It didn't though. Steve Jobs’ vision of simple web applications was realised with the first iPhone. Native applications added to that, they didn’t take it away.
This idea that web applications only “count” if they can send push notifications is bizarre. You know everybody was building web applications just fine without push notifications before 2009, right? And that native iPhone applications didn’t have push notifications either to begin with?
Just because Apple added push notifications to native iPhone applications, it doesn’t mean that all web applications suddenly ceased to be “real” applications because they couldn’t do it yet.
I mean even Jobs turned around pretty quickly on the idea of PWA. I doubt even he championed it after iOS 2+.
I'm still not sure if the PWA push was the plan and they changed to the app store or if it was always something to tide people over. I believe the reporting has said they honestly thought PWAs would be good enough and then reversed course but it didn't take them long before they just went all-in on apps.
All that said I'm not really a "the web should be able to do everything apps can do"-guy, I think the constant permission requests would be incredibly tiring while browsing the web. Though maybe you, as a user, would need to first "promote" or "whitelist" a url before it could even ask. Idk, just sounds like hell.
The problem is that Apple isn't investing in a platform for everyone. As such, they're liable to get their ass whooped by antitrust suits time immemorial until they either -
1. Make the web a suitable platform for application delivery
- or -
2. Allow third-party alternatives to the App Store
Apple doesn't like it. No shit, their shareholders would throw a riot if they abandoned their 80-billion/year cash cow. Unfortunately, that exploitation is a very real consequence of first-party vendor abuse that we shouldn't have allowed to happen in the first place. Microsoft tried making the web into their "App Store" a few decades ago, and they were rightfully sued into oblivion and beaten with rolled-up newspapers. We should have done the same thing to Apple before they became so self-entitled.
If you don't want to use the web for apps, then don't. I'm sure Apple would be happy for you to spend that money on the App Store instead, where they can happily take their cut. But consumers need the option. That's just not up for debate. Apple will kick and scream and make it as ugly as possible, but that's purely because they're facing technologies that threaten their business model as they know it. How long can they continue to do this before the dam bursts?
