Bug 182566 – Feature Request: Add support for the ServiceWorkerRegistration's PushManager interface

• Status: RESOLVED
• Resolution: FIXED
• Component: Service Workers

[Thomas Steiner]

This Feature Request is to gauge WebKit's interest in implementing the ServiceWorkerRegistration's PushManager interface (https://w3c.github.io/push-api/#pushmanager-interface), aka. "Push API".

It's "live" in Chrome and Firefox (https://www.chromestatus.com/feature/5416033485586432), and "in development" in Edge (https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/platform/status/pushapi/).

[Takahiro Ichihashi]

Webkit status shows Service Workers is "supported in preview", but I'm afraid this would be incorrect unless Push API is supported. Push API is quite popular reason for current websites to implement Service Workers today. Hoping anyone to start discussing / building this feature. 
https://webkit.org/status/#?search=service%20workers

[Chris Dumez]

(In reply to Takahiro Ichihashi from comment #1)
> Webkit status shows Service Workers is "supported in preview", but I'm
> afraid this would be incorrect unless Push API is supported. Push API is
> quite popular reason for current websites to implement Service Workers
> today. Hoping anyone to start discussing / building this feature. 
> https://webkit.org/status/#?search=service%20workers

It is a different specification.

[Takahiro Ichihashi]

Agree this is not just a small portion of existing tasks, someone needs to decide and probably creates necessary component category and issues. Wanted to ping you guys that this is a highly expected feature. :) I think there will be complaints against webkit not having pushmanager as part of service workers once it's published more widely. 

Probably chrome folks know the situation pretty well but maybe not giving enough citing/warning here because of browser competitions.

[Stefan Sechelmann]

I suspect this to be a highly political decision which has to be decided by Apple internally. In the end this differentiates if PWAs are first class citizens in iOS or not. If apple opts into WebPush this will cut into its AppStore revenue eventually.

[Brady Eidson]

As we indicated we were doing last year, we’ve implemented the core ServiceWorker spec - https://w3c.github.io/ServiceWorker/ - in trunk WebKit.

Web Push is a different spec that we’ve made no comment on one way or another.

We know there’s interest in implementing the Web Push spec, and thank you for your feedback.

There’s nothing to announce right now, as Apple generally doesn’t comment on future products/development.

[tmdoit]

Any updates?

[Arno ten Hagen]

We need the Push API! When will it be added? A lot of webdevs are waiting for this feature.

[Richard Maher]

Please be aware that the current W3C Push API specification does not support "broadcast" or Topic-based subscriptions such as weather updates, news, etc. To achieve this highly desirable functionality people have had to turn to Firebase :-(

[Richard Maher]

Here is a think to a description of the W3C Web API deficiency https://t.co/S9fTNUersU

Maybe Apple and Google can cooperate to produce a Push Protocol that encompasses more use cases than just the Dark Web "I must encrypt all my communication!"

[Richard Maher]

Sorry for not adding this potential solution link to previous: -
https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2018/11/signed-exchanges

[Maciej Stachowiak]

<rdar://problem/34829517>

[Michaela Merz]

Push Notification is essential for all interactive web (and pwa) environments. Users are enjoying web-mail, gaming, messaging, rtc-style talking, conferencing and much more that may require (push-) notifications to tell the user about important events if she is not actively on the page. It's sad that we always have to add an (*) to our feature list stating that push notifications are not (yet?) supported on webkit browsers.

[Balint H]

Any updates? We need the Push API on iOS. A lot of users (humans) are waiting for this feature.

[Michael Flores]

We'd love to implement push notifications on Bethesda.net, a website used by millions every month to get the latest gaming news. It's not a case where we want to make a native app, but would love the capability of pushing customized notifications to users without them having to be on the site – that's where this API comes in.

[Filip Bech-Larsen]

Push Notifications are such a great features in e-commerce, and it kills me that our iOS users still have to do with old-fashioned email. 
Sure the loyal recurring customer could download the app, but most clients buy once a year, and shouldn't choose between receiving order-updates with a 150mb app or getting along with email in our instant web-experience.

[Arthur]

It would be awesome if Safari on iOS at least supported its proprietary format from macOS. It would be much better than nothing.

[Romulo Cintra]

It would be a game changer for all web app developers having some kind of Push Notifications implemented in iOS. Probably with similar implementation from the native ones the way fits better but is really needed to have it cross-platform way

[James]

Push API would be a very useful API for the types of apps I am developing. I do not currently have the Push API because almost all of my users are on iOS but if WebKit delivers signals of implementation I would begin working on including the feature immediately.

