Apple appears to be shutting down the ability to use web apps directly from the iPhone home screen in the European Union. Support for Progressive Web Apps appears to have been cut off within the EU during the first two betas of iOS 17.4, but today developer Maximiliano Firtman said in a post on X that Web Apps are still disabled in the third beta, which arrived yesterday. “At this time, it is a feature that has been intentionally disabled,” Firtman wrote.
Now, instead of opening in a full-screen window, web apps open in your web browser, making them act more like shortcuts. The Mysk developers discovered that when you first select a web app, it will launch a pop-up asking you to open the app in your default web browser. After the application is opened, the address bar and browser toolbar remain at the bottom of the web application while you are using it.
As he noted MacRumorsweb apps opened in Safari no longer offer notifications or persistent local storage, causing some users to experience data loss and broken notifications with apps they already have installed.
Apple previously treated the ability to install web apps as an alternative to its App Store, despite web apps not being nearly as capable. It’s possible that since there will now be real alternative app stores, Apple is ending the ability to use this second app-like experience—one that it doesn’t control and doesn’t make money from. Apple did not respond The Vergerequests for comment.
Earlier this month, developers started noticing that web apps were no longer working in the initial beta versions of iOS 17.4. Broken web apps appeared to be a bug at the time, but that seems less likely now that the broken feature has arrived in the third beta of iOS 17.4. The final version of iOS 17.4 is expected before DMA goes live on the 6th. March.