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

Apple rolled out the public beta of iOS 17.4 to beta testers around the world last month, and the update was especially big for European users. It brought support for third-party app stores to iPhone to the region, while allowing third-party browsers like Firefox and Google to use their own engines instead of Apple’s WebKit. However, some testers pointed out that the update removed support for Progressive Web Apps (PWA) on their devices. One developer claimed that this could be an intentional move to comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA).

Developer Maximiliano Firtman job on X (formerly known as Twitter) highlighting 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 after the release of iOS 17.4 beta 2 earlier this week, Maximiliano now claims the web apps may have been intentionally removed in Europe as a system alert notifies users that web applications will “open from your computer”. default browser from now on.

The tipster said that the possible reason for this decision could be the European Union’s DMA. Apple has added support for PWAs through WebKit, its browser engine for Safari. The company also required third-party browsers to use the same engine for their applications. However, with the DMA regulations coming into effect next month, the iPhone maker is now allowing browsers such as Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox to run their browser engine, which will not support PWAs. The contradictory part behind this argument is that Safari should still be able to support these web applications.

If true, this means that European users will no longer receive web push notifications from a PWA, a feature that was added with the iOS 16.4 update. Moreover, it would also lead to loss of data stored in these web applications. However, it’s worth noting that the tipster pointed out that “nothing is mentioned in the release notes regarding this change.” Additionally, another user also reported that they are not affected by the problem.

Apple also rolled out the iOS 17.3.1 update to all users on Thursday, ahead of the planned release of iOS 17.4 in March. This is a small update that focuses on bug fixes and only addresses one issue. According to the changelog, some users reported an issue where when typing, text would unexpectedly duplicate or overlap in the text field. Users facing the issue should find that it has been resolved after updating to the latest version.