Following the release of the second beta version of iOS 17.4, it emerged that Apple had restricted the functionality of iOS web apps in the EU. Web apps could no longer launch from the Home Screen in their own top-level window that takes up the entire screen, relegating them to a simple shortcut with an option to open within Safari instead.
The move was heavily criticized by groups like Open Web Advocacy, which started a petition in an effort to persuade Apple to reverse the change, and it even caught the attention of the European Commission. Now, Apple has backtracked and says that Home Screen web apps that use WebKit in the EU will continue to function as expected upon the release of iOS 17.4.
I’m using Voyager browse and interact with Lemmy. It looks more or less exactly like Apollo and it’s a webapp. There’s a few small things that’s not exactly as a native app, like double tapping the top of a scrolling window to scroll to top, but it’s really minor. I bet most people wouldn’t know it was a webapp if they weren’t told.
It even works with the sharing intent so I can share to native apps. Pretty awesome.