Web Apps in iOS 26

"And the power to define the experience is in the hands of users."

As long as that experience doesn’t involve choosing an icon. Or a theme color. Or a scope. Or splash screens. Or context menu actions.

They’re celebrating what is basically the equivalent of a shortcut I hacked together in an afternoon two years ago:

https://routinehub.co/shortcut/16316/

Are we finally coming full circle due to regulation?

I still think this is mostly just a distraction from the app distribution argument.

Steve said apps aren't necessary because web apps can be made capable of doing all the same things. Then they apparently realized the benefit of control the App Store gives them, and so crippled web apps.

But now that apps are fully entrenched and it's clear that web apps will never be true compettiors, the most important thing is cutting off that alternate app distribution argument.

This is an improvement but there’s no way to enable extensions in a site that’s added to the home screen, like you can do for sites added to the Dock on macOS.

It is definitely an improvement, because it wasn't always clear what was a webapp and what wasn't. However there are still behaviours reserved for webapps that might not otherwise be clear, e.g. (also apropos the Iceblock thread) webpush-based push notifications aren't supported unless you request them from within a web app view, so e.g. Discourse will just silently fail to enable notifications if you're browsing in a Safari tab, but it works just fine when the same site is launched from the home screen and run in its own container. No doubt, given the abuse of notifications, some might see that as a "feature", but it's another way in which Apple nudges users and developers towards native apps without meaningfully improving security or privacy.

@Sebby, I'll try to keep this non-political....

I'm thinking I get you. In 2007, Steve Jobs declared that HTML5 was "the way" to load apps onto the iPhone. (Please note, load, not sideloading, and at that time, jailbreaking was very prevalent. Like in the ICEBlock thread, my intent is simple... where can I learn - not sure how much I can - about these "web apps"? What do you mean when you say "behaviors"? Can web apps do push notifications? Only on Safari? Is there a difference between iOS Safari and macOS Safari? (That one I think there is.) How about Safari and, say, Chrome or Firefox?

I'm not trying to argue, just learn. As you already said, what isn't clear to me is what is a web app and what isn't.

@Dave No worries, I'm not a web developer either but I do take an interest. For sending web push notifications (which as of the *26 OSs can now be workerless, i.e. no extra JS required), see this from Apple Developer. It's just following the spec, which is used by the other browsers.

Web Apps (or PWAs as they're called by people that make them because why not) can:
* Receive Push notification
* Work offline
* Be updated by the developer when needed
* Fill the entire screen (so no browser chrome)
* Have an Icon (although on android there's a small browser icon overlayed)
* Have a nice splash screen
* Acees the GPS (after permission)
* Access the gallery (after permission)

AFAIK they can't
* Access the phonebbok
* Access bluetooth
* Access NFC

I spent the summer doing Nikes ISRU summer camp thing and I exclusively used the PWA. Worked great. Had the same issues as everyone else.

If you're curious ChatGPT is perfectly cabable of heloing you with a quick mockup. The extra bits you need to ask about are:
Service Workers (the tech that enables push and offline mode)
App Manifest a JSON file that describes the appy look of your PWA

And there are differences between how iOS handle them and how android handle them.