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Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

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Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

#151

Post by endorphone »

phs2501 wrote: post #140
endorphone wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've been hearing the same pitch for literally years. Heck, I've made some of them myself: "This is it, people! Native apps have been rendered unnecessary!" No PWA competes with a native experience. Not performance wise, not usability wise, and ultimately for the developer not even development wise. It may still make a lot of sense, and there are a lot of arguments for web apps, but the enthusiasm in this discussion…

> Indeed, right now we're seeing a big uptick in Instant Apps on Android -- go to a webpage and it actually loads a native app -- and I fully expect the same to appear on iOS. I'd never heard of this but I can guarantee I will immediately quit and never install an app that gets forced upon me via this method. This is like the terrible "Try our app!" web popups, only 10x worse. I realize like most people on HN I'm har…

Instant apps aren't installed, per se. They don't have homescreen icons, can't send notifications, access protected data, run background services, etc. However if you have an app that has a rich interface for some need, Google slices off the pertinent parts and can serve it up transparently.

Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

#152

Post by tracker1 »

PaulHoule wrote: post #60

I am moving towards "Windows app first"; Windows still has dominant market share among Desktop users. You might impress investors and developers with Mac and Linux support, but far too many people are developing for platforms where the users are not and wondering why their stuff isn't catching on.

Meh... I'd lean towards web app first, wrapping in cordova for ios/android and electron for desktop at first... adding in more native features as time moves forward, probably react native for {platform} as a second stage.

Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

#153

Post by fermuch »

NightlyDev wrote: post #150

Most of my mobile users(64 %) has the page added to the home screen, and it's awesome. There is however one problem in all things web: Apple. The amount of bugs in Safari on iOS is incredible and the developers should be ashamed of their work. Safari is literally worse than IE6 was. But sure, users can just switch to Chrome.. Oh, wait, we're talking iOS here, so there is only one engine, and that engine is broken. So…

Is there a way to know when a site is loaded from the home screen instead of the browser?

Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

#154

Post by honkycat »

endorphone wrote: post #34
shams93 wrote: post #2

Given 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…

We've been hearing the same pitch for literally years. Heck, I've made some of them myself: "This is it, people! Native apps have been rendered unnecessary!" No PWA competes with a native experience. Not performance wise, not usability wise, and ultimately for the developer not even development wise. It may still make a lot of sense, and there are a lot of arguments for web apps, but the enthusiasm in this discussion…

I've been hearing the constant whining about non-native apps for years. Pack in it, you've lost.

Everyone is writing Electron and PWAs at this point. Nobody wants to train C++ developers for a minor speed boost consumers don't seem to care about. They have a full build pipeline and dozens of trained webdev engineers ready to go, why invest in a whole new product?

A LOT of people have looked at the cost/benefit of electron VS something like QT. Many have decided that the performance hit isn't worth the cost of developing the C++ build pipeline and training developers on how to build QT apps:

- Spotify

- Visual Studio Code

- Atom

- Invision

- Slack

- Mattermost

- etc.

The web tooling is actually pretty nice if you stay in your lanes. CSS / HTML / Javascript can create a really nice experience if you don't do a bunch of dumb stuff and make pragmatic decisions.

Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

#155

Post by sbov »

sgt wrote: post #116
johannes1234321 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of filtering is that? The fact that there is (hopefully) no malware? - A browser should prevent that as well and has similar failure rate as app review. The app store doesn't tell me anything about whether it's useful or of high quality or anything. From my perspective many apps are single tab browsers with additional spying capabilities.

For one, you have a chance of actually finding quality native apps. Web apps are not completely optimal no matter how you try to sell it. I have nothing specifically against hybrid or web apps (they have their place), but speaking from personal experience I've had most luck with apps that were (1) native (2) cost a few pennies. I say this wearing the consumer or end-user hat. As a developer, I also prefer writing nat…

So you've found a quality apps by only finding it via the app store? It just sounds odd to me because I literally never have. The only way I've found them is by researching it on the web beforehand.

Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

#156

Post by cpburns2009 »

egeozcan wrote: post #64
PaulHoule wrote: post #60

I am moving towards "Windows app first"; Windows still has dominant market share among Desktop users. You might impress investors and developers with Mac and Linux support, but far too many people are developing for platforms where the users are not and wondering why their stuff isn't catching on.

I've been trying to find time to give Avalonia (a cross-platform desktop GUI kit for .NET Core) a try. https://ptupitsyn.github.io/Cross-Platform-DotNet-UI/

Looks interesting. I've been curious about the state of .NET Core for cross-platform applications. Rant: Why does every cross-platform framework target GTK on Linux rather than Qt? [1]

[1] https://github.com/AvaloniaUI/Avalonia

Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

#157

Post by wvenable »

tracker1 wrote: post #148
wvenable wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also I just installed Daylio which is a cool little diary application. They have no web app, it's mobile app only. It backs up your data to Google Drive. It has no server component, no signup, etc. Admittedly there are limitations of not having a server backend but for a MVP that's another way to go.

And apparently no way to update from my desktop then.

Exactly. No API either. So obviously it's not without it's downsides.

Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

#158

Post by marcinzm »

NightlyDev wrote: post #150

Most of my mobile users(64 %) has the page added to the home screen, and it's awesome. There is however one problem in all things web: Apple. The amount of bugs in Safari on iOS is incredible and the developers should be ashamed of their work. Safari is literally worse than IE6 was. But sure, users can just switch to Chrome.. Oh, wait, we're talking iOS here, so there is only one engine, and that engine is broken. So…

Apple has a financial incentive for making the browser as bad as possible for anything complicated. After all, they don’t get a 30% cut from browser apps.

Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

#159

Post by enraged_camel »

jermaustin1 wrote: post #147
ecp9 wrote: post #137

I don't even bother installing apps anymore, I don't have time to research whether or not they are going to abuse my privacy or have some horrendous TOS. I got my core 10 apps and haven't bought a new one in a year.

I like this concept. Using the smart phone more like a PDA than a tiny laptop. What are your 10 core apps if you don't mind sharing?

For me:

Personal Capital (finance), WhatsApp, Slack, Overcast (podcasts), Kindle, Dark Sky (hyper accurate weather app), Google Authenticator, Lyft, RENPHO (my smart scale’s app), 1Password

Everything else is very situational and totally optional.

Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

#160

Post by criddell »

ecp9 wrote: post #137

I don't even bother installing apps anymore, I don't have time to research whether or not they are going to abuse my privacy or have some horrendous TOS. I got my core 10 apps and haven't bought a new one in a year.

I too have a core set of apps (email, calendar, browser, phone, weather, sleep tracker, news, password manager, and note taking).

I'll buy a game once in a while (just got Civ 6 on the iPad and it's outstanding), but that's about it.

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