The points about SW and Apple are so true and so frustrating. That said, I think your article will have a short shelf-life due to iOS 11’s fixes for many issues here. iOS 11 has Media Capture, WebRTC, and Web Assembly which is WAY more than I would have expected (and I tend to be optimistic on new Apple-supported web tech). Web Assembly alone removes the need for some native-based solutions as it is effectively “native for the web” — if Apple’s intention was really to milk the App Store cash cow for all its got, that would have never made it out in iOS 11.
The capabilities in a web app in iOS 11 is going to be a huge leap — the capabilities I mention above could be (and is already) used to make webAR apps… hell, you could make a clone of Pokemon Go with web only with that combo. (Notable feature lacking though: push notifications.)
I’d be wary of reading into the intentions of Apple, you’re likely to be wrong and frustrated in my experience.. you can only guess. ;) So many times I thought “they can’t possibly leave the bug in” and they do, or I thought “Apple will never implement that” then they do.
On the occasion I have chatted with reps from the App Store, they come across as really disliking Cordova-based apps, and I feel there’s a decent chance their big leap this year in Safari capabilities is part of their strategy to offload a lot of the free “junk” (to them) apps to the web and focus on the app store being much more higher-quality items for broad audiences rather than the niche apps that Cordova ones end up being. (They really dislike corporate/brand apps that could just be a website, for instance… and that’s what a LOT of apps are in the store if you go deep in the listings.)
