badge

      Re: No problem

      > I always prefer native applications because WebApps take too much resources so it’s no way on my Mac or on my phone.

      Please install TheRegisterHonestlyNothingExtra.exe to continue viewing this site.

  7. Julz

    I

    Don't see any reason Apple or any other company has to provide one feature or another with it's operating system.

    Now this withdrawal of a previously available feature may piss off people that use it but this is hardly the first time OS providers (and others like network and service providers) have done that. It may seem to be high handed and petulant, given it's geo location boundaries and its introduction due to a piece of national (well, super national) legislation but it's hardly the only differences in OS provision due to national location. This is an inevitable result of nations passing different and varied laws within their jurisdictions. Features and services provided by OS are there by the will of the provider. If they decide that feature X or Y is either no longer necessary or too much hassle or too expensive or whatever, then it would seem to me that they are in no way obliged to keep it. If that decision ends up being detrimental to the company, then it probably was a bad decision. Companies make bad decisions all the time.

    There are times when things such as anti-trust laws may muddy the waters and in the way that US law enforcers seem to think their laws apply everywhere but this case seems straight forward. The EU passed a law demanding that if Apple provided OS feature X within it's jurisdiction, then it had to be available to other OS users and not just internal Apple developers. Apple has looked at this and decided that the best (easiest, cheapest, best, most secure... take your pick) way of complying with this law so that it can still provide it's products within this jurisdiction, was to just not provide the feature within the EU. A perfectly good way of complying with the law if likely to piss off to those who use the feature within the EU.

    Companies are amoral beasts. I doubt there is anything more that self interest and money behind this decision.

    1. KittenHuffer Silver badge

      Re: I

      "Features and services provided by OS are there by the will of the provider." - So you're effectively saying that the Fruity Ones are the gatekeepers of their walled garden.

      The problem I see is that the EU law was introduced to specifically counter that position. So I see your excuse for their compliance as being a good argument for 'malicious compliance'.

      1. skwdenyer

        Re: I

        Some of us don’t believe the EU ruling is a positive. Browser choice, for instance, gives me in round terms nothing I want or need beyond potential interoperability issues. As a developer, being able to target a single browser engine for all iOS users is a tremendous benefit, not an issue, delivering great gains for users. The relative success of iOS and Android in the app space suggests to me that Apple’s strategy has delivered enormous gains for all parties. Degrading the Apple experience to match Android’s is hardly progress in my view!

        1. heyrick Silver badge

          Re: I

          Hard downvote. I tried Apple (an iPad). Gave it up at Safari was the biggest piece of crashy shit (and I'm old enough to remember MSIE), and thanks to Apple's control freakery, all of the other browsers were simply wrappers around the same rendering engine that would crash in the same way on the same input.

          I have Firefox, Chrome, and Opera on my Android phone. Actually crashing is kind of rare these days, but if something doesn't work on one browser it'll usually work on one of the others (which might be important when it's your bank or medical provider with the lousy site).

          1. Phlegm

            Re: I

            What sites were you going to that caused Safari to crash?

            Your post reeks like a Linux User Group meeting.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: I

              > What sites were you going to that caused Safari to crash?

              Ah, good; an honest enquiry, attempting to learn more about an experience that is beyond one's own - because, of course, there is a vast multitude of websites out there and, whilst we all believe ourselves to be far sojourners across the 'net, we are also humble enough to realise that there are always places we have yet to visit.

              > Your post reeks like a Linux User Group meeting

              Nope, sod that for a game of soldiers, this guy really does believe he knows every damn thing about every wretched website of scum and villainy (he probably even looks at the YouTube home page)!

              Clearly, he smells of elderberries.

          2. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

            Re: I

            I don't browse on my phone nearly as much as on my iPad - or watch much video on it either. But I've never once had to force close Firefox on my Google Pixel - or had it crash.

            My iPad requires force closing of Safari every couple of days, and a full system reboot about once every month. I use it a lot more, but it's also a lot worse.

            Also fucking :Safari won't always allow me to zoom in on certain websites. I assume this is some weird setting that it's allowing web developers to force the browser not to zoom, even though it's my fucking computer and my fucking software - not theirs! I'm severly visually impaired. Zooming on my browswer allows me to see it properly. I'm pretty annoyed that some tosser of a dev feels that their site has achieved such artistic perfection that I shouldn't be allowed to zoom in so that I can read it without my 5x magnification reading glasses (which are uncomfortable) - or in some cases becasue they've used elements so small that I need to zoom them despite massive magnification. But I'm even more pissed off that a browser should be programmed to do anything other than ignore that decision.

