Apple has explained why it is disabling progressive web apps (PWAs) in the EU. updated developer notes seen by TechCrunch. The news comes after users noticed that web apps no longer work in Europe with the recent iOS 17.4 beta releases. Apple said it blocked the feature in the region due to new rules in Europe’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) regarding browsers.
Web apps behave more like native apps, with dedicated windows, notifications, long-term local storage, and more. allows European users will see a message asking if they want to open or close the web app icons in Safari by tapping them. This means they act more like web shortcuts, causing problems like data loss and broken notifications. MacRumors.
According to Apple, the problem is a new DMA requirement that allows browsers that don’t use the WebKit architecture. “Addressing the complex security and privacy challenges associated with web applications using alternative browser engines will require the creation of an entirely new integration architecture that currently does not exist in iOS and is impractical to implement given the other requirements of DMA and very low user adoption. Home screen web programs”, the company wrote.
However, Open Web Advocacy disagrees, as it writes in its post last blog:
Some argue that Apple’s decision to remove Web Apps is a necessary response to DMA, but this is wrong.
Apple has 15 years to facilitate true worldwide browser competition, and nearly two years after the final text of the DMA. It could use this time to share with other browsers the functionality it has historically favored over Safari. Inaction and silence speak volumes.
The complete absence of Web Apps from Apple’s DMA compatibility offering, combined with the omission of this major change in the Safari beta release notes, shows us a deliberate strategy of confusion. Even if Apple is just beginning to embrace its obligations under the DMA, this behavior is unacceptable. A concrete proposal with clear timelines for how third-party browsers can install and power Web Apps using their own engines could avoid formal procedures, but that seems increasingly unlikely. Nothing in the DMA forces Apple to break developers’ Web Apps, and it’s no excuse for doing so incompetently.
The change, previously spotted by researcher Tommy Mysk, arrived with the second iOS 17.4 beta, but many observers initially thought it was a bug. “EU wanted alternative app stores and Apple removed web apps. Looks like EU will rue the day they ask Apple to comply with #DMA rules,” he said. Posted in X.
According to Apple’s App Store Guidelines, web apps must be an alternative to the App Store model. Given that the EU’s DMA is designed to break the App Store monopoly, the move to eliminate them entirely could cause friction. The EU, Japan, Australia and the UK have previously criticized WebKit’s requirement to handle PWAs. Open Web Advocacy (OWA).
Apple said it regretted any impact to the change, but said it was required “as part of the work to comply with DMA.” The company has already been accused by developers of harmful DMA compliance fees for developers Bypassing the App Store with Spotify CEO Daniel Ek describes it like “extortion”.
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