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Apple-Developer Relations

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Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#11

Post by emsy »

anonymouse008 wrote: post #6

I'm wondering if webapps are achieving parity with native apps. My intuition says that most of the use cases today could transfer over if they really wanted to. Does anyone have any insight into the major differences between native and web app in 2021? The biggest disparity between webapp and native used to be Notifications - but with Twilio, it appears trivial to make an arguably better notifications user flow throu…

Not on iOS. The biggest issue are indeed native notifications which I don’t believe will ever happen (unless Apple is forced to by legislation). Web Bluetooth is also unlikely to happen. Storage is another issue that is heavily restricted on iOS and in my experience offline use is completely unreliable.

Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#12

Post by majormajor »

anonymouse008 wrote: post #6

I'm wondering if webapps are achieving parity with native apps. My intuition says that most of the use cases today could transfer over if they really wanted to. Does anyone have any insight into the major differences between native and web app in 2021? The biggest disparity between webapp and native used to be Notifications - but with Twilio, it appears trivial to make an arguably better notifications user flow throu…

> The biggest disparity between webapp and native used to be Notifications - but with Twilio, it appears trivial to make an arguably better notifications user flow through SMS and direct link to user content.

Oh god please no.

I can turn off app-level notifications. I don't want to have to deal with app-level texts instead.

Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#13

Post by post_break »

I used to love browsing the app store looking for cool apps. Now I can't even trust searching for the app by name because sometimes a completely different app shows up, and then there is the case of appstore ads. It's a joke.

Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#14

Post by stephc_int13 »

mathgladiator wrote: post #9

> Modern society has come to rely so heavily on mobile apps that any phone manufacturer must ensure that such a healthy ecosystem exists as table stakes for anyone to buy their phones. I don't think this is true. It may be an unfortunate end. I'm actually intending to move to a flip phone since...

One statistical point versus billions of smartphone users.

Clearly a strong argument...

Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#15

Post by anonymouse008 »

majormajor wrote: post #12
anonymouse008 wrote: post #6

I'm wondering if webapps are achieving parity with native apps. My intuition says that most of the use cases today could transfer over if they really wanted to. Does anyone have any insight into the major differences between native and web app in 2021? The biggest disparity between webapp and native used to be Notifications - but with Twilio, it appears trivial to make an arguably better notifications user flow throu…

> The biggest disparity between webapp and native used to be Notifications - but with Twilio, it appears trivial to make an arguably better notifications user flow through SMS and direct link to user content. Oh god please no. I can turn off app-level notifications. I don't want to have to deal with app-level texts instead.

> I can turn off app-level notifications. I don't want to have to deal with app-level texts instead.

Ha!! See, I think SMS notifications are still stellar! Because right when the offender steps in, in the height of righteous anger, you can yell (text) "STOP" and by law it must bug off!!

Not to mention the cool new commands that could emerge like, "give me a week" or other conversational ways to interact with your notifications on a person level... which to me, is what it was all about in the first place!

Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#16

Post by stephc_int13 »

anonymouse008 wrote: post #6

I'm wondering if webapps are achieving parity with native apps. My intuition says that most of the use cases today could transfer over if they really wanted to. Does anyone have any insight into the major differences between native and web app in 2021? The biggest disparity between webapp and native used to be Notifications - but with Twilio, it appears trivial to make an arguably better notifications user flow throu…

In practice, the lion share of revenue on the App Store is made by games.

Running games as web apps is technically possible, but performance tend to be an issue, even for simple 2D games.

I don't think Apple is embracing Webassembly enough to facilitate this transition, this is not their best interest.

Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#17

Post by soziawa »

anonymouse008 wrote: post #6

I'm wondering if webapps are achieving parity with native apps. My intuition says that most of the use cases today could transfer over if they really wanted to. Does anyone have any insight into the major differences between native and web app in 2021? The biggest disparity between webapp and native used to be Notifications - but with Twilio, it appears trivial to make an arguably better notifications user flow throu…

> Does anyone have any insight into the major differences between native and web app in 2021?

No general insight, but Telegram has two web apps that try to emulate the native app [1]. They do work fairly well but are definitely glitchier than the native app (or any native chat app).

> For the rest of the differences, it feels like much of the benefit Apple brings to the table (view management, security, continuity between devices, distribution, ...), does appear to carry a premium when placed in comparison to building a monolith web app.

That might be true, but the value free apps like WhatsApp bring to the iPhone is unmeasurable and WhatsApp pays exactly 100$ a year to Apple for access to all the tooling.

[1]: https://telegram.org/blog/payments-2-0-scheduled-voice-chats...

Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#18

Post by stephc_int13 »

mathgladiator wrote: post #10
anonymouse008 wrote: post #6

I'm wondering if webapps are achieving parity with native apps. My intuition says that most of the use cases today could transfer over if they really wanted to. Does anyone have any insight into the major differences between native and web app in 2021? The biggest disparity between webapp and native used to be Notifications - but with Twilio, it appears trivial to make an arguably better notifications user flow throu…

This is why I'm optimistic about WebAssembly, beyond time and investment, what prohibits it from achieve performance parity with native?

Apple support?

Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#19

Post by vbsteven »

anonymouse008 wrote: post #6

I'm wondering if webapps are achieving parity with native apps. My intuition says that most of the use cases today could transfer over if they really wanted to. Does anyone have any insight into the major differences between native and web app in 2021? The biggest disparity between webapp and native used to be Notifications - but with Twilio, it appears trivial to make an arguably better notifications user flow throu…

For my personal use cases (visible or invisible) push messages are the major missing feature for replacing native with web apps. And I doubt it’s possible to do without platform support.

Twilio or other SMS based services aren’t a solution as in lots of countries they still cost $0.10 per 160 characters, require an active SIM card and cannot be opened into an app.

Maybe something can be done with websockets but that will also require platform support to improve battery life and allow web apps to run in the background.

Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#20

Post by ccgus »

mathgladiator wrote: post #10
anonymouse008 wrote: post #6

I'm wondering if webapps are achieving parity with native apps. My intuition says that most of the use cases today could transfer over if they really wanted to. Does anyone have any insight into the major differences between native and web app in 2021? The biggest disparity between webapp and native used to be Notifications - but with Twilio, it appears trivial to make an arguably better notifications user flow throu…

This is why I'm optimistic about WebAssembly, beyond time and investment, what prohibits it from achieve performance parity with native?

There's no JIT for WebAssembly on iOS (at least last time I looked last year), so it's going to be much slower than it could otherwise be.
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