Installing the TMC PWA (Progressive Web App) on your mobile device

We will be shutting down our native TMC iOS and Android apps soon. As such, I wanted to take this opportunity to encourage users to install our PWA for both iOS and Android (the iOS PWA is actually necessary in order to receive push notifications on iOS).

iOS PWA Installation:​

You can install TMC as a PWA on your iOS device by utilizing the Add to Home Screen feature in Safari. Instructions for this can be found on the following Apple support page: Bookmark a website in Safari on iPhone​

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iOS Push Notifications:​

iOS 16.4 finally introduced push notifications for iOS devices. To facilitate this, you should first make sure that notifications are turned on in your Safari advanced settings. This can be done using the following steps:​

1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone​
2. Scroll down and find Safari, and tap on it​
3. Scroll down to the bottom and tap advanced​
4. Tap on Webkit Feature Flags (also called Experimental Webkit Features on some versions of iOS)​
5. Scroll down and turn on the toggle beside "Notifications".​

Here is a video which shows this process.​

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Then you need to install the TMC PWA (instructions in the section above). When you access the PWA and log in, you should be presented with a prompt that says "TMC would like your permission to enable push notifications". You will be able to click on the "enable push notifications". If you do not see that prompt, then push notifications can also be enabled in your TMC account Preferences. You should then be presented with the default iOS prompt for notifications wherein you can "Allow Notifications" for TMC. If you don't see that, then go into your iOS Settings and tap on the Notifications submenu, then tap on the TMC PWA app listed there, and make sure "Allow Notifications" is turned on for the TMC PWA. There may be some additional options there that you can configure there if you like.​

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Android and Chrome on desktop PWA Installation:​

When browsing with Chrome on desktop or Android, the app can be installed via the address bar on both mobile and desktop devices. On supported mobile devices, we also display an "Install" button at the bottom of the off-canvas menu, which is accessed by clicking the hamburger menu icon on the bottom right of your mobile navbar (on our default style).​

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Android and Chrome on desktop Push Notifications:​

On most devices running Chrome, you will be presented with a banner at the bottom of the screen which says "Tesla Motors Club would like your permission to enable push notifications." You can tap on the clickable area to turn it on. Alternatively, you can go directly to your TMC account Preferences and enable it there. After one of the mentioned steps, Chrome may also present you with a browser permission popup asking if you would like to "Allow" TMC to send you push notifications.​

Once the app is installed, it is readily available in exactly the same way as a native app. On mobile devices, that means it can be opened via an icon on the home screen. On desktop devices, it can be opened by searching your system or even pinning the app to your taskbar or dock.

For most devices, we set the app to display a minimal interface. The elements of this interface also vary by browser, but most importantly include navigation controls, including pull down to refresh, and in some cases a floating back button.

Chrome-based apps support application badging, which allows the app to indicate unread messages or alerts directly on its icon.

Please let us know if you have any questions.

 

[Jones1]

App needs to come back. The PWA sucks

 

[Jones1]

@danny are you getting the notifications for this thread?

 

[StephenBrown2]

@danny are you getting the notifications for this thread?

I am, but it's just like the app, where I only get one for a new post, and if I don't check it I don't get further updates.

 

[Electroman]

I find the PWA just as good (or bad) as the native app. No difference. In some ways it is actually better than the iPhone native App

 

[Jones1]

I find the PWA just as good (or bad) as the native app. No difference. In some ways it is actually better than the iPhone native App

Ain’t No Way.


It took me 45 minutes. Just to see this and respond. Ask around in other Threads. Everyone is having problems. I have an iPhone 15 Max Pro and a Pixel Fold. Same problem.

 

[DrewHou]

Agreed the PWA is way worse. Maybe it’s a site problem idk but it’s constantly freezing I.e responding here just now it froze on me twice. Notifications never seem to come through. I have to ever so many days go to settings and disable/re-enable notifications for them to send again. I miss the app. It wasn’t perfect but it was more reliable.

 

[DrewHou]

Another thing I have had issues with lately is when I click anything like next page, notification, like, it freezes so I tap again and then finally it registers.

 

[Jones1]

It’s Freezing like Twitter 2.0.

 

[Jones1]

A lot of time you get this.

