Chance Miller with some big news over at 9to5Mac:
Last month, Apple confirmed that iOS 17.4 would remove support for Home Screen web apps in the European Union. At the time, Apple said this decision was due to requirements under the Digital Markets Act related to support for alternative browser engines on iPhone.
Apple is now walking back that decision and says it will “continue to offer the existing Home Screen web apps capability in the EU.”
Here is Apple’s full statement to Miller:
Previously, Apple announced plans to remove the Home Screen web apps capability in the EU as part of our efforts to comply with the DMA. The need to remove the capability was informed by the complex security and privacy concerns associated with web apps to support alternative browser engines that would require building a new integration architecture that does not currently exist in iOS.
We have received requests to continue to offer support for Home Screen web apps in iOS, therefore we will continue to offer the existing Home Screen web apps capability in the EU. This support means Home Screen web apps continue to be built directly on WebKit and its security architecture, and align with the security and privacy model for native apps on iOS.
Developers and users who may have been impacted by the removal of Home Screen web apps in the beta release of iOS in the EU can expect the return of the existing functionality for Home Screen web apps with the availability of iOS 17.4 in early March.
When Apple said it was pulling support for PWAs in this release, it said it was because of the new rule that allows third-party browsing engines to run on iOS. Apple claimed that giving those third-party codebases all of the access that “Home Screen web apps” need to work would make the iPhone less secure.
Now, they are here to stay, but it’s important to note that these PWAs will still run atop WebKit, the engine that powers Safari. If you install Firefox or Chrome, and those browsers are using their own rendering engines, those engined will not power any PWAs a user has installed.
This is a move in the right direction. Even though PWAs aren’t widely used among iOS users, cutting them off in the EU with iOS 17.4 was a bad move. I’m curious if this last-minute change is at the behest of the EU, or if Apple is just trying to get ahead of things here. I’m also curious to see if PWAs being tied to WebKit will stand the test of time.