iOS 17.4 Public Beta Removes Support for Progressive Web Apps on iPhone in Europe: Report

apple Roll out iOS 17.4 public beta to beta testers globally last month, and the update was especially important for European users. It brought support for third-party app stores iPhone In the region, allowing third-party browsers such as Firefox and Google to use their own engines instead of Apple’s WebKit, however, some testers have now pointed out that the update has caused problems with Progressive Web Apps (PWA) on their devices. Support has been removed. One developer has claimed that this may be a deliberate move to comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA).

Developer Maximiliano Furtman Posted On X (formerly known as Twitter) highlights the problem. He first posted about removing PWAs on his iPhone on February 2 after the first public beta of iOS 17.4 was released. At the time he called it a bug, but following the release of iOS 17.4 beta 2 earlier this week, Maximiliano now claims that web apps in Europe were removed on purpose because of a system alert notifying users. Making web apps “open from your website. Default browser from now on”.

The tipster said the possible reason for the move could be the European Union. DMA. Apple added support for PWAs through WebKit, its browser engine Safari. The company has also stipulated that third-party browsers use the same engine for its apps. However, with DMA regulations coming into effect next month, the iPhone maker is now allowing browsers such as Google Chrome And Mozilla Firefox To run your own browser engine, which will not support PWAs. The paradox behind this argument is that Safari should still be able to support these web apps.

If this is true, it means that users in Europe will not receive web push notifications from PWAs, a feature that was added with iOS 16.4. update. Further, this will result in users losing data stored in these web apps. However, it’s worth noting that the tipster highlighted that “nothing about this change has been mentioned on the release notes”. Additionally, another user also Reported That they are not affected by this problem.

apple It also rolled out the iOS 17.3.1 update to all users on Thursday ahead of the expected release of iOS 17.4 in March. This is a minor update that focuses on bug fixes and fixes only one issue. According to the changelog, some users reported an issue where when typing, text unexpectedly duplicated itself or overlapped in a text field. Users who experienced this issue should find it resolved after updating to the latest version.