 

[Jones1]

 

[Jones1]

Charge for the App.

 

[brkaus]

Strange, I haven’t had any problems.

Clearly you have.

 

[DrewHou]

View attachment 1047942View attachment 1047942

Having all these same issues

 

[doug]

I tweaked some overall performance things. Not directly related to the PWA, but might have helped there too.

 

[danny]

Agreed the PWA is way worse. Maybe it’s a site problem idk but it’s constantly freezing I.e responding here just now it froze on me twice. Notifications never seem to come through. I have to ever so many days go to settings and disable/re-enable notifications for them to send again. I miss the app. It wasn’t perfect but it was more reliable.

I don't think the issues you are describing have anything to do with the PWA vs the app. I think we were having some issues that last few days, but @doug has fixed some of them. The PWA is literally the same as using the website in a mobile browser tab, so there shouldn't be any performance differences versus normal use within a browser of the website.

When we have the native app available, the main complaint that we saw was users describing it as slow, which kind of negated the whole purpose of a native app. In my own personal use, I sadly found the PWA to be more predictable and snappier than the native app.

Charge for the App.

@Jones1 I appreciate your preference for the native app. As mentioned above, some of the performance issues should be better now. Regarding bringing the native app back, that wouldn't be that hard to do, and sure, we could charge for it, but we just don't believe we would have anywhere near the number of users necessary to justify the expense and trouble that come along with it. We could start a pole or petition to see what kind of interest there is, however we haven't bothered with that, we haven't seen any indication that it is more than a couple people here or there.

 

[Jones1]

Thank you guys.
Charge $1 per year for the app.
Or $1.99

 

[DrewHou]

I don't think the issues you are describing have anything to do with the PWA vs the app.

That’s spot on. Since you said that I tried to just open the website on safari on my phone and same issues. Things freezing the menu bar not staying at the bottom and covering text. Needing to refresh the page to fix it. So I guess the issues are with the site and not just the PWA. I just wish I could get notifications of messages and replies consistently like I used to with the app.

I work in the cloud computing space and while I get the reasoning and simplicity of PWAs, I hate them with a passion when it comes to notification delivery. Haven’t seen a PWA work consistently yet.

 

[Jones1]

That’s spot on. Since you said that I tried to just open the website on safari on my phone and same issues. Things freezing the menu bar not staying at the bottom and covering text. Needing to refresh the page to fix it. So I guess the issues are with the site and not just the PWA. I just wish I could get notifications of messages and replies consistently like I used to with the app.

I work in the cloud computing space and while I get the reasoning and simplicity of PWAs, I hate them with a passion when it comes to notification delivery. Haven’t seen a PWA work consistently yet.

Yes. My Job. Uses a PWA. They tell everyone it’s an app. We have a few people that don’t know the difference. Because it is controlled or managed device. The people that don’t know. Complain about the app not working. The people that do know. Tell our higher ups. To just make a Real app.

 

[DrewHou]

Yes. My Job. Uses a PWA. They tell everyone it’s an app. We have a few people that don’t know the difference. Because it is controlled or managed device. The people that don’t know. Complain about the app not working. The people that do know. Tell our higher ups. To just make a Real app.

10 years of working on the ChromeOS team for Education/Enterprise and now working on ChromeOS at a startup, PWAs have been a big deal. Most companies switching over get told oh there is zero difference between an app and a PWA… then they start using PWAs and it’s a whole mess. Everything you just described is exactly what happens. Employees don’t know the “app” isn’t an app they just know it doesn’t work right haha.

I wonder if the issues I am having is being caused by my adblocker since others do not seem to have issues.

 

[Electroman]

Haven't had any issues in PWA mentioned above by a few posters. I find the notification logic in PWA much better than what we had in the App.

Whatever performance issues I have seen occasionally in PWA, I see the same on desktop browsers too. And that too only recently. So those issues are not PWA specific

I was the one who was very vocal in expressing my disappointment when TMC stopped supporting Tapatalk - I still think that Tapatalk iPhone App was leagues better than anything we have had since then. I was also initially disappointed with the cancellation of TMC native app, but now I believe the PWA is just as good or even better than the native app. No complaints.

And I use TMC everyday..