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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

#461

Post by arthurofbabylon »

notatoad wrote: post #341
arthurofbabylon wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, they do get a cut from "browser apps" in the sense that they are paid by a big search/surveillance-based ad company to make their search engine default in the browser. And again, they have a huge financial incentive to make the browser as good as possible because it makes the hardware as useful and wonderful as possible, which are currently the two most important factors for the most successful product that…

>I'm kind of surprised by these 'browser is so bad' comments. Anyone here tried to make a browser before? Anyone make one less buggy than Safari? not personally, but firefox and chrome both exist and are much better than Safari. Are you trying to argue that it's not possible for Safari to be better than it currently is?

No. I’m plainly stating, “really, you guys think Safari is horribly buggy or bad? I think it is really, really good.”

Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

#462

Post by [deleted] »

casper345 wrote: post #111

80% of apps are uninstalled in the first 10min (especially if they ask for information or creating an account). Once uninstalled very unlikely they will ever install again. In my dev shop, I always advise clients to look into website MVP over apps unless IT IS CRITICAL to the functionality. Websites can always bring back ppl who were initially uninterested. Faster development/instant updates. Better tracking and UX a…

[deleted]

Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

#465

Post by wvenable »

da_chicken wrote: post #185
vesak wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Given that all websites are running code on your device, that seems like a distinction with a very small difference. The question is what has the better sandbox to protect yourself. The web is definitely better but somehow I still get tracked across sites and shown "relevant" ads. Mobile apps are also fairly well sandboxed and yet some apps that need your permission to do something useful also use that permission to do evil.

As web applications get more powerful, they will become a greater and greater source of the issues that currently plague mobile apps.

Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

#467

Post by msravi »

airstrike wrote: post #250
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 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'm going out on a limb but I'd wager you're not exactly representative of the general userbase for which apps are developed.

A few years ago, Flipkart was the leading e-commerce portal in India, and Amazon was a poor third, behind Snapdeal[1]. At some point in March 2015, Flipkart (and their fashion portal, Myntra) decided to go "app-only" on mobile[2], i.e., if you went to their website using a mobile browser, you would get shown a large interstitial to install their app, and nothing else. There was no option to proceed with their mobile website. Flipkart also gave away exclusive discounts for people downloading their app.

People rebelled. A lot of people rebelled. No one wanted to install their app to comparison shop. People just went to the Amazon site and bought whatever they wanted, knowing that at most, there would be a minor difference in price. Shopping on Amazon's site using a mobile browser was a breeze compared to Flipkart. The whole app-only strategy was a disaster.[3]

Flipkart admitted their mistake[4], and decided to re-instate their mobile website in November the same year. But the damage had been done. By August 2016, Flipkart had lost its leading place in the Indian e-commerce space to Amazon[5]. They never recovered, and to this day, they're still playing catch-up.

Not everything in the entire debacle can be attributed to Flipkart's app-only strategy. Undoubtedly, there are others aspects - like Amazon's prime being better than Flipkart's version, etc. But the app-only strategy definitely contributed significantly to Flipkart's uncrowning, and provided Amazon the much-needed entry point to becoming the market leader.

1. https://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/flipkart...

2. https://www.livemint.com/Industry/J9VeQxowSOlHU8ZMUParUL/Fli...

3. https://www.techinasia.com/flipkart-myntra-app-only-disaster

4. https://trak.in/tags/business/2015/11/10/flipkart-u-turn-mob...

5. https://www.livemint.com/Companies/c6vY9ta120G7cwewrCg6bI/Ha...

Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

#468

Post by jzl »

distant_hat wrote: post #258
rixrax wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is especially frustrating that many sites don’t allow Mailinator and other similar ‘one-time’ email systems to be used for registering an account. No way I am going to give you my email address up front before seeing the product. Now the solution is of course to have a separate gmail account to register. Most sites still allow user+site@gmail.com address syntax so that I can sometimes see who are leaking where.…

Given how well known user+site@gmail.com is wouldn't many sites simply strip the +... part before selling the email data?

There is one surprisingly good feature in yahoo mail that I wish google would provide: the ability (requirement, actually) to create a custom prefix for disposable email addresses. Just pick something completely unrelated to your real username. You can only create it once and it is forever your prefix, so don't mess up this step! Also, unlike gmail, you have to register a suffix when you want a new address in the form of prefix-suffix@yahoo.com. But this has the added benefit that you can delete any of the suffixes from the list, thereby stopping incoming messages from that address. You can have up to 500 active suffixes.

Finally, since the format uses a dash rather than +, I have never once had a disposable yahoo address rejected.

Not sure if that made any sense, but here's a link to the docs:

https://help.yahoo.com/kb/SLN28338.html

Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

#469

Post by ojr »

start with an app because Apple is more restrictive than the web and ideally you are going to want both an app and a web app, you don't want to fall into a situation where your popular web app is not allowed as an iOS app.

Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

#470

Post by rorykoehler »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #272
wvenable wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 "…

I think they were referring to RAM or storage space rather than human fatigue or mental effort, although I'm not a native English speaker so I may be misinterpreting. 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 a…

What year are we in? I've got a $200 phone with 128gb storage and 4gb ram. It will be a long time before I can max this out if at all.
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