iOS and iPadOS 14 are finally here + The Life of Web Apps in the Background
👋Busy week!
Many of you asked me (really!) how you can support my work, as I do this as a freelance developer. So, I finally set up a Buy Me Coffee account, and PayPal donate for those of you interested. Thanks!
iOS and iPadOS 14 now available 🍎
Without enough notice, Apple has launched iOS 14 and iPadOS 14, and several new stuff are now available for web and PWA developers. If you've read the beta draft note, there is new content in this final version. Of course, as expected, there are no Release Notes yet, and even the ones from the betas don't cover 80% of what I've found 🙄
iOS 14 for the Web and PWA－High level overview
🖼WebP support
🔄Default browser change (but don't restart your iPhone!)
🔑FaceID and TouchID for the Web
📹Picture in Picture for video
🗺Geolocation accuracy change
⚙️Service Workers in WebViews (conditions apply)
📝Scribble (handwriting) on iPad for editable elements
🔳App Clips banner available that can execute 10Mb native apps without installation
iOS 14 for PWAs
⚙️Service Worker & Cache shared on Safari & every icon
🎭IDB, Web Storage & Cookies per icon
📚No App Library
◻️White Status bar support was removed
👯♀️Side by side mode on iPad
🐞Bugs: Solved－frozen PWA, search
🦟Bugs: Still there－Background audio
👜AppStore: Service Workers now available at WebViews (conditions apply)
The Mysterious Life of Web Apps in the Background 👻
This week I delivered this new talk for City JS Conference. The video is now available. I researched desktop, iOS, and Android on what happens with FPS, Timers, Web Workers, and Service Workers when the user moves the web app to the background. For example, on Chrome on Android, your web app will run for up to 5 minutes, with timers throttled in the main JS context, but fully powered in a Worker Thread. More findings in the talk! It's the first iteration of this session, so feedback is welcome!
Watch the Talk (25 minutes video) >>
Have a great weekend and stay safe 😷!