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Apple Announces App Store Small Business Program

(www.apple.com)
830 points todsacerdoti | 4 comments | 18 Nov 20 11:04 UTC | HN request time: 1.185s | source
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gtsteve ◴[18 Nov 20 11:19 UTC] No.25135526[source]▶
Looks nice but it doesn't solve my fundamental problem:

1. I invest loads of time and effort developing an app

2. Apple rejects it

-or-

2. Apple approves it

3. I ship a new update

4. Apple rejects the update and now decides my app should have been rejected retroactively.

I'm especially concerned about what happened to Hey and others but my customers are demanding smartphone apps and there are still limits to what can be done with a mobile web browser.

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1. estreeper ◴[18 Nov 20 12:23 UTC] No.25135975[source]▶
> there are still limits to what can be done with a mobile web browser

This is true, but perhaps not as many as some may think! Progressive Web Applications can now do quite a lot on mobile and tablets, with a notable exception of push notifications on iOS.

They are an increasingly interesting option for those whose use case allows it.

https://simplabs.com/blog/2020/06/10/the-state-of-pwa-suppor...

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2. coder543 ◴[18 Nov 20 13:45 UTC] No.25136608[source]▶
That "notable exception" is fatal to PWAs for most businesses who might otherwise develop one. Apple needs to implement that.

As an iPhone owner, the inability for PWAs to have notifications is probably my single biggest gripe at the moment.

I wrote more about this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24643185

and here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24731713

3. gtsteve ◴[18 Nov 20 16:02 UTC] No.25138318[source]▶
My key issue is working offline, if I could make that work in a convincing way with good usability that'd be ideal. You can still only store 5mb in local storage, so you can't sync a load of data to the device and allow the user to use it in the field. Also, there is now a 7-day age limit for data in local storage - I understand why this was done (for user privacy) but it just makes things more hostile for developers attempting to use it in a legitimate way.
4. ChickeNES ◴[18 Nov 20 23:44 UTC] No.25144250[source]▶
I for one would flat out refuse to use any service that requires PWAs