            I wonder if it's time to investigate Android tablets again? Last time I looked they weren't generally as good as iPad, and didn't have the apps either. And actually iPads are pretty competitve in terms of price, with the decent quality 'Droid tablets anyway.

            I don't care about the home screen apps. But I would like a Firefox browser on my iPad, as I have on my phone and PC. But I'm guessing that's not happening outside the EU for a bit. Apple would probably have done better to bite the bullet globally though. In the end, regulators tend to follow each other, and Windows were enentually forced to do browser choice screens in quite a few jurisdictions, even though you could actually install alternative browsers already.

            Complying with the law in this childish dog-in-the-manger way is likely to focus more regulatory attention on them, rather than less. And obvious pisstaking tends to get people annoyed at you.

            1. FIA Silver badge

              Re: I

              How old is it? How full is it?

              If it's a few years old and gets heavy use it could be the flash crapping out. My previous phone was several years old and when nearly full (as in a few gig remaining) would crash randomly. Since being passed on to a family member who runs it much emptier and it's fine.

              If it's nearly full try removing some stuff see if that helps, if it does, sounds like your storage is going.

              Also fucking :Safari won't always allow me to zoom in on certain websites.

              There's a full screen/windowed zoom thingy in the accessibility options, can be enabled/disabled with 3 taps and set to do a region or full screen.

              1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

                Re: I

                FIA,

                Thanks for the reply, and helpful suggestions. The iPad is a few years old now, so less reliable than it was. This is my third in 14 years (iPads 1, 3 and Air 2). But the storage is only half full. Also, Safari has always been prone to crashing. Zooming is at least partly responsible I think, because on more complex sites, if you zoom in one one particular area - when you zoom out again it seems to need to fetch the data again, for the bits that were temporarily offscreen. So rather than store the whole page in memory and let you enlarge certain bits, the browser seems to be doing some rather more complex stuff. Possibly because this is a use case that Apple haven't tested for much?

                The old way of zooming from the accessibility menu was inciredibly hard to use, and very hard to navigate the zoomed area to the bit of the page you wanted to look at. I tired it again on your suggestion and it's now a little square magnifying glass window that you can drag around. I'll experiement with it, to see if it's any better.

                To be fair to Apple, their browser hasn't been great for ages. But they have continuously worked on, and improved, their accessibility tools. And obviously I can't hate it that much, or I wouldn't be on my thrid iPad.

        2. doublelayer Silver badge

          Re: I

          You are welcome to that opinion. I do not share it. As things stand now, however, the law has already been passed and the question is whether their actions comply with it or not. You can try to convince the EU to repeal the law and I'm sure Apple will be happy to add their voice there. For now, though, we're discussing what their requirements are under that law, not what the law would ideally be.

    2. Justthefacts Silver badge

      Re: I

      Agree with everything apart from the last sentence “companies are amoral beasts”. How is this possibly a moral decision? It’s a practical decision, to comply with the law, and from everything that has been said, the correct engineering decision. In fact, it falls under “ensuring that groups who took a decision, suffer the consequences of their own decision”, which is a highly moral position. It’s the opposite of Moral Hazard. Unless you enforce that, the world becomes a worse place, and surprisingly fast. Cf Banks being rescued in 2008.

      It would only become a *immoral* decision if it meant that, for example, a whole bunch of EU hospitals could no longer provide healthcare because they relied on PWA apps. Do they?

      1. doublelayer Silver badge

        Re: I

        I disagree with two of your points. The first is that there's no moral angle to it, although that's not the way I'd deal with it. One aspect to this is that data associated with those applications is to be automatically deleted from users' devices. That's a pretty immoral act in my mind. It is not Apple's data to delete. It is not Apple's device to delete it from. Someone has already argued that it could be criminal to delete it, and whether it is or not, I don't think that's a moral stance at all.

        The second is with this bit:

        "In fact, it falls under “ensuring that groups who took a decision, suffer the consequences of their own decision”, which is a highly moral position. It’s the opposite of Moral Hazard. Unless you enforce that, the world becomes a worse place, and surprisingly fast. Cf Banks being rescued in 2008."

