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It’s cheaper to build multiple native applications than one responsive web app

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Re: It’s cheaper to build multiple native applications than one responsive web app

#91

Post by Someone1234 »

rhizome wrote: post #68
kurttheviking wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Consistent rendering size across browsers? Just fuck off." > This is probably your fault. As someone who has spent an embarrassing amount of time debugging kerning differences, line spacing, and obscure letter size differences across IE/Firefox/Chrome I can enthusiastically say, it might be his fault but I doubt it. Different browsers do things differently and in cases where things must be the same, this is an exp…

Can't a UI be designed such that minor fontsize differences aren't a disaster?

Yes. But the article paints the picture that these weren't minor font size differences.

Re: It’s cheaper to build multiple native applications than one responsive web app

#92

Post by mikeryan »

wvenable wrote: post #74
mikeryan wrote: post #17

One app for iOS, one for Android, and I got over 90% consumer coverage However with a huge friction point of requiring users to download and install an app.

I don't understand why people think this is a huge friction point. Installing apps is comfortable, familiar, and easy for people. By comparison, finding a mobile web application in the browser on a phone has significantly more friction.

I might of not been clear, but my intent with the comment was to encompass the entirety of friction points involved in getting an app installed on a user's device, from discoverability on down.

Re: It’s cheaper to build multiple native applications than one responsive web app

#93

Post by legulere »

padseeker wrote: post #34

I understand and empathize with the author's aggravation. But cheaper? Really? So iOs and Android are more than 90% of the market. You are telling me that it is cheaper to build and maintain 2 separate apps and pass on the remaining part of the market than have one app that covers everything? Android device support is supposed to be a nightmare - there are so many versions to contend with, each device manufacturer ca…

> So iOs and Android are more than 90% of the market.

98.4% http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3215217

I think it's pretty reasonable to pass on the remaining 1.6%, especially as those probably aren't your target audience anyway.

Re: It’s cheaper to build multiple native applications than one responsive web app

#94

Post by takno »

xenadu02 wrote: post #83
zghst wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that it's ES6 that's holding them back, there's Babel to fix that, I think it's all the browser vendors and the varying level of standards, different bugs and behaviors on every browser platform, plus there's features on Native platforms that are nearly impossible to replicate on the web. For instance `backdrop-filter`/iOS 7 like blurring wasn't possible on the web until Webkit implemented it, a year la…

And for good reason. I don't want random websites burning my battery for their "oh so important" background tasks.

This seems like a misunderstanding of the tech. Service workers can really only fire up when they get a push notification, which you have to explicitly opt into, or when the page is running in the browser.

The processing allowed is tightly controlled, and even with permission the push notification can't do anything behind your back - it has to result in a visible notification which will alert you that there's something you want to disable.

Re: It’s cheaper to build multiple native applications than one responsive web app

#95

Post by jflatow »

'www' should stand for wild, wild, web. In many ways, the web is a technology frontier, with all the frustration and liberation that goes along with it.

I sympathize with the author. The problem is trying to tame the web, as opposed to embracing it for what it is.

Re: It’s cheaper to build multiple native applications than one responsive web app

#97

Post by pdonis »

sawthat wrote: post #7

(note: I've met Eran a few times, he is very smart and I respect his opinion) Note aside: this is one of those "it really depends" kind of situations. For many cases native apps are always going to be cheaper to build. For others the web is just much better. It seems like the problem Eran is describing is more of a labor shortage. It's really, really difficult to hire good web developers. I have no idea why this is.

> It's really, really difficult to hire good web developers. I have no idea why this is.

The obvious answer is the one given in the article: Google, Facebook, etc. can afford to pay good web developers far more than a small business.

Re: It’s cheaper to build multiple native applications than one responsive web app

#98

Post by diminish »

54mf wrote: post #23

"You want mobile notifications? Sure, but not on mobile Safari." You can do this with PhoneGap. "Multiple line ellipsis? Sure, but only on webkit." Okay, yeah, this sucks. "Consistent rendering size across browsers? Just fuck off." This is probably your fault. "We fix a layout bug on Safari and break something on Edge." This is probably your fault. "We change font size on Chrome and now all you can see on Firefox is…

>> TL;DR: "We tried to make a responsive web app act like a native app and it didn't work because it doesn't work, and that makes me a grumpy goose."

The first wave of designers who targeted print had the same trouble native app designers had and ended up building big blobs of flash applications.

Native app devs moving the responsive web route face similar troubles. I guess they can alleviate most of the cross platform, multiple screen and accessibility compatibility by relying on a framework.

In the mean a lot of native apps lack support for accessibility, multiple font sizes, and color schemes, ability of bookmarking a certain screen, ability of moving back and forth between screens, ability to open multiple pages (or screens) at the same time, better caching when mobile and offline, a way to hyper link within or across apps, support for various screen sizes from large to very small. So it could be better the native-to-web refugee to focus on the advantages of the plain old web which apps lacked.

Re: It’s cheaper to build multiple native applications than one responsive web app

#99

Post by dave2000 »

hnal943 wrote: post #35
54mf wrote: post #23

"You want mobile notifications? Sure, but not on mobile Safari." You can do this with PhoneGap. "Multiple line ellipsis? Sure, but only on webkit." Okay, yeah, this sucks. "Consistent rendering size across browsers? Just fuck off." This is probably your fault. "We fix a layout bug on Safari and break something on Edge." This is probably your fault. "We change font size on Chrome and now all you can see on Firefox is…

This is probably your fault That's the point of the article. Getting these things right on the web is non-trivial (and therefore expensive).

That's because the web is a terrible platform to develop for - because it's essentially a text-with-graphics platform with about 20 million different extensions, standards and so on to deal with. So the choices are:

1) deal with it 2) pick a better platform 3) try and come up with a new platform which is broswer-like but where there is predictable, obvious behaviour on multiple implementations of the platform, and where the platform supports, out of the box, all the sorts of functionality you'd like for a modern app. If your platform is missing any of the APIs you have available on, say, Android or ios you're going to struggle to make a web app as rich as, say, google maps, or whatever.

I'd for for 3 but I guess it's hard because all the people who care are too busy trying to keep up with which framework to use, or centering text, or whatever.

Re: It’s cheaper to build multiple native applications than one responsive web app

#100

Post by MichaelGG »

kurttheviking wrote: post #61
54mf wrote: post #23

"You want mobile notifications? Sure, but not on mobile Safari." You can do this with PhoneGap. "Multiple line ellipsis? Sure, but only on webkit." Okay, yeah, this sucks. "Consistent rendering size across browsers? Just fuck off." This is probably your fault. "We fix a layout bug on Safari and break something on Edge." This is probably your fault. "We change font size on Chrome and now all you can see on Firefox is…

> "Consistent rendering size across browsers? Just fuck off." > This is probably your fault. As someone who has spent an embarrassing amount of time debugging kerning differences, line spacing, and obscure letter size differences across IE/Firefox/Chrome I can enthusiastically say, it might be his fault but I doubt it. Different browsers do things differently and in cases where things must be the same, this is an exp…

For a while, Firefox mobile would render different parts of HN's text in different sizes. At first I thought it was a mobile-only feature, but that would be odd for HN to do. Nope, turns out it was a Firefox table-something layout font issue. Seems fixed as of, perhaps 6 months ago?

Searching around also finds this answer pointing to a now-dead link saying Chrome used to have known issues with "consistent" fonts on sites like Reddit.

http://stackoverflow.com/a/19988987/27012

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