I don't have any sympathy for a site that purposely cripples the web mobile site to force you to install their app. They lock you out of pictures after around 20 so you have to go to desktop or install their crappy app. Yelp will not be missed.
just curious why you're against downloading the app? I work on native apps and just wondering why you have a preference for mobile web.
Far too many examples of companies making perfectly functional websites for mobile for me to believe an app is necessary for anything.
I don't have any sympathy for a site that purposely cripples the web mobile site to force you to install their app. They lock you out of pictures after around 20 so you have to go to desktop or install their crappy app. Yelp will not be missed.
I think one of the most interesting/telling user experience things in the industry today is why people feel so strongly about not installing apps. It seems like it spans most people, from novice users all the way to technology experts. Personally, I've never understood it, since nearly every mobile website is terrible. I prefer installing the app. Seems like a key problem for mobile OS vendors to solve. If you don't…
Re. strong feelings about not installing apps:
Speaking from the experience of my spouse (fancy iPhone user) and I (low-end Android user) -- both our phones are normally out of memory. We take lots of family photos and videos, which fill up our phones and are tedious to delete or back up. So downloading a new app means first we have to delete something else.
A secondary but lesser reason is notifications. I know that every app will require a minute or two of effort to locate the notification settings and switch them all off.
The problem is even now Yelp is probably the best resource out there for finding new restaurants but I find Yelp poorly run. There is no innovation, the UI hasn’t been updated or changed since the first release. They have so much potential, for example, they should have been the leaders in delivery and should have provided the api for Uber eats. They just don’t do anything outside of maintaining the servers for their…
What you are describing sounds like a lot of work for not much payoff, and that's not what you pursue once you IPO. Yelp just became yet another "we sell ads" company, and that's not surprising considering that it was basically an online directory with reviews.
Good. The Yelp app/site is basically the same it was 5 years ago. Rather than innovate they chose to: - Opt for the shakedown/extortion method of ranking sites (those that advertised with Yelp rank higher, negative reviews can mysteriously disappear for advertisers) - Whine to regulators about Google is stealing content from them (by, you know, serving a snippet of content that Yelp allows to be scraped). - Harass us…
Kind of an aside to your points, but I opened Yelp on my iPod Touch (first gen) and was flabbergasted to see that despite being un-updated and on an ancient version of iOS, the app still worked! This is pretty amazing, given that most companies' API endpoints from ten years ago don't still work today :)
Good. The Yelp app/site is basically the same it was 5 years ago. Rather than innovate they chose to: - Opt for the shakedown/extortion method of ranking sites (those that advertised with Yelp rank higher, negative reviews can mysteriously disappear for advertisers) - Whine to regulators about Google is stealing content from them (by, you know, serving a snippet of content that Yelp allows to be scraped). - Harass us…
Actually, I would say Yelp is far worse than it was 5 years ago. Not sure how much fault it is of Yelp's, but reviews aren't really worth as much today as they were in Yelp's early days.
This might not be helpful, but I decided to rely on serendipity. Sometimes I feel like we think too much about finding the best of the 'best' and we rely on expert opinions of the crowd instead of taking a chance ourselves and trying out new things.
yes.. and what's the url for this "serendipity" you speak of?
Yelp is an unscrupulous business, however, I do find it useful. I don't read the reviews but I enjoy looking at pictures of food before choosing a restaurant.
Let's also call out Venmo and Google Pay (nee Google Wallet) in this hall of shame, both of which removed the ability to send and receive funds from their website (both mobile and desktop) in favor of strongarming you into installing the app to do so (get bent if you don't have a smartphone, I guess?). It would seem that "entering a number into a form" is a feature that is too sophisticated for the web platform to pr…
> Let's also call out Venmo and Google Pay (nee Google Wallet) in this hall of shame, both of which removed the ability to send and receive funds from their website (both mobile and desktop) in favor of strongarming you into installing the app to do so (get bent if you don't have a smartphone, I guess?). Er, just checked and the Google Pay Send and Request money feature is accessible from both mobile and desktop site…
I'm simply citing this email from Google themselves that I received in July, telling me that "To keep sending or requesting money, you’ll need to use the Google Pay app." This was within a month of receiving an email from Venmo telling me that "Venmo is phasing out some of the functionality on the Venmo.com website over the coming months. We are beginning to remove the ability to pay and charge someone on Venmo.com. Over time, you may see less functionality on our website." If Google has reversed course on that plan I'd be quite happy because it's totally baffling, but for all I know they're just taking their time with it like Venmo is. In the meantime, I went back to paying friends with cash and checks.
Mobile browsers should differentiate the style of links with URLs that resolve to apps. I am tired of tapping links expecting to remain in Safari and having useless “open in app?” prompts instead. I’m not IN an app, I’m in a browser; I want to use the browser. And when cancelling the prompt gets you nothing, it really feels like Yelp is screaming “NO SOUP FOR YOU!”.
Reddit keeps asking me if I want to download their app or Open in Safari... regardless of which browser I’m using. Not every iOS user is using Safari!!!!
This is such an incredibly irritating feature. Fwiw, if you're logged in, you can turn it off with an account preference toggle.