alt Hacker NewsLittle ironic. For me, Safari on macOS has the best PWA experience.
It gets small things right, like:
- Links open in the default browser
- Smarter about when to open new windows vs overtaking current window
- New windows have access to the same cookies
Those last two were big things when I was using Proton apps as PWAs. For example, I would go to the Proton Docs PWA and it would launch a new Proton Docs window with cookies for the document.
It's a very different experience on iOS. Apple very intentionally made installing PWAs ("Add to Home Screen") horrible UX and locked some features behind it (Push API). You are almost forced into publishing on the App Store if you need push notifications for any reason. macOS Safari does not have the same restriction.
A lot of people agree with Apple on this one because most push notifications are spam. I would agree but your installed PWA still needs to request permission to send push notifications to the user, so requiring users to add websites to their home screen is not a permission gate.