I built a progressive web app and published it in three app stores • Hacker News Board

Re: I built a progressive web app and published it in three app stores

#211

Post by jessaustin » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 8:02 PM UTC

curun1r wrote: post #103

notyourday wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a random garbage company that is stuck in early nineties. It preys on stupid first time company owners whom it sells its credit builder for business services. That's the entire business model. Edit: Can't respond due to rate limit - 40k/year from 1000 companies is nothing compared to $199/mo and more from credit builder from every Jack and Jill with a DBA, LLC or Inc.

> That's the entire business model. Umm...that's comically wrong. The fortune-500 company I worked for paid more than $40k/yr to license their data and update it monthly. Given the description of how Apple is using it, they're probably paying six figures per year. Neither of our companies were buying credit builder services.

Old-n-busted companies pay through the nose for old-n-busted services. Film at 11.

Re: I built a progressive web app and published it in three app stores

#212

Post by saagarjha » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 8:04 PM UTC

littlestymaar wrote: post #182

shinratdr wrote: post #39

From a user perspective, this is why I love iOS. * Barrier to entry. If your project is more than a hobby, you can jump through a couple hoops to reach the iOS userbase. If the difference between $99 and $25 is make-or-break, you're probably trying to publish a hobby/low quality app anyways. There is a reason the Microsoft Store and Google Play are absolutely filled with trash, and this is part of it. * Forcing you t…

> Everyone else wants native apps back, even if they don't know it. Case and point: the hatred for all the apps moving to Electron and the ridiculous amount of resources they consume. The main complain people have with electron, is its heaviness. You ship a whole browser just for your tiny app. If every electron instance was using the same library & the same process (esp. the same JavaScript VM), most of the trouble…

> The main complain people have with electron, is its heaviness. You ship a whole browser just for your tiny app. If every electron instance was using the same library & the same process (esp. the same JavaScript VM), most of the trouble would go away.

Among other things, such as lack of accessibility, a UI that looks out-of-place on the platform, and general lack of refinement.

> Most people hate UI changes, and the new skype brings a lot of it! On a technical point of view, the new Skype is quite ok, it's not like the old ones were especially good either …

I'm still running Skype 7.59 because it's not a RAM hog and looks a lot nicer than Skype 8. The new Skype is significantly worse.

Re: I built a progressive web app and published it in three app stores

#213

Post by saagarjha » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 8:04 PM UTC

earenndil wrote: post #141

christocracy wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>requiring a Mac No kidding. If you hope to develop apps for iOS, you better have a machine with the corresponding build tools. I make a number of Cordova plugins. Many devs without a Mac often use PhoneGap Build as their dev build service. The turn-around to make a code-change and see the result must be about 60s.

But apple could provide an ios sdk for linux or windows.

Not going to happen

Re: I built a progressive web app and published it in three app stores

#214

Post by scarface74 » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 8:06 PM UTC

evv wrote: post #192

scarface74 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want a native app, use native tools for each platform to create the best user experience.

This is effectively asking to double the size of the engineering team, or slow it down dramatically. If I were a startup or small business, I'd rather ship a slightly slow-feeling app with my existing team of web developers who already know their tools, than to hire a bunch of native developers and somehow get them all on the same page.

Yes. I'm asking a business that want to provide a native client to provide a native client.

If it can be done as a web app why not do it as a web app?

Yes I am a developer and for products that are suited to be on the web, I write websites.

Re: I built a progressive web app and published it in three app stores

#215

Post by saagarjha » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 8:06 PM UTC

chrisweekly wrote: post #165

shinratdr wrote: post #39

From a user perspective, this is why I love iOS. * Barrier to entry. If your project is more than a hobby, you can jump through a couple hoops to reach the iOS userbase. If the difference between $99 and $25 is make-or-break, you're probably trying to publish a hobby/low quality app anyways. There is a reason the Microsoft Store and Google Play are absolutely filled with trash, and this is part of it. * Forcing you t…

You might be applying your anti-Electron arguments a bit too broadly. PWA is not that easy, but the UX friction involved with downloading and installing native mobile apps is abysmal. Electron is (arguably) a shortcut for desktop apps, putting webdev convenience above UX. Whereas PWA is all about improving UX, and is also typically (in practice) more relevant to mobile than desktop.

> the UX friction involved with downloading and installing native mobile apps is abysmal

Where were you ten years ago? Remember installing software on Windows?

> Whereas PWA is all about improving UX

But it doesn't improve UX.

