6

It is said that IOS 11.4 will support the PWA, but it doesn't.

Question: Today IOS 12 released, does Apple support PWA in the 12th version of IOS? (Like add to home screen)

Mostafa Ghadimi
  • 5,883
  • 8
  • 64
  • 102
  • in what way does it not work yet? https://stackoverflow.com/questions/41185471/what-is-progressive-web-app-solution-for-ios and https://medium.com/@firt/progressive-web-apps-on-ios-are-here-d00430dee3a7 sound like it was already working – luk2302 Sep 12 '18 at 20:31
  • @luk2302 I have test it on my own phone, it doesn't have any add to homescreen button – Mostafa Ghadimi Sep 13 '18 at 08:32
  • of course there is a button like thst, i have a couple of those "apps" on my phone. – luk2302 Sep 13 '18 at 08:51
  • @luk2302 Android will prompt the user to add your app to their home screen if all PWA criteria are met. iOS will not prompt the user, instead forcing them to seek out the option to add it to their home screen themselves. – JacobTheDev Oct 05 '18 at 03:54
  • @JacobTheDev would you please give me some examples? – Mostafa Ghadimi Oct 06 '18 at 12:15

3 Answers3

20

PWAs are a complex collection of features and functionalities. Apple added an initial support for some PWA characteristics in iOS 11.3 in march 2018. You can read a really good explanation here, with their significant limitations:

Progressive Web Apps on iOS are here https://medium.com/@firt/progressive-web-apps-on-ios-are-here-d00430dee3a7

Unfortunately iOS 12.0 doesn't seem to have improved the support in any significant way.

SEP2019 UPDATE: iOS 13.0 is here, and with it many bug fixes regarding PWAs, new installation UI and other stuff. But still no push notifications: https://medium.com/@firt/iphone-11-ipados-and-ios-13-for-pwas-and-web-development-5d5d9071cc49

MAR2019 UPDATE: This is the definitive state of PWA support in iOS 12.2 stable. It's improving but it's still a long journey: https://medium.com/@firt/whats-new-on-ios-12-2-for-progressive-web-apps-75c348f8e945

JAN2019 UPDATE: It seems like Apple is moving forward! Beta1 of iOS 12.2 has improved the PWA support. Still no push notifications though: https://medium.com/@firt/pwas-on-ios-12-2-beta-the-good-the-bad-and-the-not-sure-yet-if-good-a37b6fa6afbf https://medium.com/dev-channel/progressive-web-app-progress-in-ios-12-2-beta-1-build-16e5181f-a18cd05ca361

Alberto T.
  • 487
  • 3
  • 8
  • is [this](https://caniuse.com/#search=pwa) really the current support for PWAs??? – oldboy Mar 23 '19 at 04:35
  • There is still no camera/qr code scanner support in iOS PWA, not even in any other browser than safari. – chris08002 Mar 25 '19 at 22:19
  • No @Anthony like the site shows that is the support for the Web App Manifest, just a part of the PWA spectrum. PWAs are a rich and complex array of technologies, some widely supported, others not. This is a better representation of current support for PWAs: https://www.goodbarber.com/blog/progressive-web-apps-feature-compatibility-based-on-the-browser-a883/ – Alberto T. Mar 29 '19 at 11:00
  • thanks. when do u imagine itll be fully supported? any idea? – oldboy Mar 29 '19 at 18:20
0

Apple has supported an Add to Homescreen experience since the first iPhone was released. It does not automatically prompt the user like Chrome on Android and desktop does. You will need to handle the prompt yourself. But Chrome is drifting that way too.

regretoverflow
  • 2,093
  • 1
  • 23
  • 45
Chris Love
  • 3,740
  • 1
  • 19
  • 16
  • Yes, it looks like Matteo has decided to move on from development and took down his site recently :( I [forked his original repo](https://github.com/docluv/add-to-homescreen) to make sure it stays alive if he removes the GitHub repo :) I may try to update his code, it all depends on my time bandwidth. With the changes to the overall A2HS it will be an interesting task to maintain since this is all very fluid. – Chris Love Oct 17 '18 at 22:27
0

Manifest is noticed as "in development" so I think a new version could add the automatic prompt add to home screen. I hope.

https://webkit.org/status/#?search=manifest

Adrien
  • 914
  • 7
  • 9
  • let's hope. But remember Add to Homescreen is not part of the web manifest or any specification. So Apple has no incentive from a compliance point of view to implement this feature. Right now they will point to their legacy Add to Homescreen option and mobile-web-app-capable settings. – Chris Love Oct 17 '18 at 22:28