Re: [w3c/manifest] Reflect the application context in the `display-mode` media feature (PR #1218)

cmzz left a comment (w3c/manifest#1218)

I maintain [[openpwa.net](https://openpwa.net/)](https://openpwa.net), where I track PWA compatibility across browsers. There's another compatibility issue worth highlighting here.

Firefox 143+ on Windows uses `displayMode = "minimal-ui"` for its taskbar web apps, switching back to `"browser"` when the app is opened as a regular tab. This means `(display-mode: standalone)` returns false even when the site is running as an installed web app.

On iOS 26+, websites added to the Home Screen now open as web apps by default, even without a manifest. But detecting that context still relies on platform-specific behavior like `navigator.standalone`.

So developers can't simply check `(display-mode: standalone)` to determine whether a site is running as an app. They need to account for multiple display modes and browser-specific differences.

I think the underlying issue is that **we're using display modes to detect application context**, even though these are two different things.

A single `application` value, independent of how the app is displayed, would make this much simpler and more consistent across browsers.

I've documented the Firefox behavior and implementation details here:

https://openpwa.net/reference/platforms/firefox-taskbar-web-apps/

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