> On iOS iirc they don't even support adding PWAs to the homescreen?
They literally supported this since iPhone OS 1.0 (it wasn’t even called iOS yet). In fact, it was supposed to be the only way to add apps to the iPhone until people complained and started jailbreaking to install their own apps. Apple didn’t release the App Store and the iOS SDK until iPhone OS 2.0
I don’t think parent means the same or maybe he does. On chrome and edge on macOS one can choose to install the PWA as a native app. It gets an app icon and everything. It’s similar to a web bookmark on the HomeScreen. But it’s a sandboxed app. Don’t know if this is the exact same behavior though. PWAs are also a bit different to normal websites. They have a manifest and what not to describe the app in a standardized way.
PWAs on iOS get their own local storage, for example. And deleting the PWA from your Home Screen will delete its data, just like deleting an app would delete the data of the app.
I got a basic offline-capable TODO list (the hello world of web apps) working as a PWA for my iPhone. Almost all of it handed to me by ChatGPT.
If I exit the PWA, turn off WiFi and open the PWA again, the PWA still works.
The only annoying thing is that the way you add a PWA to your Home Screen on iOS is too convoluted to realistically get most people to do it, if you were to make a PWA that you actually wanted people to “install”. Although the JS solution that someone else posted ITT with a small pop-over that explains the steps is pretty near to ok. Certainly helps the situation a bit at least.
They literally supported this since iPhone OS 1.0 (it wasn’t even called iOS yet). In fact, it was supposed to be the only way to add apps to the iPhone until people complained and started jailbreaking to install their own apps. Apple didn’t release the App Store and the iOS SDK until iPhone OS 2.0