Apple has given up and announced that in the European Union version of iOS 17.4 'web apps' will be able to be installed on the homescreen and work offline. As the developer of the web apps FindMeSAR and GeoJPG, this is great news. #WebApp#PWA#ProgressiveWebApp#webDev
#AAPL's recent changes to #PWA (#ProgressiveWebApp) functionality in #iOS, specifically in the #EU, has sparked outrage among #webdev. The company's late acknowledgment of intentionally limiting PWA capabilities, presented as compliance with the EU's #DigitalMarketsAct, has been criticized as deceitful. This move, seen as an attempt to protect its #appStore#monopoly, undermines open #webStandards and harms #developers and users.
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Time for a 🛌
GeoJPG v2 launch on target for March 19 - maybe sooner.
Make your own custom maps, host them for free on Google Drive, view them offline and see your geolocation.
No ads. No tracking. No signup. No cost.
I am developing this as a public service and part of my way to "pay it forward". Plus I am having a blast doing this since - to the best of my knowledge - this is a new approach to offline maps.
FindMeSAR has been updated to v3. This webpage displays your coordinates in several formats and can be installed so it works offline.
Calling 911? Use the yellow screen to give decimal degrees and the accuracy.
I volunteered to develop this #PWA as a public service after seeing news stories of people that called 911 and there was confusion over their location. Some people died as a result of that confusion.
Not in any app store! To install it so it will work offline delete the FindMeSAR icon if it is already anywhere on your screen, then browse to https://findmesar.com and carefully follow instructions you will see.
@schizanon Agreed. One extra point: Those apps managed by super-apps (like WeChat in China), most of which malware, should be treated differently as well. OS vendors do actively try to hide the difference "for better UX", though.
@cursv the Microsoft Edge team has pushed back on this idea to me in the past. They claim it's best for PWAs if they are treated the same. I think it's horseshit.
#1 When I accidentally install the same site using two different browsers but the icons look the same so I can't tell which one I should uninstall. Made worse by the fact that some browsers won't register PWAs as apps in the native OS app management utilities (glares @brave). Compounds when the app registers for notifications, protocol handling, or opening urls.
The #IPFS companion app is a desktop app that runs in the system tray and manages a locally running IPFS node. It provides a UI which seems to be web-based. It launches it's own browser (likely Electron) but you can also load it in any browser, where it presents as a #progressiveWebApp. This means you are installing a locally served #PWA! 🤯
@schizanon I just discovered the extension firefoxpwa (https://github.com/filips123/PWAsForFirefox), tried it and quite like it. It's even better than usual #pwa support in browsers in that sense that it creates a custom profile for every app so that they can't share cookies and stuff.... #firefox
@schizanon Ahh, gotcha. Phanpy actually does work as a PWA in Firefox on Android, and wish Elk would catch up (I prefer Elk to Phanpy). I've tried using Elk in a chromium-based PWA, but the tradeoff is all links open in chrome, which doesn't support adblock on Android. That experience (opening a link and getting blasted with ads) is so awful (for me) that I'm happier just pinning Elk in a tab on my phone, but different strokes for different folks.
It's unfortunate how installing a #PWA removes the reload and back buttons, especially on #mobile where you can't right click for a context menu, or use a keyboard shortcut.
Maybe the OS level back button, and pull-to-refresh suffice most of the time but I still find myself needing the browser toolbar pretty often.