Why Safari does not need any protection from Chromium – Niels Leenheer

Desktop progressive web applications | Trys Mudford

Following on from my post about websites in the dock, Trys upgraded to Sonoma and added a handy copy’n’paste resource to his dock. It works a treat.

Sit with that for a second, you can write a desktop application with no tooling, launch it from your phone to the internet for free, and seconds later install it on any computer. I didn’t have to ask permission, or jump through any App Store hoops. I wrote a thing, pushed it to the internet, and then I could use the thing. Even better, I could send the link to Chris and he could use the thing. That’s the power of the internet.

Google AMP: how Google tried to fix the web by taking it over - The Verge

AMP succeeded spectacularly. Then it failed. And to anyone looking for a reason not to trust the biggest company on the internet, AMP’s story contains all the evidence you’ll ever need.

This is a really good oral history of how AMP soured Google’s reputation.

Full disclosure: I’m briefly cited:

“When it suited them, it was open-source,” says Jeremy Keith, a web developer and a former member of AMP’s advisory council. “But whenever there were any questions about direction and control… it was Google’s.”

As an aside, this article contains a perfect description of the company cultures of Facebook, Apple, and Google:

“You meet with a Facebook person and you see in their eyes they’re psychotic,” says one media executive who’s dealt with all the major platforms. “The Apple person kind of listens but then does what it wants to do. The Google person honestly thinks what they’re doing is the best thing.”

Spot. On.

People do use Add to Home Screen – Firefox UX

Oh no! My claim has been refuted by a rigourous scientific study of …checks notes… ten people.

Be right back: just need to chat with eleven people.

A pretty sweet push notification solution for mobile Safari

An entire generation of apps-that-should-have-been web pages has sprung up, often shoehorned into supposedly cross-platform frameworks that create a subpar user experience sludge. Nowhere is this more true than for media — how many apps from newspapers or magazines have you installed, solely for a very specific purpose like receiving breaking news alerts? How many of those apps are just wrappers around web views? How many of those apps should have been web pages?

Web Push on iOS requires installing the web app - Webventures

Instead of doing what the competing browsers are doing (and learning from years of experience of handling Web Push), Apple decided to reinvent a wheel here. What they’ve turned up with looks a lot more like a square.