Ask HN: Why isn't PWA's the default cross platform solution yet?

[shams93]

Its political warfare in that Apple wants to own both the hardware and software and ultimately ideally has a complete monopoly over all hardware. Ultimately they want to own 60% of every developer's pre-profit income, they're strangulating the future so you have attempts to make things better like react native. Its the same type of leverage that MS applied before its anti-trust trial where they destroyed web standards with IE and their desktop monopoly.

[warning26]

Sadly Apple apologists seem far more prevalent than Microsoft ones back in those days. Every thread about it on HN, there’s always at least one of:

- It is impossible for Apple to engage in monopolistic practices because Android exists

- If Safari were actually forced to compete with other browsers its market share would immediately drop to 0

[josephcsible]

Two reasons: 1. Because Apple intentionally cripples them on its mobile operating systems. 2. Because PWAs can't harvest as much of your personal information as native apps can (regardless of platform).

[devwastaken]

Because I can't do this:

const FS = require('fs');

let data = FS.readFile();

A PWA is only useful if all of your features fit within the web. Many electrons apps have web versions with less features. That is the natural result of a sandbox.

[ninethirty]

Browser bugs and you don't get direct access to the hardware.