Jen SimmonsSep 30, 2025

I’m surprised I haven’t heard more responses from web developers about the change to Safari on iOS and iPadOS regarding web apps. Now every website can be a web app (saved to the Home Screen and opened as a stand-alone app) — not just sites that have been configured a certain way by the developers.

It’s a big difference for users. Every site gets the same experience. No more mysterious sometimes-it-works-one-way, sometimes-another.

Read more: https://webkit.org/blog/17333/webkit-features-in-safari-26-0/#every-site-can-be-a-web-app-on-ios-and-ipados

Show threadWilliam O'Connell
@jensimmons As a developer I was already specifying the behavior I wanted in the manifest, so I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be excited about here. I can see the consistency argument, but this is also just one more thing the user can be confused/distracted by during the install process. A process that seems to require more taps with every Safari update.
Oct 1, 2025 at 1:10pmWeb