Google broke promises again. Quelle surprise!
https://open-web-advocacy.org/blog/google-must-share-the-ability-to-install-web-apps-in-android/
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3TL;DR: You still can't easily install WebAPKs on de-googled Android phones or from browsers other than Chrome, so your Web apps can't use essential features like e.g. being integrated into the system's share dialog as a share target.
@raucao Moz Corp bungling the browser-engine-based-app-runtime-for-desktop situation (underinvesting in and then killing XULRunner, the pre-Electron Electron alternative) was a huge screwup, but nothing quite as bad as the quality of decisionmaking that conceived of—and doomed—FirefoxOS.
@raucao Mozilla's mobile OS should have been stock Android with Firefox pre-installed (that you can get on real hardware)
… evolved into "that, plus these other experiments for first-class apps written in JS that we'll stick with, rev, or abandon depending on whether it all works out" (i.e. something resembling what FirefoxOS promised)
… evolved into "stock Android with sane defaults, like Firefox pre-installed, that you can get on real hardware, minus the anti-sideloading posture".
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3@colby How does any of this relate to Google hampering system integration of PWAs in Android when not installed via Google products?
@raucao article explains "Google promised to share this [system to install Web Apps that integrate well with the system] with third-party browser vendors" but hasn't followed through.
In a healthy and robust mobile ecosystem where a Mozilla-like org (read: multi-vendor coalition) is a major force providing a viable de-Googled Android and can be relied on to do the fair, reasonable thing contra Google's self-serving/unpopular decisions re Android, no one would need to rely on such promises.
@colby And you expect an organization that was mostly reliant on Google's money at the time to antagonize Google by hardforking Android, in order to invite all of Google's competitors to create their own alternative project from it? Seems unrealistic to me.
I think Mozilla's bet was on the Web platform being open enough to somehow improve the situation without having to do just that.
Not saying that FirefoxOS was managed exceptionally well, but the blame should probably go to Samsung et al.