        It is not the inexorable result of the regulations. It is the result that Apple prefers. They are capable of allowing PWAs to use other engines, but they don't want to do the work. They are capable of asking for an exception to give them time to add that, but they don't want to. They are intentionally trying to break things because they don't like the law. Since intentionally breaking things is specifically named in the law as something you're not supposed to do, that's already legally risky. Even if it were not, it should be obvious that having multiple choices and intentionally picking the one likely to anger someone is not making them "suffer the consequences of their own decision". It is making them suffer the consequences of your decision.

        For example, let's say that someone who asked for a reference from me has annoyed me. I might choose in that case to decline to give them a reference, or I might choose to describe during the reference why they annoyed me. I might decide that, even though they annoyed me, I will give an honest reference. Or I might take the petty route and lie that they were guilty of misconduct so severe that I was going to call the police but they had successfully hidden the evidence even when none of that was true. All of those things are things I could say, but the choice to harm them by lies is not a consequence of them annoying me, but is my deliberate act to punish them. Apple is trying to punish EU users for EU regulations.

        1. Justthefacts Silver badge

          Re: I

          First, data-deletion: this doesn’t hold water, given the way that IOS apps/versioning has always worked. Sometimes apps get installed compatible with some IOS version but later IOS versions break it. Your app/game may well have saved data/progress. The app developer then has to release a version that works with the newer IOS version. If they don’t, the app dies. Your saved data/game progress dies with it. If you want to blame Apple for that, you can, but nobody else does. The onus has always been on the app developer.

          “It is not the inexorable result of the regulations. It is the result that Apple prefers.”

          So what? An analogy: let’s say I make sausages, and then the government makes a law on animal welfare that adds some costs and admin to the butchering. Assume that the regulation is desirable, and that the intent is to push the sausage-maker to higher welfare standards. But the sausage-maker then looks at their own business and the extra complexity of compliance, and decides “well in that case, I’m going to sell vegan sausages instead”. That’s not “malicious compliance”. The sausage maker has no *moral* duty to continue to sell meat sausages.

          This all comes down to your crystal ball of what Apple’s intentions are “ They are intentionally trying to break things because they don't like the law.” There’s zero evidence of that. Historically, they have a closed ecosystem. This brings them internal benefits of software development allowing them arrange their software architecture for efficiency, and in ways that don’t suit the way *you* want to characterise the internal modules/interfaces. Apparently, they use some internal functions of WebKit to do rendering for PWA’s, which is a perfectly reasonable project management and architecture decision. It’s not the way Android did it, not how you would do it, or what you think “the industry standard” is. But how they organise the internal IOS APIs is None Of Your Business. Suddenly, in comes some legislation trying to slice the architecture the same as Android, which breaks their entire architecture and test infrastructure. They can either re-architect half of IOS, or decide not to support this minor feature. The answer is obvious.

          1. doublelayer Silver badge

            Re: I

            App developers cannot release a new version of their PWA which works because Apple has blocked all of them. They cannot make a native app that inherits the data. If the complaint from the article is correct, the data will actually be deleted, not hidden, from the devices because the apps that read it no longer exist, and even if it is incorrect, the data will be unavailable until Apple restores PWAs to their OS, which they have no announced intention to do unless their actions are actually ruled illegal. That is not what you are describing with an app that doesn't start due to changes in an update.

            Using your sausage analogy, it is not simply that the sausage maker chose to go vegan only. It is that they have also entered the houses of everyone who bought their sausages and removed them, even though they had no need to do so. They aren't doing that because the sausages are too expensive to make. They are doing that to try to punish the regulators for having made the change that they don't like. This is not supposition no matter how you intend to characterize it. It is clear that Apple doesn't like the law given how much they have fought against it specifically and every other similar law or legal dispute. It is also clear that they were not required to make this specific action. Your incorrect characterization of the law suggests you are unwilling to accept these statements. The complaint is not about system design (slice the architecture the same as Android). It is about their arbitrary restrictions on what they allow users to run. They could have allowed other browser engines, and those engines are capable of running PWAs inside themselves. Those engines probably would need to have code added to interact with some of the hardware, but that's the job of the people writing those engines, not Apple. Existing PWAs could run in WebKit because that is what they're already set to run in, and the other engines could be used when a user chooses to do so. This does not require significant changes from Apple.

            1. Justthefacts Silver badge

              Re: I

              I believe you are confusing two separate things here: Apple’s relationship with developers who release stuff for its platform, and Apple’s relationship with consumers who bought its devices.

