Although the official argument is very different, everyone would say that Apple wanted to somehow get revenge for the obligations to which it will be subject in the European Union. It is obvious that this is the opinion of a It depends on how Cupertino will proceed in the future, because he has the opportunity to prove that, as he claims, this decision was made due to the impossibility of acting otherwise. Only time will tell if that was actually the case or not.

But let’s start from the beginning. As you know, the law on digital markets, mandatory in the common European space, and more specifically the inclusion of iOS in the list of products and services that must be adopted a number of measures to support economic competitionimposes on the technology company to open its walled garden, allowing both the arrival of app stores operated by third parties and the use of alternative payment methods to the Apple platform, either in the iOS App Store or in the aforementioned third-party stores.

After months of doubt about how the company would proceed, at the end of last month they confirmed their adaptation to DMA, yes, with a good supply of conditionsmany of which did not sit well with many developers and service providers who believe that Apple twisted the European standard in order to continue to maintain a favorable position in the iPhone operating system, which is undoubtedly one of the more profitable spaces for and that if it were up to them, it would remain as closed as before.

Now, if they are forced to allow third-party stores, as a countermeasure Progressive Web App support is being removed in the European Union starting with iOS 17.4, that is, exactly the long-awaited version of the operating system with which all DMA adaptation measures will arrive in the common European space. And what reason does Apple use for this purpose? Well, the fact that they failed to adapt all the elements of the operating system on which the operation of the PWA depends, so as to comply with European regulations.

Thus Since the second beta version of iOS 17.4, it is no longer possible to use these web apps in the traditional way (remember that in its first generation the iPhone did not have an app store, it was designed exclusively to use web applications) and instead services opened in a standard browser window. This might be a minor problem in itself, but it will be much worse considering that with this change, PWAs will no longer be able to store content on the device and will no longer be able to send notifications to the user.

On the support pages AApple says it has done a lot of work to accommodate DMAand I am absolutely convinced that it is true. Now, dropping support for a type of app that is fairly common and has been on the iPhone since its inception seems like a mistake to me. And as I said at the beginning, we will have to wait and see if it was really due to the inability to adapt in time, in which case it will be somewhat excusable, or if we are talking about a way to take revenge on the EU. Revenge that, yes, will be its own users who will have to suffer.