Apple appears to be disabling the ability to use apps directly from the iPhone home screen in the European Union. Support for Progressive Web Apps appears to have been broken for users in the EU during the first two betas of iOS 17.4, but developer Maximiliano Firtman reported in a post on X that the apps are still disabled in the third beta.
This feature is currently disabled on purpose.
You may note that PWAs on iOS 17.4 are reset for EU users on b3 when Apple boils hard about it, and if it doesn’t.
At this point, it is a special value on purpose, and they would like it to be for a happy version before the battle in a few weeks to all users.
— Maximiliano Firtman (@firt) February 14, 2024
Instead of opening in full screen mode, apps open in the browser, making them look more like shortcuts. Mysk developers discovered that when a user selects an app for the first time, they see a pop-up asking them to open it in their default browser. After the application is opened, the browser’s address bar and toolbar remain at the bottom as long as it is being used.
iOS 17.4 beta 3 was just released. PWAs still not working in the EU. Release notes don’t mention why this major feature will be disabled for EU users.
Also multiple “bookmarks” share the same session as Safari, but clearing Safari data does not clear the state ???? pic.twitter.com/oDY8ABe7Ol— Mysk ???????????????? (@mysk_co) February 13, 2024
Apps opened in Safari no longer offer notifications or long-term local data storage, resulting in data loss and broken notifications in already installed apps, causing some users to experience data loss, reports The Verge.
iOS 17.4 includes significant changes for EU users as part of Apple’s plans to comply with the Digital Markets Act. The update should bring sideloading and alternative app stores to iOS, as well as allow third-party browsers to use their own engines.
Developers started noticing that web apps stopped working in the initial beta versions of iOS 17.4 earlier this month. At the time it looked like a glitch, but now it seems less likely, as the broken feature appeared as early as the third beta version of iOS 17.4. The final version of iOS 17.4 is expected before the DMA (European Union Digital Markets Act) comes into effect on March 6.
The EU will not force Apple to “bundle” iMessage with other messengers. This is not a “core platform service”
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