271–280 of 587 posts
I like the article but this statement is not true. Internationalization is quite a big topic and there is no way to automatically make a site internationalized for "free".
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…
> Given the fact that most people are already maxed out on apps on their device This argument has been given a few times here. But I question whether web applications are a solution. Aren't these just more applications that people are overwhelmed with but harder to find and use? If you've got a brilliant new app (web or mobile) I'm still fatigued either way. The mental effort is the same. Saying the mobile apps are "…
Indeed, there are many low-end smartphones that run out of storage space after one or two years even without installing anything, just with the automatic updates of the preinstalled apps (Facebook is a major offender here, why does their app grow more and more?). Being forced to install an app to use a service when you are in this situation is highly frustrating.
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I would take that even further and venture a guess that 99% of HN readers are not representative of the intended general userbase of 99% of the apps for ios/android.
Also called the Malkovich Bias.
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> I don't have time to research whether or not they are going to abuse my privacy or have some horrendous TOS. Do you think that web apps are better in that regard?
Yes. I don't give them permission to run code on my device arbitrarily and perpetually. Think of it like this: If Hacker News required a fat client to function on your desktop, would you actually be here at all?
HN essentially is a service that provides only a couple of text views to list and read submittions and their discussions, and requires zero processing or interaction. That's hardly a challenging problem that requires a fat client.
If however we were discussing an application that required significant data processing, access to your personal data, or even access to photo ir video input... You'd hardly be able to implement something with HTML+CSS.
Case in point: twitter is very usable as a website but instagram is not.
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> but the enthusiasm in this discussion seems disconnected from reality. This isn't the OP's point. The point is there is more friction to download new apps today so coming out with a new native experience is going to much harder to do in today's world. It doesn't mean that this is the long term strategy.
I'm speaking to this discussion, not the submitted article. Sure, start with a web app (though it really depends on the target -- if the web app yields a sub-standard interface, performance, or utility it's a dead end) with hopes of building an app when you have an established base. However in this discussion there are a lot of people who are arguing from the perspective of a world that doesn't exist, based upon the…
Precisely my point. That's not what the OP was saying. Per their comment: to get people to install your app just to try it out.
> based upon the same "this changes everything" argument we've heard every year.
Did we read the same comment? Where did the OP write "this changes everything"?
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>They were saying it's difficult to get people to even install for a test run How is it difficult to get someone to install something for a test run when like 90% of app installs are test runs? So you're saying it's difficult to get someone to install your app at all, and that has nothing to do with your product or your marketing, but it has something to do with the technology? And the PWA experience of pinning thing…
> How is it difficult to get someone to install something for a test run when like 90% of app installs are test runs? As I said in my previous post I'm clearly missing something here. Why are those mutually exclusive at all? You're saying that most installations are test runs. That implies people are leery about leaving an app they don't want installed. Why does that mean that it's somehow easy to get users to instal…
If it was hard to get people to test drive your app, then 90% of app installs would not be test runs. They would be one time permanent installs.
>It sounds like they don't want a bunch of apps installed.
It also sounds like people are constantly trying new apps, no? Precisely what OP said people do not like to do.
>No? When did I say your product or marketing were unrelated to install rate?
Again, OPs claim was that somehow PWAs would be a preferable medium to app installs. This implies that the medium is the problem, which I am saying is not the case. "The reason people aren't downloading my app is because it's in the app store instead of being a PWA" is essentially the claim.
>Whether or not I support PWAs...is irrelevant. My stance is that your statistics don't disprove the claim made, and to then claim that the OP is arguing from a point of ignorance is not okay.
I think we both know that I could scour the internet and find 1,000 articles filled with statistics showing that people are constantly installing and uninstalling apps, and I would find almost none showing PWAs being successful in a business case. I'm not going to apologize for being incredulous about unsubstantiated conjecture that I have only ever seen proof of the opposite for.
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> How is it difficult to get someone to install something for a test run when like 90% of app installs are test runs? The link you shared does not provide any statistics about the amount of installs relative to didn't-installs. It only deals with the set of people who have already installed, which says nothing to prove or disprove the point in contention (that increasing the set of people who have installed at all is…
To recap. The claim is that PWAs are preferable to apps because "people don't test drive apps." In fact, people test drive apps as a rule, and none of them install PWAs. I have shown a 2 second googled piece of evidence showing the degree to which people test drive apps. No evidence to support the ease of use or frequency of PWA homescreen pins exists/has been provided. I'm going to stop responding to this thread unl…
Ah. Now I see where the confusion lies. I don't think that's what the OP was saying.
> 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.
No one in this thread is claiming that people who install apps don't test drive them. Your evidence proves that they do, and no one has challenged or disagreed with that evidence.
The claim is not related to how often people who download an app test it out and delete it soon after. You're focused on the wrong detail. The claim is that they aren't even downloading apps to test them in the first place.
> I'm going to stop responding to this thread unless your comment contains a substantive argument supporting OP.
The OP is the only one arguing OP's perspective right now. Everyone else is just trying to get you to understand what the OP is actually saying rather than what you claim they're saying.
Let's try an analogy:
> Millennials are increasingly choosing not to eat at casual dining chains such as Applebees.
Responding to that by saying that Applebees is the most popular casual dining chain by a given metric does not disprove this claim. Whether people choose Applebees more often than Chilis has nothing to do with the fact that they're both losing millennial customers.
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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 ele…
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Yes. I don't give them permission to run code on my device arbitrarily and perpetually. Think of it like this: If Hacker News required a fat client to function on your desktop, would you actually be here at all?
> Think of it like this: If Hacker News required a fat client to function on your desktop, would you actually be here at all? HN essentially is a service that provides only a couple of text views to list and read submittions and their discussions, and requires zero processing or interaction. That's hardly a challenging problem that requires a fat client. If however we were discussing an application that required sign…
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 figure most things don't need an app unless they are trying to take more data anyway. Anything telling me to install an app whose mobile experience is fine already is very fishy to me. I'm looking at you, Reddit.
So much this.
To add insult to injury, reddit intentionally degrades the site's experience in mobile devices with tons of dark patterns pushing users to their shady mobile app.