About six years ago, I built my first PWA. I was a young developer full of hope, envisioning a future where the web would become a solid alternative to native applications. Fast forward to today, and reality is not quite what I expected. Sure, PWAs have made progress, but in my humble opinion, most of them offer an experience inferior to their native counterparts, especially on the iPhone.

What happened? Several factors explain this trajectory, but one player stands out in the defendant’s seat: Apple.

The Web Domination

In 2009, TraceMonkey, Firefox’s JavaScript engine, introduced a breakthrough that would shake up web development. Historically an interpreted language, JavaScript could now benefit from the advantages of Just-In-Time (JIT) compilation.

Around the same time, a new player, Chrome, adopted a similar technique for its own V8 engine. JavaScript, previously considered a slow language, was now reaching an entirely new level of performance!

Today, web technologies enable the creation of complex applications that would have been unimaginable not long ago—such as Photoshop or Figma! The web has even made its way into desktop application development. Four of the applications I use most daily—Slack, VS Code, 1Password, and Discord—are all built with Electron. If the web can be used to power high-quality apps on desktop, why couldn’t it be used in a similar fashion on mobile?

The Android Way

In recent years, Alphabet has launched multiple initiatives to help PWAs (and the web in general) gain new capabilities. Project Fugu showcases some of these new features! On Android, it is now possible to interact with Bluetooth devices, NFC cards, and even use the phone’s gyroscope! Beyond that, Google Play has introduced a process based on Trusted Web Activities to make it easier to publish PWAs on the Play Store.

Conversely, Apple has built quite a poor reputation in the web ecosystem—missing features, recurring bugs… Since the WebKit fork in 2013, the web has clearly become a second-class citizen on iOS. A striking example is the introduction of web notifications: available on Android since 2016, it took seven years for them to finally arrive on iOS. Even worse, in its legal battle in Europe over the Digital Markets Act (DMA), Apple temporarily suspended PWAs in the European market.

Amid the outcry that followed, Apple eventually reinstated essential PWA functionalities, but this perfectly illustrates its stance toward the web.

Follow the money

What happened to Steve Jobs’ original vision in 2007? Is Apple the villain while Google (Alphabet) is the hero for web developers? The reality is that the vast majority of actions taken by tech giants are driven by financial incentives.

While the exact figure is hard to pinpoint, around $20 billion in spending (purchases, subscriptions, premium apps) flows through the App Store every quarter. Considering that Apple takes a 30% commission (or 15% for small businesses), this activity represents an extremely lucrative revenue stream for the company, generating several billion dollars annually—with, I assume, a very high profit margin.

That being said, Google also generates a significant amount of revenue through the Play Store and applies the same commission rates as Apple. So why does it have such a different attitude toward the web? The answer lies in the difference in business models.

While the Play Store brings in billions of dollars, Google’s true cash cow remains the advertising revenue from its search engine.

Google’s motivation to promote PWA development is therefore most likely aligned with its ultimate goal: increasing traffic to its search engine. Since PWAs are essentially enhanced websites, their discovery and access often start with a quick Google search.

In my humble (and somewhat cynical) opinion, this financial incentive is what creates the difference between Apple and Google when it comes to the web—not a matter of values or principles.

Conclusion

Even though I work at a mobile development company, I must admit that my first love is the web. I love the freedom, the chaos, and the energy that define it. While, for now, the lower quality of PWAs keeps native mobile development highly relevant, deep down, I wish the web had a fair chance to compete on equal footing.

In reality, Apple’s financial incentives make this wish unrealistic—at least in the short term. It will be extremely interesting to follow the impact of the DMA in Europe and see whether, over time, European legislation crosses the Atlantic in a way similar to the GDPR.

Regardless of how things unfold, we will always choose the best technology to build high-quality solutions for our clients—whether that’s the web, native mobile, or whatever surprises the future holds!