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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

#231

Post by dragonwriter »

asadotzler wrote: post #227
LnxPrgr3 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention the effect of time. The Web is not a stable application environment, and you may get caught in limbo, where the old way to do something is technically deprecated, but only one browser implements the new scheme, and only in nightly builds and even then only if you launch with --please-segfault-hourly. But using the deprecated API means at some arbitrary point in the future your working code will stop wo…

The Web rarely deprecates features. Browsers still have to display the Web of 1995.

> The Web rarely deprecates features.

No, it rarely removes deprecated features.

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

#232

Post by wvenable »

jokoon wrote: post #229
wvenable wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we had started with a binary HTML format to start with, many of the progressive enhancements that made the web possible could not have happened.

Maybe. But maybe those progressive enhancements are not good ideas either. HTML just enabled to penetrate the microsoft platform. HTML was designed for static documents, not web apps.

So argument isn't so much that we should have binary HTML but we should actually just run Java* apps in a sandbox. I'd say there is merit to that argument and we'll probably get there the long way around. Perhaps webassembly will succeed where Java applets failed.

* Or your virtual platform of choice.

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

#233

Post by sportanova »

asimuvPR wrote: post #205
tracker1 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To your second point... many companies are only paying lip service to finding someone good... I price myself out of the majority of jobs I'm approached about, and consider myself in the top few percent on front end web development (JS in general).

What do you mean by lip service? :)

my guess would be that EVERY company only hires the best

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

#234

Post by grok2 »

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…

Keeping the app simple is one thing; but if you want it to also be a design standout, you want to tweak things to be just right and this is a time suck -- the thing he talks about where doing something on one browser to prettify things breaks things on another browser. Making a internal corporate CRUD app is one thing; but making a end-consumer app that appeals to users is an entirely different beast.

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

#235

Post by russelluresti »

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.

Because when you're browsing the web on your phone and you come to a page and you get a giant banner that says "HEY INSTALL OUR APP" what do you do? If you're 90% of the world, you hit the close button on that banner.

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

#236

Post by jaredcwhite »

This article might have had some resonance a couple of years ago. Today it's just not the reality. Mobile apps are running into major engagement issues. App Stores are loosing their value prop and running towards web-like SaaS pricing models (Apple's hand was basically forced here).

On the other hand, mobile web browsers are way better than they ever have been. Desire to maximize web performance instead of allowing bloatware JS and ad cruft is at all-time high of industry awareness. Many mobile apps are "hybrids" anyway. Basecamp 3's new mobile apps are good examples of how you can create a pretty solid experience with a sensible mix of native and web-based functionality.

In other words, the open web is actually in better shape now technologically than several years ago. If only the big VC-backed SV startups would see that instead of chasing their tails trying to grab app users' ever decreasing attention.

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

#237

Post by LnxPrgr3 »

asadotzler wrote: post #227
LnxPrgr3 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention the effect of time. The Web is not a stable application environment, and you may get caught in limbo, where the old way to do something is technically deprecated, but only one browser implements the new scheme, and only in nightly builds and even then only if you launch with --please-segfault-hourly. But using the deprecated API means at some arbitrary point in the future your working code will stop wo…

The Web rarely deprecates features. Browsers still have to display the Web of 1995.

How about the Web of 2012?

WebSockets changed wire formats multiple times before we settled on something. Last I checked, the API still isn't final, and changes in browser behavior forced a project I was on to abandon it for socket.io. Web Audio has been through at least one breaking rewrite since 2012, and still isn't finalized.

Sure, '' still gets me a big, bold heading (probably, subject to CSS), but playing a sound file without plugins is still bleeding edge, and subject to arbitrary breakage. But we've broken plugins (for the best, eventually), so the old solution to that problem no longer reliably works.

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

#238

Post by st3v3r »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #150

The author of the article ignores user experience: it is much nicer to use a web app than install yet another app. Personally I don't like installing web apps, even if they don't ask for a lot of permissions. Also re: notifications: I think most users don't like to be interupted by notifications.

User experience is generally much better in native apps than in websites, though. Native apps match the look and feel of the native platform, with all of the network and performance benefits that entails. Native apps can integrate with the platform to a degree that web apps just can't.

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

#239

Post by hutzlibu »

unicornporn wrote: post #119

VERY relevant article: https://govinsider.asia/smart-gov/why-britain-banned-mobile-... Ben Terrett was former head of design at the UK Government Digital Service and he wholehearted disagrees.

It's refreshing to hear so much competence from a part of a government ...

But about the disagreement: government-apps don't need to be bleeding-edge, like the one from the article. They just have to work without glamour. So 2007 works fine for them ...

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

#240

Post by donw »

I can speak with some knowledge of a not-insignificant B2C company -- not my current gig -- that went down this exact same route some years ago.

Swore off mobile web in favor of pushing people to the app, because app conversions were much higher.

A satellite office broke away from the fold and implemented a responsive mobile site, immediately increasing their bottom-line revenue by 30%... and that's before doing any sort of conversion optimization.

The main office followed suit shortly thereafter... with a new head of engineering.

Native apps are no easier or harder to build than web apps. Equivalent level of difficulty in my experience, with apps being slightly harder because end-to-end testing needs to be done almost completely manually, and because the release cycle is partially outside of your control.

But for most businesses, you really, really do not want to neglect the mobile web.

Yes, conversion for in-app users is broadly higher across the board. But that's not because conversions suddenly spike when people use an app. Rather, your most dedicated users -- the ones most likely to convert -- are the ones that will install an app.

For the rest of us, if it's "app or bust", we will pick "bust".

As a consumer, I deal on an annual basis with probably over a hundred different companies. I do not want an app for each of those companies. And if you force me to download an app from the get-go, I will go to your competition.

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