Our company has started shaming iOS. We tell users that because of a commercial policy aiming to increase their revenue from their App Store, iPhones and Ipads "do not support the Web 2.0 technology enabling powerful experiences for web sites and web applications, while Android and Windows devices have been supporting this technology since 201x". We briefly explain in one sentence that it would not be the best use of our resources to try to bypass Apple's technological decisions but that they should contact Apple for further information.

We then link them to a $30-$50 Android device that they can buy on Amazon and use as a second device to use our services "if they are interested in a more powerful web experience". We provide a basic version to all users, but put a shamewall for advanced features. Best use of our time and resources.

It is time to push back, stop making Apple's problems your problems. Educate people without ranting and offer them solutions, developers have the bad habit of trying to cover up this kind of non-sense and taking the blame while really Apple are the ones who should be ashamed. If people love your product/service getting a $30 phone to be power users and make their life easier and their experience richer will not be a big deal for them. It's all about educating them the right way.

Obviously I have no idea what your product is but if I got that message I'd just likely go to one of your competitors (assuming they exist). I wouldn't go and buy another device unless it was for an absolutely critical application.

> assuming they exist

And that's the real nature of the market, isn't it? If enough third-parties aren't willing to play by Apple's rules, Apple will have to modify the rules.

They're a stubborn company, but it's happened before. They've also been burned trying to own a standard when a common consensus exists they can't control before.

Exactly. It sounds to me like websites that refuse to load in GDPR countries. Good, if you can’t support me I don’t need to support you.

90% of software engineering (or engineering in general) is finding solutions for difficult problems. Throwing up your hands and saying you refuse to support one of the most popular computing platforms is certainly a decision that any business is free to make, but then again as a consumer I’m free to make my own decisions as well.

Sounds extremely condescending and off-putting. I'd be annoyed if a company said this to me.

There is a lot to love about Apple products outside of a few safari restrictions. They're not perfect but better than a lot of alternatives.

What technologies does Safari not support that you need?

That’s a genuine question by the way. I’ve been frustrated by Apple’s reluctance in the past but since they implemented Service Workers things have gotten better. I still really wish they had Web Push but I do understand at least conceptually why they’d be hesitant.

Web recording api. Only works in safari under a flag - they won't release the feature to chrome/firefox.

I would have to REALLY love your service to want to carry around an extra device to use it.

... or find it really necessary. Banks, for example, have the clout to expect this kind of behavior. The built-up reputation and long-term partnerships a company and a bank build up can out-value all kinds of IT inconveniences.

I don't know if you meant from the consumer perspective, but if my bank started telling me what kind of a phone or computer I needed to have to use their services I would definitely find another bank! I'm not sure if clout is the right word for what what banks have, it's more like a kind of lock-in because of having to sign a million pieces of paper to change banks, that makes people put up with a certain amount of IT inconvenience, coupled with the fact that usually the competition is equally inconvenient.

You might, but there's a long history of bank websites only working in Internet Explorer, and it was only in recent years that this changed.

My bank logs me out after ten minutes of idling, not seven days. Not sure what kind of crazy bank allows you to persist login session / personal data indefinitely.

I was responding specifically to the question "I would have to REALLY love your service to want to carry around an extra device to use it." Some people's banks require their users to carry around a rotating 2FA key dongle, for example.

Which is included in the cost of opening an account with the bank, you're not told to go buy this device off Amazon.

> If people love your product/service getting a $30 phone to be power users and make their life easier and their experience richer will not be a big deal for them.

So you're suggesting shifting the development costs of you building a native / cross platform app directly to your customers? Does this work?

In addition to what others have said, I think the effectiveness of this likely depends heavily on the target audience - to a non-technical user, this will probably come across as lazy. From their perspective, everything else works fine on Apple, so you must be complaining about nothing.

Of course, if everyone did the same, people would start to realise the problem might be with Apple, but the chances of all (or most, or even many) big web services deciding to alienate such a large portion of their (potential) customers seem slim.

It very much depends on the market.

In the general case, almost all websites and web apps don't need offline storage at all.

But the ones that do often need it for very business-enterprise reasons, and here Apple is taking a bit of a risk. I've watched companies hang onto old versions of Flash well past the sell-by date because for quite some time, it was the most practical platform to build a cross-platform videoconferencing client in. And once it's built, the opportunity cost to throw it away and switch to [OTHER_TECHNOLOGY_X] matters.

Are you aware of the poor security a $30 phone has?