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Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

atrium.co

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Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

#281

Post by eagsalazar2 »

sinatra wrote: post #14

IMHO, the reasons mentioned are not very convincing. Your goal, when starting a product, is to find whether you serve a real user need or not. So, start with a website or a mobile app depending on what suits your users needs better. Where would a user naturally go (web or mobile) for that need? That's the platform you start with.

This is so right on. Yes there are pros/cons with PWAs vs native (and with the other simpler examples listed below. Put all those into the mix with questions about your riskiest product hypothesis, access to most representative users and pick the winner. Biasing always toward PWAs sounds more like a bias toward a particular solution yourself vs what makse sense for your business.

Having said all that, I agree that for many simple apps the better user experience, in-app, isn't that much different except in one major way: discover and re-discovery later. When you install an app on your phone, there is a nice big button on your screen at all times so you can come back to it. Getting people to install is hard but once they have it is way way better discovery experience than a web app. Adding a link to your desktop still feels pretty janky (right or wrong) to most people and most people don't know how to do that.

Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

#282

Post by NightlyDev »

fermuch wrote: post #153
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?

As the previous guy said you can check for standalone on iOS. You can also add an parameter to the URL so it opens eg. /?homescreen or something like that.

Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

#283

Post by timdavila »

saagarjha wrote: post #95
timdavila wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, the situation on Android is much better than iOS. Also after you do this, you get an icon in your app drawer and not just the homescreen.

iOS doesn’t have an app drawer, so I’m not quite sure where you’re going with your comparison…

Yep, sorry that was confusing. I was comparing to previous versions of Android. It's relatively new that it's added to the app drawer.

Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

#284

Post by mikece »

freehunter wrote: post #62
have_faith wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With a progressive web app if they like your app they can add it to their device home screen Does anyone even know they can do that? I've never seen anyone do it "in the wild". Would love to see any stats around usage of pwa's added to home screen.

I run a website where I get asked quite often to make it into a mobile app, and I reply by showing how to add it to the device's homescreen and not need an app. Never ever ever in the few dozen times I've had this conversation has anyone ever actually done it. In fact most responses to that suggestion have been overwhelmingly negative. They want an app, even though it'd just be a wrapper around the site with no added…

Why not just add the ability to list a PWA in the app store? At that point the installation is intentional and the overhead on Apple/Google is minimal... and Apple still gets their $99/year to allow making it easy to put your app's icon on a user's home screen.

Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

#285

Post by geezerjay »

michaelmrose wrote: post #215
trophycase wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Reddit lives on ad revenue. Mobile web reddit is not in fact incredibly optimal which is why a bunch of third party apps exist. These third party apps make it impossible to show ads save for promoted posts which people don't seem to like. Thus the official reddit app. I prefer "Reddit is Fun" which seems to load faster than mobile web reddit and notify me on comment replies.

> Reddit lives on ad revenue. Mobile web reddit is not in fact incredibly optimal which is why a bunch of third party apps exist.

That's a problem that reddit creates for itself as it purposedly degrades the site's experience on mobile devices with tons of dark patterns to try to push users to install the company's official mobile app.

Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

#286

Post by [deleted] »

jklinger410 wrote: post #256
nytopop wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

[deleted]

Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

#287

Post by jklinger410 »

reificator wrote: post #277
jklinger410 wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> To recap. The claim is that PWAs are preferable to apps because "people don't test drive apps." 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 cl…

>They're saying it's difficult to get people to install an app even to test drive them, and saying it's easier to get them to visit your webpage.

But getting people to visit your website being easy does not mean that is where you should host your app. I don't believe people are going to say "Wow this website was useful, let me pin it to my screen." I believe that is a niche thing that nerds do, and has awful results for the rest.

>The claim is that they aren't even downloading apps to test them in the first place.

But there is nothing here to show that a PWA is the solution to get someone to download the app! The assertion is that the download is the issue, which there isn't any evidence for. If downloading apps was such a problem, why would people constantly be test driving apps? They may uninstall because of space or tracking concerns, or maybe it's a cleanliness thing, but I am refuting the base claim that "space on your phone" being a deterrent means that PWA is a solution.

Get the download through marketing, hold the download through value.

>Everyone else is just trying to get you to understand what the OP is actually saying

I think I understand what OP is saying just fine.

Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

#288

Post by hiccuphippo »

enraged_camel wrote: post #159
jermaustin1 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Mine: Firefox, WhatsApp (for family) & Telegram (friends and groups), andOTP instead of Google authenticator, New Pipe instead of YouTube, FBReader, Orgzly (notes), Phonograph for music and trying to move to LessPass for passwords.

Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

#289

Post by sethammons »

onion2k wrote: post #10
scarface74 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Unless I absolutely have to have the app (work or something), I avoid it. Webpage any day. It wont bug me in the middle of the night.

  3AM. Sleeping
  Phone: BING!!!
  Me: *groggy* shit, hope everything is ok...
  Me: *picks up phone*
  Phone: Rayman Adventures has updated!
  Me: *uninstalls Rayman Adventures, angrily goes back to sleep*

Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

#290

Post by modwilliam »

phs2501 wrote: post #167
dec0dedab0de wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw it for the first time last night. I think it was Vimeo. It was actually much better than the "try our app" popup, because it was android asking if i wanted to use the instant app, and when i said no it just went away.

That's more reasonable. I wonder if these work via Firefox? Maybe that's why I've never seen them.

They should't be available via Firefox, just chrome/google search
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