Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App • Hacker News Board

Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

#511

Post by Al-Khwarizmi » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 10:18 AM UTC

rorykoehler wrote: post #470

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not everyone buys a new phone frequently, and not everyone can or will spend $200 on a smartphone without a second thought, especially at the global scale.

Smartphones are getting better and hopefully this problem will be irrelevant in a few years, but I still know plenty of people for whom it's still very real at the moment.

Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

#512

Post by jobigoud » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 10:22 AM UTC

Iolaum wrote: post #503

glenneroo wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

On the other hand HN users influence is much greater than their numbers because many of them are doing tech support for family and tech advice for friends.

You could also say their influence is greater because they are the ones writing the apps in the first place.

Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

#513

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 10:33 AM UTC

jzl wrote: post #468

distant_hat wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 for…

[deleted]

Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

#514

Post by puranjay » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 10:45 AM UTC

mongol wrote: post #509

msravi wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Very interesting story. I must remember to ask my Indian colleagues about this

As a heavy user of Myntra's app, I also have to say that their app is one of the biggest reasons why I keep coming back to them. The app is wonderfully designed, highly functional, and fast. The UX is uniform and the filtering options are top notch. Far better than anything the competition can offer

Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

#515

Post by rorykoehler » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 10:46 AM UTC

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #511

rorykoehler wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not everyone buys a new phone frequently, and not everyone can or will spend $200 on a smartphone without a second thought, especially at the global scale. Smartphones are getting better and hopefully this problem will be irrelevant in a few years, but I still know plenty of people for whom it's still very real at the moment.

Sure, I was part of a startup designing apps for emerging markets and I understand the restrictions but I think these restrictions changed somewhat for phones bought from 2018 on. I just returned from 2 weeks in India and it was common to see people in the streets with ~$200 phones

Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

#516

Post by t0astbread » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 10:54 AM UTC

osrec wrote: post #453

t0astbread wrote: post #434

I'm gonna play devils advocate here and say web apps aren't as pleasant to use on mobile phones as mobile apps and that's why mobile apps are still a thing. I'm especially looking at things like touch gestures and native integrations (launcher icons, notifications, "share with" providers, maybe even a home screen widget). I know PWAs are a thing but afaik they don't solve all of the above problems or don't solve them…

Try https://usebx.com/app - we built it 2 years ago. It's a PWA, and our users find it better than many native alternatives. I think it's all in the execution really.

That's a cool app but it still launches inside a browser window on 3/4 tested browsers (Firefox on Android/Linux, Chromium on Linux; does launch as a standalone app on Android Chromium).

Also (but this is more of a niche problem with more technical users) I wouldn't have noticed it's a PWA if you hadn't told me since I block service workers by default. I would, however, have noticed a banner taking me to an app store of your choice.

Still, the app itself is cool though. Maybe you can use touch gestures on the web after all ;)

Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

#517

Post by jlpicard » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 11:41 AM UTC

freedomben wrote: post #432

TeMPOraL wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. It's frustrating. One benefit of switching to mail on my own domain (powered by FastMail at the moment) is that instead of username@mydomain, I can also use antispamlabel@username.mydomain. Which is hopefully less common and too dangerous to automatically filter out in "data cleaning".

Man I so want to do that, but the pricing just seems outrageous at minimum $3/user/month, standard $5/user/month. I've been wanting to hack together some scripts to use a serverless cloud provider like SES. Since I rarely check my email and almost never send any, it's crazy to pay such a high monthly fee.

It really depends on how you value your time. Assuming $36 per year, how long would it take you to 'hack' together this solution? An hour? What would you charge someone per-hour to do some work?

It seems a lot when you compare it to a seemingly free email address, but Fastmail & others are well worth the upfront cost.

Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

#518

Post by the_gipsy » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 12:19 PM UTC

kyle-rb wrote: post #311

spunker540 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can use browsers other than Safari on iOS.

All browsers on iOS are essentially wrappers for Safari. They all have to use the built-in iOS WebView; per Apple's rules you're not allowed to execute JS or anything like that on your own.

Which means no extensions for iOS Firefox nor Chrome.

I can’t install any adblockers on my iPhone, the best is Safari which has some built in anti-tracking but that’s it.

Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

#519

Post by coldtea » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 12:20 PM UTC

rqs wrote: post #441

glenneroo wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 99% of HN readers are not representative of the intended general userbase of 99% of the apps for ios/android. Not that I agreed with the website vs. app debate, but with all respect, that "userbase of 99% of the apps" was likely made up by those people who would also begs for bigger keyboard on their phones so they can send SMS a bit faster back in 2006.

This comment implies (like Fords: "If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they'd say better horses") that this 99% of customers are some backwards dwelling people who don't know the way forward (in your example, the no-keyboard touch screen).

But webapps are not some novel development they're not aware of. They are what existed before apps and during apps, and exists still, and people still spend most of their time on mobile apps.

Re: Start with a Website, Not a Mobile App

#520

Post by ddebernardy » Sat, Jan 05, 2019, 12:22 PM UTC

fxfan wrote: post #412

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…

Where did you get that 80% from? I have hard time believing the average Joe uninstalls an app

The figures are in the order of magnitude that OP suggests, but only for a) games that b) are ad supported (which is how we know the numbers).

More serious apps get to stay a few extra days from the looks of this blog post (among other similar promotional ones on the topic that are a few googles away):

https://www.adjust.com/blog/unmasking-uninstalls/

Seeing how e-commerce, travel, and health are the only three categories that get more than a week I'd spitball it's because users of these apps kept them for a one-time event.

Either way, OP is correct in that as an app publisher, you're only one shot at getting that precious first impression, and odds are your new users will only keep the app around long enough to open it a few times; as few as once, in the case of games. Which sounds about right if my own anecdotal usage is anything to go by.