What many thought was a bug turned out to be an intentional move by Apple, as the company will no longer allow iOS Home Screen web apps to appear in the European Union (EU) market.
On its developer support page, Apple notes the Act Engineering Market The EU’s DMA requires them to allow users to choose a browser that does not use Apple’s default WebKit browser engine. Therefore, Apple had to remove web applications on the Home Screen
Apple says the Home Screen web apps on iOS are built on WebKit and “align with the security and privacy model for native apps on iOS.” This is important, and Apple says that integration means that web apps on the Home Screen are managed to match the security and privacy model for native apps on iOS, including how to isolate memory and execute system prompts to access privacy-impacting capabilities on a device-by-site basis.
However, without this isolation and enforcement, malicious web applications can read data from other web applications and even use granted permissions to access the user’s camera and microphone without their consent. Browsers can also install web applications without user approval.
Apple added that addressing the complex security and privacy concerns associated with web applications that use alternative browser engines will require building an entirely new integrated architecture, which currently does not exist in iOS and is impractical to implement due to other DMA requirements and precisely because of the low user adoption rate of the Home Screen web app. So, to comply with DMA requirements, the company removed the Home Screen web app feature from the EU.
According to Apple, EU users can continue to access websites directly from their Home Screen via bookmarks without much impact on their functionality. The company was also forced to remove support for Home Screen web apps on Safari in the EU because the DMA requires equality for all browsers. Since third-party browsers can’t have the Home Screen web app, neither can Safari.
The absence of Home Screen web apps in the EU was first noticed by users when iOS 17.4 beta 2 was released. The changes will come to all iOS users in EU member states once iOS 17.4 is released in the first week of March