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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

#101

Post by briandear »

j1vms wrote: post #80
tmaly wrote: post #2

I can totally relate to some of this. If you take a look at Meeker's 2016 Internet trends report that came out last week, you will see that 3 apps dominate 80% of the usage on phones. I decided when I started my food side project a year back, that I was not going to do a native app. I have been trying to make the front end look better, but I did not want to use very heavy frameworks, so I settled on using the SASS mi…

sass+bourbon.io (or similar combos like sass+compass) can help a TON with keep front-end dev costs down. Some apps do benefit a lot being native, but as others point out you throw in the middleman app-store model instead of just dealing with the browser, and keeping your UI simple, clean, efficient and of-course usable.

Agree, but have you ever built a responsive drag and drop document builder? Anytime you start getting into mobile-specific UX on a responsive web page, it often becomes and unpredictable mess. Parallax scrolling isn't the best example, but it is a good illustration. Parallax on mobile browsers historically has been pretty glitchy and horrible. When a similar kind of UX interaction that's actually a necessary part of the app is done in responsive, it's generally very hard.

Really the problem with mobile web seems to be JavaScript.

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

#102

Post by briandear »

j1vms wrote: post #80
tmaly wrote: post #2

I can totally relate to some of this. If you take a look at Meeker's 2016 Internet trends report that came out last week, you will see that 3 apps dominate 80% of the usage on phones. I decided when I started my food side project a year back, that I was not going to do a native app. I have been trying to make the front end look better, but I did not want to use very heavy frameworks, so I settled on using the SASS mi…

sass+bourbon.io (or similar combos like sass+compass) can help a TON with keep front-end dev costs down. Some apps do benefit a lot being native, but as others point out you throw in the middleman app-store model instead of just dealing with the browser, and keeping your UI simple, clean, efficient and of-course usable.

Agree, but have you ever built a responsive drag and drop document builder? Anytime you start getting into mobile-specific UX on a responsive web page, it often becomes and unpredictable mess. Parallax scrolling isn't the best example, but it is a good illustration. Parallax on mobile browsers historically has been pretty glitchy and horrible. When a similar kind of UX interaction that's actually a necessary part of the app is done in responsive, it's generally very hard.

Really the problem with mobile web seems to be JavaScript.

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

#103

Post by asimuvPR »

weego wrote: post #45
asimuvPR wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does make a couple of interesting points: 1. The cost of building an app can be calculated in the back of a napkin. The cost of a web app that works consistently across devices? Not so much. 2. The cost of building backend services has been commoditised to a degree. Front end web development? Its downright hard finding someone that can do good front end web work. 3. The reality that big companies (silos) will push…

If the idea of the cost of an android app is will it work fine on a Samsung galaxy 1 behind the current gen then sure a napkin will work. I feel like doing anything non trivial for Android with a wide target audience is not always any more reliable than the Web experience claimed in the article

Android definitely has issues. But its simpler than browsers. I'm not saying people should abandon browsers. Not at all. My point is that the browser gets treated poorly and web standards are simply ignored. Ultimately we end up with a web that is broken or missing.

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

#105

Post by dave2000 »

squeaky-clean wrote: post #87
hnal943 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Ehhh.... These examples seem really amateurish to me. You'll run into lots of issues developing for the web, sure, it's not perfect. Especially web "apps" that need to work cross-browser. But the listed problems stem from not understanding your platform, not problems inherent to the web itself. To make an analogy, it's like the equivalent writing a native app where input and UI rendering are handled by the same threa…

I thought the attraction of web development was that you just write something once and it works on all browsers. If you have to write it 8 times then what's the attraction?

Often people show me "tech demos", by which they apparently mean something you'd never bother to show anyone else if it was an app or a game, but because it's running in a browser window and because it doesn't look like yet another shitty website (because it has something that moves, or which you can interact with in some limited way) it's supposed to somehow impress me. I don't get it.

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

#106

Post by elliotec »

donatj wrote: post #66

I don't think that's remotely true if you keep the responsive web app simple. YNGNI and KISS and what not. I've been doing this for over ten years. In that time I've seen large web applications built for under 4k; I've also seen massively overbuilt simple applications go for 50k+. It comes down to often how needlessly complex you make the stack. If you stick with solid simple guaranteed tech instead of cutting edge y…

My favorite comment here. People are trying to resolve too many solved problems. Life is much smoother when you're not obsessively teetering on the bleeding edge.

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

#107

Post by joeyspn »

Comparing "responsive web apps" with native mobile apps? Really? What about cordova/phonegap/ionic?

Don't blame the web because you made a poor decision picking your tech stack (or hiring your devs). Nowadays a single webdev can ship OSX, Android and Windows apps with frameworks like Ionic... in weeks.

Starters (there are hundreds) help a lot: https://market.ionic.io/starters

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

#108

Post by adamqureshi »

JBReefer wrote: post #62
cjcenizal wrote: post #46

Pro-tip: You can make your article sound like it's been written by a grown-up if you find/replace all instances of the word "fucking" and "fuck" with "".

People also just speak differently. You're allowed to curse on the internet, and as someone who lives in Queens, I honestly have trouble speaking without cursing. It feels kind of stilted and overly proper. Language is fluid and evolves.

Fo-Realz...LOL

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

#109

Post by tonyle »

I wonder if multiple native app is still cheaper than maintaining multiple different web builds.

Reminds me of this library I stumbled across.

http://www.zebkit.com/

People either respond with this is cool or your going against the web when I told them about it.

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

#110

Post by emdd »

pboutros wrote: post #5
dang wrote: post #3

Although a rant, this is also pretty substantive. We've replaced the baity title with a representative sentence from the article in the hope that commenters will follow suit.

The fact that you go to this effort is why I love HN.

If only we could get notifications for replies & a decent mobile app existed.
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