[Edmond]

Two of my customers (small and large startups) are eagerly anticipating the notifications feature to be supported on iOS. Your work and progress on this is much appreciated by developers and small businesses, like these two in Denmark, Copenhagen.

+1 For the Push API. I work at Pushpad and we receive so many emails from customers that ask about iOS support. I think that many people are waiting for this feature and Safari on iOS is the only browser that doesn't support it.

[Glenn Hansen]

Push Notifications is such a vital feature for user engangement. And having to either create a Passbook workaround, or wrap the PWA inside a cordova app (Which might be denied from the app store, as it's just a website, with notifications).
Many of our clients can't afford to have both a web page and a seperate app under development, and are eagerly awaiting this feature.

[Sheridan]

Adding my support for this feature - it would be an important game changer in allowing users to have a better experience with PWAs on iOS.

[Francois]

+1. This is #2 missing PWA feature on iOs imho (#1 being "Add to Home Screen"). Thanks!

[Nicolas Hoizey]

Most of my clients still refuse to consider PWAs as a viable alternative to most iOS apps because they want a way to (re)engage their users, and Push Notifications are the only way on the Web.

They did change their mind for Android, and got great results, so they now consider iOS as a painful platform to work with.

[Kiere El-Shafie]

Adding my support for this feature.  Our app is launching as PWA-only at first and push notifications are a critical component to alert our users of new content.

[Naseef Fatemi]

Adding this feature would do wonders for the E-commerce websites already on our platform. 

It would give them an opportunity to help reach thousands of customers who doesn't want to get an app but still be reminded of offers and new additions that come to that Store!

+1 -- highly desirable to improve the quality of homescreen PWAs.

[Arthur Taylor]

+1 this feature really would make all the difference to delivering meaningful and valuable PWAs

+1 interested in web push to help standardize organizational communications

[Philipp]

+1 Would be great to have this

Yes please, this is a huge feature!

[Ernst]

+1 Clients are beginning to ask for PWAs with Push Notifications.

Forcing apps to go through an app store and pay 30% is anticompetitive. Apple needs to stop being jerks and allow developers the option to create PWAs with similar functionality to native, or will risk the hammer from regulators.

[Jesús]

+1 this feature would help to create more amazing web applications.

[Pixelstyle]

+1 I would love to see this feature. It would make live so much easier.

[Bas]

+1 It would be great to have this!

+1 It would be great to have this!

Come on, guys, we really need this feature. We are going to make a PWA for some banks and wit will be very awesome to send push-notfications about every transaction.

[Kayhan Ogretir]

Hi guys. Please let us know if this feature will not be implemented because of some strategic decision given by Apple people. PWA apps are serious thread to App Store in my opinion. If so, we should not invest on PWA tech.

[Yura]

+1 for technology evolution. Time to leave stone age behind.

[Takahiro Ichihashi]

I also look forward to this. Feature wise, I think native app is getting more stable, and having aligned PWA features across browsers at this time (meaning, maybe in iOS 13.x) will be effective as a stimulator to generate investments to new applications. Maybe it will also help keep the web/ecosystem being a good place.

[Michael Mitrakos]

With the wide acceptance and growth of PWAs across all browsers, iOS Safari not having this implemented is a big hit and major downside for all of our users. This should be a top priority for the Apple iOS Safari team right now

This is a top feature that I'm waiting for to implement PWAs, I really need this.

[Adam Alexander]

Apple needs to add this feature ASAP. The reason why it’s one of the most widely requested feature is because it’s standard now. Things are changed, the web is changing. PWA are now becoming a staple. Web Push is a staple. iOS needs to keep up with the times and implement this ASAP. All Apple’s competitors support this. At this time, Android PWA’s are more powerful

[Dmitriy]

I was hope you would introduce this feature at WWDC 2019. This feature is really important for our users.

[Steve]

+1 This is a much needed feature. Please comment or give us some indication on when we can expect this feature.  Thank you.

[Lorenzo G.]

+1 this feature would help to create more amazing web applications.

[Yura]

It feels so like Microsoft with IE in good old times. And we all know how it ended in December 2018. Instead of resisting evolution of technologies it's better to lead it. Add support for PWA in Apple Store and it will be a win-win situation for everybody.

[Jeroen Zwartepoorte]

I work on an educational web application. Currently we have to develop a separate mobile application because push notifications are essential for certain functionality: when a room in the schedule has changed, students get notified of this change for example.