              “App developers cannot release a new version of their PWA which works because Apple has blocked all of them.” Sucks to be an EU-based developer then. But Apple have no contract with them. IPad purchasers, the people who do have a contract, are not affected by that aspect. Sorry, you just have to put that argument aside, it doesn’t affect anything.

              “It is not simply that the sausage maker chose to go vegan only. It is that they have also entered the houses of everyone who bought their sausages and removed them, even though they had no need to do so.” Maybe….let’s deconstruct that: does Apple have the right to force-deprecate Apps? Well, they can’t (and don’t) force upgrade people’s IOS version. They can (and do) routinely upgrade IOS version at the users request, which has the effect of deprecating some of the Apps on their devices, those ones that don’t support the newer version. As long as Apple have informed you that upgrading the IOS will break a particular functionality, and you do it anyway, that’s your choice. So no, that argument doesn’t fly.

              “They are doing that to try to punish the regulators for having made the change that they don't like. This is not supposition no matter how you intend to characterize it.” Yes it is supposition, and I don’t particularly believe it. And even if true, it doesn’t matter, because as long as the act is lawful, intent doesn’t matter.

              “They could have allowed other browser engines, and those engines are capable of running PWAs inside themselves. Those engines probably would need to have code added to interact with some of the hardware, but that's the job of the people writing those engines, not Apple.” I 100% agree. 3rd party browser authors have spent years arguing that they shouldn’t be forced to use WebKit…and now they’ve been handed the keys to the kingdom we discover that they haven’t bothered to code any of the hard edge-cases, which they expected just to use WebKit anyway. Now that Apple is saying “well you’ve opted out of WebKit, so you can’t use it” they’ve been found out. Do we know that if/when any of the other browser manufacturers implement WebKit-like functionality, PWAs won’t work? I don’t know that at all. PWA’s now open in-browser. If Firefox make push notifications work in their browser, then….push notifications will work in their browser. Is that technically possible? I have no idea, and there’s no reason Apple should care, that’s Firefox responsibility.

              “Existing PWAs could run in WebKit because that is what they're already set to run in” No they shouldn’t, Apple does *not* have that legal freedom. The EU made it a legal requirement that the user be allowed to opt out of using WebKit. This is what that looks like in practice. You absolutely cannot require a company to manage the situation where people “sign a legally binding opt out from WebKit”, the users selection doesn’t work, and Apple have to fall back to the working solution, with the risk of getting sued because they did something that the user has opted out of. This is the carbon copy of the GDPR problem. “Do you accept cookies that this website needs to do its job”….user clicks “no I don’t accept”….website says “well, I need them to do my job, so I’m going to ignore your non-acceptance and set them anyway”? Results in getting sued. Sorry, no. If you don’t accept cookies, the website may not have its full functionality, or indeed any functionality.

              1. doublelayer Silver badge

                Re: I

                This will take a bit of clarification. Let's start with the PWA and update issue. You are correct that there is no contract between Apple and PWA developers. This has no relevance to my point. The reason I pointed out that PWA developers cannot update their applications is because you claimed that Apple isn't deleting data related to PWAs because it's like any other time when an update is incompatible. It is not. If I write a native application that runs on IOS 17 and someone updates to IOS 18 and Apple has made a change meaning they will refuse to run my application, I can fix it by updating my application. The user's files are restored. If I wrote a PWA, I do not have any way to update it to get the user's data back. The article alleges that, even if I could, the files won't exist. Even if they do, I can't write a native app that would access them. Their restriction on those developers, even though there is no contract between them, means that they have effectively deleted the user's data which they used my app to access. The harm is to the developers, but Apple doesn't have to care, but there is also harm to users which they should care about and may be legally required to. Other commenters have suggested this might be a violation of both computer misuse legislation and clauses of the DMA.

                Me: “Existing PWAs could run in WebKit because that is what they're already set to run in”

                You: "No they shouldn’t, Apple does *not* have that legal freedom. The EU made it a legal requirement that the user be allowed to opt out of using WebKit. This is what that looks like in practice."

                No, that is not what it looks like. Opting out does not mean that I will never use WebKit. It's already installed on my phone. I can use it or, and the or is crucial here, something else. That means that I could choose to use a non-WebKit browser as a browser but still use Safari when I want. It means that I could set one PWA to try to open in Firefox, and assuming that it doesn't work properly right now, set it back to Safari until Firefox fixes their bugs. Nowhere in the law does it say that Apple must remove WebKit from availability, and they haven't done so since there will still be a Safari and WebKit in system UI components in all devices. They have complete legal freedom to continue to offer PWA support through WebKit and allow other browser engines to do the same. They have removed that option without a legal or technical need to do so, which is where their other motives become more obvious.

