I'm building a progressive web app (PWA) and came to the conclusion that almost nobody knows that this feature exists - Add to Home Screen. Not many people even understand what a PWA is or that you can add it to the home screen. This feels unnatural compared to installing an app from a store. Why do we make it so hard for users? Could we not make this easier by having the ability to call this installation or show an install notification?
Right now, when users visit a PWA on iOS, there's no way for developers to let them know they can install it. The "Add to Home Screen" option is tucked away in the Share menu, and most users never find it. I'd really like to be able to show them a friendly prompt.
Comparing to other browsers, this is possible via the beforeinstallprompt event. This would make a huge difference for user experience. Right now the only way is to show iOS users a separate set of instructions with screenshots, which feels clunky compared to what's possible on other platforms.
I'm curious - is there any reason why this hasn't been added to Safari yet? Other browsers have supported this for years now. Is there any progress being made on this, or is it being considered for the roadmap? It would be really helpful to know if this is something that will be worked on in the future.
I know there's a lot on the roadmap, but this would really help developers create better installation experiences for our users.
Thanks for considering this!