So currently we have 2 teams who work on similar functionality in 2 different technology frameworks. We would much rather have 1 responsive web application (PWA) that works across all devices.

This specific feature is blocking for us.

[Gary Garside]

+1 As a primarily web driven development agency, we're seeing an uptake in requests from clients in promoting their brand and presence on mobile devices via PWAs. With Jun 6th's inclusion in iOS 13 beta 1 of getUserMedia support, we're closer than ever to delivering native-like experiences with web technologies.

Along with Add to Homescreen support (https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=193959), PushAPI is vital in delivering said experiences without the need for true native apps.

Would love to see this happen to avoid duplicating code just for iOS.

[Darryl Pogue]

The WebKit bugzilla is not the best place to make feature requests, and especially piling on in comments is unlikely to raise the priority of this request.

Please use Apple's Feedback Assistant tool to report feedback and request this feature: https://feedbackassistant.apple.com

Apple uses duplicate reports to assess priority of issues, so you can reference this bugzilla report and also Radar #34829517 to help them associate the duplicate reports.

[Stefan Sechelmann]

I tried and even though I'm a registered developer with a valid subscription it won't let me log into the Feedback-Assistent. Anyone having luck with this?

[Morgin]

(In reply to Darryl Pogue from comment #52)
> The WebKit bugzilla is not the best place to make feature requests, and
> especially piling on in comments is unlikely to raise the priority of this
> request.
> 
> Please use Apple's Feedback Assistant tool to report feedback and request
> this feature: https://feedbackassistant.apple.com
> 
> Apple uses duplicate reports to assess priority of issues, so you can
> reference this bugzilla report and also Radar #34829517 to help them
> associate the duplicate reports.

Apple’s Maciej Stachowiak and WebKit engineer Chris Dumez have both confirmed this is the appropriate place to submit feature use case requests for improvements to PWA support in iOS.

(In reply to Darryl Pogue from comment #52)
> The WebKit bugzilla is not the best place to make feature requests, and
> especially piling on in comments is unlikely to raise the priority of this
> request.
> 
> Please use Apple's Feedback Assistant tool to report feedback and request
> this feature: https://feedbackassistant.apple.com
> 
> Apple uses duplicate reports to assess priority of issues, so you can
> reference this bugzilla report and also Radar #34829517 to help them
> associate the duplicate reports.

First comment by Joseph Steiner: 'This Feature Request is to gauge WebKit's interest in implementing the ServiceWorkerRegistration's PushManager interface (https://w3c.github.io/push-api/#pushmanager-interface), aka. "Push API".'

[Thomas Steiner]

It’s fine to comment here, yet conditions apply:

“[…] If you want to provide info about Push API, you can comment on the bug. Preferably concrete use cases, especially things you are doing or plan to do with it.”—https://twitter.com/othermaciej/status/1138714587384098816?s=21

[Richard Maher]

Can I ask all the +1s why they can't use FireBase now?

Don't forget that @w3c obstinately refused to acknowledge the need for broadcast-messaging a.k.a topic-based subscriptions which FireBase has supported for yonks.


Is the W3C involvement more than a pseudo security blanket?

[Thomas Steiner]

Google Search sends a notification once search results are available following a background sync event: https://web.dev/google-search-sw#meaningful-offline-experience and https://twitter.com/jeffposnick/status/1141849366094929920?s=21.

[Richard Maher]

(In reply to Thomas Steiner from comment #58)
> Google Search sends a notification once search results are available
> following a background sync event:
> https://web.dev/google-search-sw#meaningful-offline-experience and
> https://twitter.com/jeffposnick/status/1141849366094929920?s=21.

Was that a mistaken reply to @me or do you not have the faintest about what broadcast messaging or topic-based subscriptions are?

[Mark Harrell]

We're going to use push notifications in our progressive web app to notify a user when they aren't meeting their "goals" (we're building a writing tool). PWAs won't really take off until this is added.

[Thirteenth]

IPS Community Suite (one of the most popular forums software) is going to use push notifications in their software when it will be shipped to webkit.

XenForo (also is the popular forums software) already shipped it and it works great. The only problem it is not supported in webkit (yet, i hope).

It's also already implemented in a bunch of other forums.

We would love to use it for notifications about new personal messages, mentions, etc. Hope to see it also in webkit soon!

Push notifications are much needed for many PWAs. Very hard to build any kind of app with a social component / interactivity without it.

[Jon Gross]

Push notifications are required for us to consider building a PWA.  Please add this soon.

