First, Apple gave them everything, and now they're removing this

Apple gives, Apple takes.

Gains alternative app stores, loses web apps

After Apple finally revealed which EU countries, perhaps only full EU members and not Norway (strangely, we have not yet received a confirmation or denial of this from Apple in Norway), access to alternative app stores and thus apps like can also be installed outside of the App Store For the company, they are now taking a strange move that is more reminiscent of retaliation against the European Union than anything else.

iOS 17.4 beta 2 has been released and it reveals that Apple with the update is making web apps much less attractive compared to full apps. Among other things, web applications do not open in their full window that can take advantage of the entire screen – instead, they open in a Safari window. In other words, what should be dynamic “apps” now contain nothing more than browser shortcuts.

but why?

Also, iOS 17.4 beta 2 asks the user whether they want to open the Website service in Safari or open it in the default browser. If Web Apps are opened in Safari, the page will open as a bookmark. Therefore, options like notifications and local storage are also missing.

“Users have experienced issues with existing web apps, such as data loss since the Safari version is no longer able to access local data, as well as broken notifications,” MacRumors reports. The hope is that since iOS 17.4 allows EU users to use browsers with their own engine, another browser can facilitate PWAs (“Progressive Web Apps”) again.

We believe, but we do not know, that the European Union will respond. Apple's response may be that users can choose an alternative browser. We reserve the right that things may change in future beta versions.