Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App
1–10 of 587 posts
Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App
#2Given the fact that most people are already maxed out on apps on their device with just things like facebook and youtube, you're going to be hard pressed to get people to install your app just to try it out. With a progressive web app if they like your app they can add it to their device home screen without installing via the app store and without using up space on their device. Also don't need to pay Apple $100 a year but you have the same benefits as a native app. Now with wasm you can even include native performance from a progressive web app.
Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App
#3Given the fact that most people are already maxed out on apps on their device with just things like facebook and youtube, you're going to be hard pressed to get people to install your app just to try it out. With a progressive web app if they like your app they can add it to their device home screen without installing via the app store and without using up space on their device. Also don't need to pay Apple $100 a ye…
On iOS you won’t get notifications or be able to run anything in the background.
But if you are trying to start a business and the $100 a year you would have to pay to distribute your app will make or break you, you have bigger issues.
Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App
#4Mobile web apps are the future, thanks to WebAssembly.
Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App
#5Understand what you'll build first. Shape your API second.
Only then you can build anything you want.
Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App
#6Given the fact that most people are already maxed out on apps on their device with just things like facebook and youtube, you're going to be hard pressed to get people to install your app just to try it out. With a progressive web app if they like your app they can add it to their device home screen without installing via the app store and without using up space on their device. Also don't need to pay Apple $100 a ye…
On iOS you won’t get notifications or be able to run anything in the background. But if you are trying to start a business and the $100 a year you would have to pay to distribute your app will make or break you, you have bigger issues.
Too many applications abuse notifications and background processing anyway. If you need those features, you have to convince of far more value before I'll install a thing.
Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App
#7There is one side of me that wishes more things were Mobile Apps. On the other hand, it's hard to argue that worse is better here and that any founder should focus on Web unless it's not possible to do it on the web (yet).
I'd much prefer a native app (or actually feels native; Well done RN is good enough for me), but the cost of creating and maintaining one is often too high when you don't know what will work.
As a web developer (react, etc.) I kind of wish I could have more time to work on native apps instead.
Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App
#8Given the fact that most people are already maxed out on apps on their device with just things like facebook and youtube, you're going to be hard pressed to get people to install your app just to try it out. With a progressive web app if they like your app they can add it to their device home screen without installing via the app store and without using up space on their device. Also don't need to pay Apple $100 a ye…
To add a progressive web app to the home screen on iOS, doesn't the user have to use the share menu (and even then, it's buried a bit -- the user has to page the share options at least once to find it)? There's no way to display a prompt to add it, like with Chrome/Firefox on Android?
That's how it was the last time I checked, and it was enough for my employer to say no.
Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App
#9Given the fact that most people are already maxed out on apps on their device with just things like facebook and youtube, you're going to be hard pressed to get people to install your app just to try it out. With a progressive web app if they like your app they can add it to their device home screen without installing via the app store and without using up space on their device. Also don't need to pay Apple $100 a ye…
On iOS you won’t get notifications or be able to run anything in the background. But if you are trying to start a business and the $100 a year you would have to pay to distribute your app will make or break you, you have bigger issues.
I think the point stands, and the article explicitely says "start with". Apps can come later in lots of cases. A personal example - I was hired to build the MVP Android app for a new greeting card company. 1 year later: It's been done for 6 months, no one's using it, no one wants to use it, everyone's using the web app.
Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App
#10Given the fact that most people are already maxed out on apps on their device with just things like facebook and youtube, you're going to be hard pressed to get people to install your app just to try it out. With a progressive web app if they like your app they can add it to their device home screen without installing via the app store and without using up space on their device. Also don't need to pay Apple $100 a ye…
On iOS you won’t get notifications or be able to run anything in the background. But if you are trying to start a business and the $100 a year you would have to pay to distribute your app will make or break you, you have bigger issues.
On iOS you won’t get notifications or be able to run anything in the background.
Ok, but what are the downsides?