Re: I built a progressive web app and published it in three app stores

#216

Post by saagarjha » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 8:08 PM UTC

jsgo wrote: post #121

shinratdr wrote: post #39

From a user perspective, this is why I love iOS. * Barrier to entry. If your project is more than a hobby, you can jump through a couple hoops to reach the iOS userbase. If the difference between $99 and $25 is make-or-break, you're probably trying to publish a hobby/low quality app anyways. There is a reason the Microsoft Store and Google Play are absolutely filled with trash, and this is part of it. * Forcing you t…

As someone who is both, there are times where you'd like to create a quick web application to do a task that is either very specific to one's needs or only needed for a brief period of time rather than going wholesale application development. In this particular user's case, they just need some API features accessible to web and they'd be golden. As a user, if I have the ability to approve and later revoke the permiss…

> they just need some API features accessible to web and they'd be golden

But now you have every single website asking for permission to use the microphone and camera and accelerometer or battery sensor. Every time some sort of device hardware is exposed to web applications, it needs to be rolled back in some way or the other because someone's found a way to use for fingerprinting.

Re: I built a progressive web app and published it in three app stores

#217

Post by mankash666 » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 8:08 PM UTC

shinratdr wrote: post #39

From a user perspective, this is why I love iOS. * Barrier to entry. If your project is more than a hobby, you can jump through a couple hoops to reach the iOS userbase. If the difference between $99 and $25 is make-or-break, you're probably trying to publish a hobby/low quality app anyways. There is a reason the Microsoft Store and Google Play are absolutely filled with trash, and this is part of it. * Forcing you t…

Gosh darn the cognitive dissonance!! The free market and users are completely capable of choosing quality apps, iOS/Apple needn't babysit, nay play brainwashing big-brother-evil-megacorp strangling competition/dissent, them in the process.

"If your project is more than a hobby, you ...."

Yes yes - if you're serious about your project, you'll willfully submit yourself to anal-probes by monopolistic mega-corporation that has inserted itself as the gatekeeper to running software on one's own legally owned hardware - which, in the history of computing, is a first.

When was the last time you let your refrigerator manufacturer tell you what items are allowed in your OWN FUCKING refrigerator? Why is different for iOS/Apple?

Re: I built a progressive web app and published it in three app stores

#218

Post by scarface74 » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 8:10 PM UTC

judah wrote: post #203

scarface74 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well actually no. Mobile destroyed Flash and Silverlight and all of the complex apps that were moved to mobile went native - like Netflix.

You're right that mobile did help kill plugins. But that was the final blow; HTML5 had already disrupted native apps on desktop OS for a few years, and as browsers picked up HTML5 support, there was almost no need for plugins. (I say this with first-hand knowledge: several years ago when plugins were still common, I gave the final talk to a Silverlight user group in Minneapolis, in which I told the crowd there was si…

The original iPhone cams out in 2007. Flash and Silverlight was still big.

As late as 2010, Apple was still getting beat up about the iPad not supporting Flash.

HTML 5 was not popular a "few years before 2007". Android users were still touting being able to (barely) use Flash as late as 2010.

It also wasn't "open jtechnologies" that caused Windows to be less relevant. Windows still commands 85-90% plus of the desktop. Mobile caused the desktop to be less relevant.

Re: I built a progressive web app and published it in three app stores

#219

Post by saagarjha » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 8:11 PM UTC

notriddle wrote: post #177

curun1r wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you've discovered his point. The advantage that you describe makes the developer's job easier, not the user's. If you're an iOS user, where the monetary incentive is there for developers to invest the time to build you a native app, you don't care whether that imposes a greater hardship on the developer, because you're not the one affected. You've become accustomed to developers building something specificall…

As a user, I appreciate web apps because: 1. Web apps typically work everywhere, including on my Android phone, on my Windows machine, on my mom's Mac, and on Linux when I used to use it as my primary desktop platform. I know this without having to look up a compatibility table because I opened it in my browser, and other than mobile-version/desktop-version, web apps work the same way everywhere. Native apps are ofte…

> I know how to share web apps with my mom by texting her a link. Even if your native app has a share button, it's in a different place in different apps instead of just "click the address bar and hit Ctrl-C".

On macOS and iOS you iMessage her the App Store link.

> Web apps almost always work with my browser's password manager, ad blocker, and stuff. Native apps are more of a crapshoot there.

And they do this on iOS as well, as long as you use Apple's password manager and ad blocker.

Re: I built a progressive web app and published it in three app stores

#220

Post by saagarjha » Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 8:16 PM UTC

Silhouette wrote: post #135

briandear wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You AREN’T making things better for your users — you aren’t making things better for you.

Your comment doesn't make sense, but even if it did, you don't have enough information about what we do to make any intelligent judgement and you're just being unnecessarily aggressive and hostile. Please stop doing that.

> Your comment doesn't make sense

Really? Does the argument that you're saving on development time by not writing a native app for your users, which gives them a subpar experience, not "make sense"?

> you don't have enough information about what we do to make any intelligent judgement

You're coming off as "you don't know me, don't judge". If this is how you feel, maybe you could share more information about what you do rather than trying to shut down the discussion?