This is one thing - retaliation. Apple is removing PWAs as retaliation against the EU and this also helps them, think about it, as I said countless times, sideloading won't most likely be "install any application from anywhere" like a regular computer, it will be "you can install applications from 3rd party stores that will have to buy a certificate and sign their apps as well".

By removing PWAs Apple makes sure nobody can use them to circumvent their bullshit policies and allow users to create their own small applications like people have been doing for ever when they want to avoid publishing to the store. Just think about it, the level of performance that you can get with a PWA is more than enough for your run of the mill in-house tool / application and I've seem many companies going this route.

Arguably, two of the best Fediverse clients - Voyager (Lemmy) and Phanpy (Mastodon) are PWAs. While you can get Voyager from the App Store, Phanpy remains in pure PWA form only so this pretty much sucks.

What a stupid, shortsighted move. This is one case where they should have left the feature in, and dealt with the fallout later (if there even is any fallout).

…since the web apps are also based on Safari and WebKit, Apple may have opted to remove PWAs in the EU so that it wouldn’t be accused of further leveraging its own engine.

What I expect it to be. Basically, removing functionality to avoid possible legal conflict whilst simultaneously ‘proving a point’.

Be careful of what you ask for… the law of unintended consequences when politicians meddle in tech which they’re supremely unqualified to do.

I am most amused right now that people thought the EU “sticking it” to Apple was the end game. If you don’t like it buy android I guess.