Service Workers allow the web to continue moving forward.

From providing offline capabilities, to improved page load speed, to replacement assets for varying device sizes and capabilities, to background syncing, to push notifications, and so on.

Developers cannot continue improving user experiences if we cannot rely on technology being available.

Telling all our customers that Apple devices don't support years old features and that they can have a worse experience than almost all other customers because of this.

[Alberto]

As a xenForo forum customer, I'd like to see this implemented to enable feature parity for messaging notifications via push. Currently, we can only offer this functionality to Android users and have to tell iOS users this isn't supported on their platform due to technical limitations.

Same here. As an online productivity platform with over 140'000 users, we currently have to tell all of our users that push notifications only work on Android and non-Apple browsers on Mac OS. I'm an Apple fan and heavy user, but it's hard to explain to customers why Apple is so far behind here.

In our case, people rely on this feature so heavily, that some companies that use our platform have chosen to buy Android devices instead of iPads for their people in the field for pretty much that reason only.

[tmdoit]

When they implement it, I don't see any reason why most of the software for iOS should be not build as a web application (among others same code base for iOS,Android,Web and desktop, better capabilities for testing, more developers). 
That's the reason why they didn't make it already I think.

[Cormac Bonner]

We would also love to see this feature implemented as soon as possible. We have already implemented for Android and desktop but our organisation uses Apple devices in the field so it is a big blocking point for us. Our app is an issue tracking and reporting app that provides notifications on issues and deadlines etc. We want to use PWA apps enterprise wide going forward but this key feature is a real gap in our product. More so than background sync or web manifest features.

[Isaak Eriksson]

Many startups like the one I'm in prefer PWA's over native apps since the maintenance cost is a lot cheaper. We made a mistake with a limited budget to develop two separate native apps (Android and iOS) that lead us to countless bugs. We're now considering PWAs however due to the fact that a lot of our users are on iOS the limiting factor is push notification support.

Apple as a large tech giant must have the social responsibility of allowing technical innovation to happen from smaller startups. PWAs are a much cheaper and more accessible toolkit for startups and innovators to use. It's unethical to not include PWA features simply because of fear that the app store will lose its users to the web.

All the major browsers are pushing for PWA support. We as developers appreciate the recent PWA improvements for Safari in the iOS beta 12.2, and look forward to a more accessible mobile experience from Apple.

[Brandon]

About to start development of PWA within enterprise.  All users are being told iOS does not support push notifications, which is a critical feature to our users for many of our applications, and will eventually push them to Android.   Withholding this functionality will only hurt Apple in the long run.  A quick case study on the downfall of Internet Explorer should make the decision pretty straightforward.

[Krzysztof Kosman]

+1 for this one and in general for supporting progressive webapps features in safari. Would have helped us design better solutions for our clients a many times now.

[Tealk]

+1  Very desirable!

[Tomás Oliveira]

+1 We need push notifications in iOS so that we can achieve feature parity in our web application for mobile users.

[Keysee]

This is much-needed feature for PWA! It's literally the one thing that keeps me hesitating about web apps.

[bentz]

+1 for push... 
As a long time Apple fan, I'm really puzzled by the fact that Apple is the last in line to adopt a so basic and required feature. 

I'm personally aware of at least 3 different mid-size local companies who decided go ahead and develop PWAs with push notifications as an integral part of their App's features and instructed their workers to replace their Iphones with Android devices (due to the lack of push support in iOS).

Very strange approach by apple (and a tactical mistake) if you ask me... too bad.

[Jimme]

The past three projects I have built that support notifications now actively encourage iPhone users to switch phones or 'remember to log in regularly to get notifications.'  

The last time I remember showing notifications to ask people to switch tech was for IE4...

[Ash Connell]

I build applications for small to medium businesses to help them perform day to day work. These applications are mostly for internal purposes.

Almost all of my clients have no interest in building an app on the App Store and prefer the benefits that come with PWA's such as being able to access it from any platform, have instant updates and a smaller price point.

It's very common these PWA's need to notify users when important things happen within the company. When I explain to them that push notifications are available on every platform *except* iOS, almost all of them have had no issue replacing current workplace iOS devices with Android. The benefits of PWA outweigh using native *just* to get push notfications. This usually works out better for the business anyway as Android devices are more affordable and push notifications allow them to run their business processes with expediency.

I usually have to repeat this whole process with each new client so I would much prefer that iOS had Web Push, so that I can focus on building value for my clients instead of talking about the technical limitations of iOS.