                And by the way, intent does tend to matter a lot in whether they're allowed to do that. The law has many parts that explicitly prohibit intentional degradation of features when a user uses something Apple doesn't like. They don't specifically list possible degradations. This is not necessarily going to go Apple's way.

  8. TheFifth

    Thanks Apple...

    Definitely seems like malicious compliance to me.

    Could they not use Safari for PWAs and allow other browsers for normal surfing? Granted, this may not be seen by all as full compliance, but at least PWAs would still be working. I'm sure the courts would OK this if Apple committed to allowing PWA support in third party browsers at a later date.

    When MS were forced to introduce browser selection screens into Windows, there was no mention of forcing the replacement of all the in-app, embedded browsers that used IE. Not the same thing I know, but at least there is some precedent for forcing third party browser support whilst keeping the first party browser for some system / app functions. Surely, in the short term, an agreement could be reached where third party browsers are allowed, but Safari deals with PWAs?

    I know this won't happen though, as Apple doesn't want it to. They are making a point and the consumer is the one suffering.

    I guess here in the UK we don't have to worry. Could this be that elusive Brexit benefit?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Technically, yes

      One could travel between Ireland and Northern Ireland then legitimately complain Apple is knowingly, repeatedly wiping their data whenever they're re-entering the EU. As there's frictionless borders between the former and the latter for normal, everyday people, being in a strong position to force Apple to fix this issue would actually be a unique benefit of Brexit.

      1. heyrick Silver badge
        Thumb Up

        Re: Technically, yes

        That's really twisted logic. I like it.

    2. gnasher729 Silver badge

      Re: Thanks Apple...

      “ Could they not use Safari for PWAs and allow other browsers for normal surfing? Granted, this may not be seen by all as full compliance, but at least PWAs would still be working. I'm sure the courts would OK this if Apple committed to allowing PWA support in third party browsers at a later date.”

      You said it yourself. The EU would not see it as full complying with the court ruling. Because it isn’t. Now what you say - it would be better for users if Apple didn’t comply with court ruling and made this things work with Safari only - that is likely true. But much too dangerous for apple.

    3. Justthefacts Silver badge

      Re: Thanks Apple...

      “Could they not use Safari for PWAs and allow other browsers for normal surfing”

      That’s easy. No, the *EU law* does not allow it, and people could sue Apple if it did. The browser makers asked for, and got, the EU to legislate that consumers be given the choice to opt out of WebKit. If the consumer has chosen to use a browser that doesn’t contain WebKit, the law says that their choice must be respected. It can’t just automatically fall back to Safari on those use-cases where “Firefox doesn’t support it”, whatever the technical reason for that.

  9. Phones Sheridan Silver badge

    "The changes Apple is planning, he said, mean that in the EU, Apple will delete user data associated with PWAs without notice,"

    This would fall foul of the Computer Misuse Act in the UK. However private individuals would need to take Apple to court, if they care. It's unlikely that the Government would.

    Not sure what the legal status is in the EU, but I can see the EU taking retaliatory actions, they don't like to be given the finger, and by breaking working existing functionality within the EU Apple are sticking up a pretty big finger.

    Similar happened years ago when Apple lost a court case in the UK, and they went on the offensive on their website sticking up a finger to the court and attacking it. The court started fining them daily for contempt until they retracted the offending pages on the website, and replaced it with a court approved webpage admitting wrong-doing all along.

  10. Tubz Silver badge

    So basically Apple give 2 fingers to EU for messing with their monopoly. I hope the EU take note and start looking at breaking them up !

  11. Oh Matron!

    Enterprise is ****ed

    Many enterprises use webclips for a whole host of reasons, significantly so. So, whilst it may affect only a small humber of users, this will disproportionately affect enterprise

  12. captain veg Silver badge

    deeply ironic

    When first introduced there was no SDK for iPhone and, in consequence, no third-party native apps or app store. IIRC Jobs stated at the time that web apps were the way to go.

    -A.

  13. Groo The Wanderer Silver badge

    "One way or the other, we ARE going to make you buy EVERYTHING through the Apple Store. Even if there ARE free web-access apps that don't require purchase."

  14. TheMaskedMan Silver badge

    I've never been an apple fan, so it doesn't affect me either way. But it's apple's OS, they make it do what they want, and if people don't like it they're welcome to not use it, so good for Apple.

