[manifest] About Installations: API vs Signals — ¿case for Desktop-only API? (#359)

I understand there's a current consensus of removing the API for "installing" web-apps to avoid the imminent proliferation of "INSTALL ME" banners and similar things, so on Mobile the focus is now on signals or heuristic for the browser to decide when to offer the "Install" option.

However, could there still be a case for programmatic access, *at least on Desktop*?

Just as a very young example, Facebook released a Web-app for Messenger yesterday. Just a couple of hours later, there were already at least 2 open-source "native wrappers" for it. It makes sense for *some* **desktop** web-apps to live a standalone apps, messaging/chat apps (like FB Messenger, Slack, Telegram) just being some of them. And clearly there's an audience who appreciates having a standalone version of these web-apps on their desktops. For those, an "Install" button would be sweet, and it would eliminate the "need" of these wrappers, or apps like Fluid on Mac.

What do you think?

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Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub:
https://github.com/w3c/manifest/issues/359