[Stéphane JAIS]

Hi,

we've put together a petition for this:

http://chng.it/TMHvKgLQtD

Help us make Apple implement web push notifications, sign the petition!

Cmon Its now nearly may 2020 and still nothing on this.
4 companies I have worked with so have had to swap to android ( 5000+ internal mobiles) due to you not supporting what is pretty much a standard feature on all other devices and browsers. 

But hey if you want to keep loosing business just ignore us

[Stu K]

+1 would love to see this implemented

[Chris]

It's ridiculous that Apple won't allow progressive web apps to access push notifications on iOS devices. Many community websites need to send notifications to members, but their only option is to send email alerts since push notifications are not possible with iOS, and most people don't check email alerts these days the way they do push notifications. Native apps for websites don't get accepted in the the AppStore, so the websites have no options to develop an app to access push notifications for iOS. 

Developers will eventually start developing around iOS instead of for it. 

Sign the petition:
http://chng.it/bPhxvwTsVP

[Jonelle Mancilla]

http://chng.it/NqvKJFfMS8
It's 2020 and they still call apple a smartphone when it can't even handle web push. Apple doesn't want to support web push because they believe it will hurt their app store revenue.

[Billy Grados]

Any news?

[Acadiant]

Yes, please, now, web push notifications are the most important functional enhancement that could be added to webKit.

[Todd]

Yes please!  Proper PWA support is critical to me.  Notifications, pus messaging, and Bluetooth support would be my top 3 areas to support (in that order).  Thank you!

[Alex Moore]

This is the single biggest missing feature from PWAs.  At the moment we have to package our apps using capacitor so we can use the native push api which adds layers of complexity to what would otherwise be a simple deployment.

Please webkit team, we as developers been begging for this feature for years, can you push your product managers to get this prioritised

[Shermam Xavier Miranda]

+1 "This is the single biggest missing feature from PWAs." I can't wait to see this landing.

[MeysamMoghaddam]

we need Push Notifications in pwa Web App.

[MeysamMoghaddam]

Please support. We have been waiting for users to complain for a long time.
Background Sync is required to send a message to the users.

WebKit is the only platform that does not support web push notifications.
Please add this support.

Please add push notification feature.

Push notifications are a must in 2021.

[Mateusz Mańka]

Its a must for PWA development

[Ken Vanderbeken]

+1
Please add mobile push notifications!

[Thomas Steiner]

https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=231008 👀

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 231008 ***

[Jesper van den Ende]

Why was this marked as duplicate and not the other one?

[Thomas Steiner]

The new bug was opened by Youenn Fablet from Apple.

[youenn fablet]

Let's keep this one open to track the whole feature.

[Alex Moore]

Does this ticket relate to push notifications in iOS Safari?

[Stefan Sechelmann]

It does and we already have a bottle of champagne 🍾 ready once it lands.

[Max Sasism]

Upvote

[Brady Eidson]

(In reply to Alex Moore from comment #100)
> Does this ticket relate to push notifications in iOS Safari?

This bug is about the WebKit open source project.

[Alex Moore]

(In reply to Brady Eidson from comment #103)
> (In reply to Alex Moore from comment #100)
> > Does this ticket relate to push notifications in iOS Safari?
> 
> This bug is about the WebKit open source project.

Understood, but the majority of the developers following this ticket are 
using this as a proxy to track support progress of push notifications in Safari on iOS. Since the Safari issue tracker is not public this is the best we have.

[Ilya]

Please implement PWA push notifications! 
Everyone else has already done it but Apple. 
This is open for several years already and no communication about plans. 

This looks like Apple wants PWA to fail for as long as possible to control their Store. Telling that open web is supported but at the same time ignoring the only feature which makes PWA successful. 
Lots of projects don't choose PWA because this particular feature is absent on iPhone. 

Apple fails everyone around here! 

This is not user-friendly at all!

After so many years of silently ignoring this only needed functionality, it looks like that this is not an accident of absence of resources. 

Maybe it is a time to ask Tim Cook about this feature in a court? ;)
There is definitely something fishy going on here. 

Developers, please, push your managers! 
There is no better time than now, the time has come!

Webkit Team, 
come on, you can do better than that! Even Edge is supporting it ;)

[Lorenzo G.]

Created attachment 460189 [details]
ios16 support web push notifications

Finally!!!

iOS16 is going to support web push notifications (later 2023).

[Stefan Sechelmann]

They come late to the party. Hopefully they won’t leave too early 😉

[Brady Eidson]

WebKit has PushManager support.

Resolved.