    On the order hand, withdrawing a relied-upon feature without notice and dropping developers (to say nothing of end users) in the shit is not nice. It's in the same kind of category as the Unity debacle a few months ago, and look how that ended. By all means, drop the feature if you want, but some notice is required out of respect for your developers and users.

    I'd say it's pretty indicative of how Apple views is developers and users, which, in turn, should show them whether they want to use Apple kit or not.

  15. mark l 2 Silver badge

    I am guessing iOS must phone home to the Apple mothership informing them on how many PWAs iPhone user install then? Considering they seem to know how many people make use of that feature?

    Not that i don't expect Android does the same back to Google and a lot more besides. Although at least you can go down the E/OS or Lineage route to get rid of Google from Android where as there is no Apple free iOS device.

  16. aerogems Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    More toddler level logic

    Knocking all the pieces off the board because you lost the game is the kind of behavior I expect from a spoiled brat of a toddler, not a trillion dollar market cap company.

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: More toddler level logic

      Really? Because it's exactly what I would expect from rich socio-psychopaths.

  17. StrangerHereMyself Silver badge

    Reasonable

    I think Apple's stance on this is reasonable. You can't expect them to allow everyone's browser engines access to the native system services and hardware and still guaranteeing security and safety at the same time.

    I also believe some competitors, like Epic, are making noises just out of spite, not because they've any vested interest in this.

    1. OhForF' Silver badge

      Security and safety guarantee?

      If sensitive data is leaked by an app i installed from their store will Apple pay for any resulting damages and a premium for not fulfilling their promises of security or will they simply point to the application developer as the culprit?

      If i pay for something in the app store and it turns out to be a scam will Apple reimburse me for the full amount or tell me to take it up with the scammer?

      "Trust us, we're keeping you secure and safe by monitoring all the apps in the store" is not a meaningful security guarantee.

      1. StrangerHereMyself Silver badge

        Re: Security and safety guarantee?

        Apple has a reputation for a secure platform to live up to. They cannot live up to that reputation if other vendors make sloppy mistakes in their handling of browser security.

        Also, customers have a certain expectation of security when they encounter a, what they believe, is a native home-screen app but which is really a web app. When other sloppy vendors break that trust it damages Apple's brand.

  18. Pete Sdev Bronze badge
    Devil

    Bullshit and pettiness

    If complying with the DMA really meant disabling PWAs then Android would have been equally effected.

    This is Apple, notoriously control-freaky, being pissed at being forced to allow alternative rendering engines.

    Malicious compliance, as others have said.

  19. ecofeco Silver badge

    Changed without notice...

    Well if that doesn't describe the entire state of IT these days, I don't know what does.

    Who doesn't love waking up each day wondering what tech company left some unpleasant surprise that stinks to high heaven. Without notice and without documentation.

    That's the biggest reason I come to El Reg. It's my only chance to keep from getting flattened by tech companies constant screw ups and whimsical and nonsensical changes.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    UK effected? I have 30,000 users

    Hi All

    We have 30,000 users relying on a pwa.

    Does this effect the UK? This is worrying

    Thanks

  21. Annihilator

    Was anyone really using this feature though?

    Frankly I'm fed up of the appification of what is essentially websites. Sites like Reddit and others constantly badger me to use the app instead of the browser (and even bar you from accessing it via the web if there's a hint of adult content about it - I never know if there is, I just don't read that page).

    Imagine theregister launched an app and nagged you to use that instead of visiting the website.

  22. Scott Marshall
    Trollface

    And in breaking news ...

    ... Android phones and tablets become the officially recommended "smart" devices in the EU.

  23. Zippy´s Sausage Factory
    Meh

    I suspect that if Apple didn't change PWAs and simply said to the EU "we need more time to build an API to allow alternative browsers to do it because this isn't easy" there might well be sympathetic ears at the other end. After all, breaking PWAs benefits only Apple's own app store.

    And yeah, it affects me. Maybe I'll finally break my Wordle addiction.

    1. gnasher729 Silver badge

      If Apple said “We did the maths. Making PWAs working securely with all browsers will cost us X dollars and doesn’t benefit Apple in any way. Stopping PWAs from working completely will annoy some customers, who may stop buying iPhones in the future, costing as Y dollar. Making PWAs work with Safari only is no effort but will get us a Z dollar fine.

      We pick the choice with the smallest number. No PWAs for anyone.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like