They also claim Apple's push notifications are still pants.

Europe's Digital Markets Act was supposed to change that -- to help competition against the gatekeepers.

But Apple, in a move critics have slammed as "malicious compliance, " seems to be making web apps even worse while claiming to follow European law.

In the second beta of iOS 17.4, which has code to follow Europe's Digital Markets Act, Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) have been downgraded from proper apps that use the whole screen to shortcuts that open in the browser. This only affects users in the EU. Worries about this downgrade of PWAs came up earlier this month with the first beta of iOS 17.4.

Open Web Advocacy -- a group that has fought to improve the web platform, said: "Sites added to the home screen failed to start in their top-level activities, opening in Safari instead."