Apple is backing away from some of its restrictive response to EU regulations that have forced it to make changes to the iPhone and iOS. When the EU said Apple must allow third-party web browsers on the iPhone, the company responded by cutting off web apps for the EU. After developers and some users complained, the company changed its policy and will again allow EU users to save a website as an app on their home screen.
Web apps date back to the original days of the iPhone, when there was no App Store. Instead, you could pin a web page to your home screen and it worked like an app. The feature evolved to allow web applications to save data and send push notifications to the user. macrorumors It has a good tutorial on how web applications work and why they are beneficial. A web app is much smaller than an app you download from the App Store, for example.
Notably, Xbox cloud gaming It is based on a web application to run on the iPhone. You can play all your Xbox games on your phone, using an Xbox controller, thanks to the Xbox website which acts as a web app. By adding this feature back to iOS 17.4, Apple has saved Xbox players who stream their game library through their iPhone. The software update will be available in early March, so expect it any day now.
Web applications are a security problem, according to Apple
He Problem with web applications, described by Apple., is that iOS is only designed to be secure when a Webkit browser creates the web application. Webkit is Apple's own browser engine, different from Chromium browsers like Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge, and other browsing engines. If any third-party Chromium browser creates a web app on iOS, it could gain access to the camera or install additional software without the user's knowledge. To fix that issue, Apple announced it would remove the ability to use web apps for EU users.
Fortunately, Apple says in a recent update that it has changed course and will allow third-party browsers to create web applications. When those apps are created and saved to the Home screen, it appears that they will run in Apple's Webkit browser engine instead of using the third-party browser. It's unclear how this might affect performance, but it seems like a reasonable compromise for now.
“We have received requests to continue offering support for home screen web apps on iOS, therefore we will continue to offer the existing home screen web app capability in the EU. “This support means that home screen web apps continue to rely directly on WebKit and its security architecture, and align with the security and privacy model for native apps on iOS,” it says. Apple on its developer page.
Apple has said in the past that web apps are not very popular, citing “very low adoption of home screen web apps” as a reason why the feature was not worth the extra effort to develop a suitable and secure solution for this problem.
