Every time I hear about things like this, I think about XKCD's take: https://xkcd.com/1367/
We really are reinventing web pages on a regular basis
Apple is developing a feature for using apps without requiring full downloads
71–80 of 138 posts
Re: Apple is developing a feature for using apps without requiring full downloads
#72Android has Instant Apps. Not sure how others feel but I hate it. Compared to a website it's slower to load, harder to share, and outside of my normal flow. I guess it would be cool for a demo but I dunno. Also iOS apps are so large this won't be practical at all on cellular data.
>Also iOS apps are so large this won't be practical at all on cellular data. They don't have to be. For example Tweetbot, which is a fully functional app, is only about 7MB. It's not hard to imagine that a single screen of an iOS app specifically optimized for space could be only a fraction as large – considerably smaller than the average site these days (10MB+).
They're big because of swift. Tweetbot is small because it's still only Objective-C.
Re: Apple is developing a feature for using apps without requiring full downloads
#73Re: Apple is developing a feature for using apps without requiring full downloads
#74The reason why this is needed at all is because a todo list regularly needs 20 MB updates.
The problem is that there is no incentive for developers to keep their apps small. And since Apple makes money from selling larger phones, they also have an incentive to tolerate bloat. And lastly, your provider will be happy to charge you astronomical fees for downloading that critical update over mobile data.
There's nobody making money from small apps but 2 of 3 parties can monetize bloat. So bloated apps it is!
The name Clips and the QR scanning suggests to me that this will be used for advertisements, like those AR overlays.
Re: Apple is developing a feature for using apps without requiring full downloads
#75So, apple don't want web app to be first class citizens and then reinvent web apps?
Re: Apple is developing a feature for using apps without requiring full downloads
#76I have an app written in Swift and weights between 8-20Mb(depending on device and iOS version), which is not too far of from a typical website these days and the startup times are phenomenal(between 250-500ms, depending on the devıce). Writing in Swift is a delight and this is the feature I was dreaming about because having the user to install the App is not easy these days(100 impressions on Appstore Search would ge…
It's hard to imagine, but some DOS apps had I agree that your app is small and fast compared to what others are putting out there, but compared to what software engineering could do if people cared, this is still bloated and slow.
Re: Apple is developing a feature for using apps without requiring full downloads
#77Seems like a terminal, storing the content in the cloud like a container where the app lives up there instead of in your localhost, but still uses the native interface APIs.
Re: Apple is developing a feature for using apps without requiring full downloads
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Also iOS apps are so large this won't be practical at all on cellular data. They don't have to be. For example Tweetbot, which is a fully functional app, is only about 7MB. It's not hard to imagine that a single screen of an iOS app specifically optimized for space could be only a fraction as large – considerably smaller than the average site these days (10MB+).
They're big because of swift. Tweetbot is small because it's still only Objective-C.
That should be changing as more apps drop older iOS versions and stop bundling Swift.
Re: Apple is developing a feature for using apps without requiring full downloads
#79I have an app written in Swift and weights between 8-20Mb(depending on device and iOS version), which is not too far of from a typical website these days and the startup times are phenomenal(between 250-500ms, depending on the devıce). Writing in Swift is a delight and this is the feature I was dreaming about because having the user to install the App is not easy these days(100 impressions on Appstore Search would ge…
With Objective-C apps, it used to be even better, in startup and in app size. I think you can still get similar app size if you make a pure Obj-C app today.
Before Swift become a thing I look at Objective-C but it was so irritating that I stuck with JavaScript. It's probably faster but what difference it would make to open the app faster than what the user can perceive? I can use static images to give the impression that the app is already running, which is recommended by Apple anyway since the user won't be able to react before the app is fully loaded anyway.
Re: Apple is developing a feature for using apps without requiring full downloads
#80This is common in Windows environments and is called app streaming / virtualization there. It’s been included in Enterprise editions of Windows feature called AppV. This must be something similar. App Store sales more profitable than iphone/iPad device flash size?