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Why did the web take over desktop and not mobile?

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Re: Why did the web take over desktop and not mobile?

#101

Post by hliyan »

omegalulw wrote: post #78
hliyan wrote: post #35

Lot of potential theories here. Allow me to offer one of my own: it's our physical posture and ergonomics. When on the desktop, you're usually sitting down in front of a desk after deciding to set aside some time for the express purpose of doing something on a computer. A small wait for the UI to render is tolerable. But when you're on a mobile device, it's usually the the thing you're using to kill time while you're…

> A small wait for the UI to render is tolerable. Absolutely not. In fact, I expect more responsiveness from my desktop.

This is also me, but as an engineer. It's not how the average user's mind works.

Re: Why did the web take over desktop and not mobile?

#102

Post by jl2718 »

Safety is the only differentiator. Sun legally controlled sandboxed execution on PCs, while abandoning it. HTML/JS was a poor substitute for iOS/Dalvik, but the only option without legal issues.

The linking issue is important, but not present in the mobile alternative. And networking support via XmlHttpRequest is trash compared to native sockets.

Re: Why did the web take over desktop and not mobile?

#103

Post by Santosh83 »

adventured wrote: post #84
wiz21c wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> content addressibility I'd say the app ecosystem promotes closed content whereas WWW promotes open content.

What open content? Wikipedia? That's If we're judging whether the Web promotes open content by the actual results after three decades, the exact opposite is the case: the Web promotes closed content. Netflix, ESPN, Google/Gmail/Maps/News/etc, Microsoft/Bing/Office/mail/etc, NYTimes, Washington Post, USA Today, MSNBC, CNBC, Reuters, AP, CNN, Bloomberg, FoxNews, ABC, CBS, NBC, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Link…

The protocol. Websites are accessible over a known , open protocol to every visitor, (Geofencing etc is there, but...), but apps use proprietary protocols which only the particular app can decode. You can see the ESPN website on any old browser, but the ESPN app content needs the ESPN app, and nothing else will work.

Re: Why did the web take over desktop and not mobile?

#104

Post by guerrilla »

Regarding the second question, I think the real reason why didn’t the web disrupt mobile is because mobile has been too slow. That "native" performance gets over the last hump and I think that made the difference. The other reasons and observations definitely contributed, but I feel we forgot just how slug slow things were.

Re: Why did the web take over desktop and not mobile?

#105

Post by wffurr »

Retric wrote: post #91
forty wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also there is no app store on the web, no 30% fee. So no incentive for mobile platform owners to make it first class citizen.

The web isn’t a first class citizen on desktop as you can’t run new AAA games in one. The real difference is the web is a more limited UI that breaks down when your also forced to use the more limited interface of mobile. For example on desktop the top 10% or so of the screen is taken up by the browsers UI and tabs which is normally fine. On a tablet in keyboard mode your left with ~40% of the screen being useable. N…

AAA games are a weird example. It's one of the few app categories that really needs full native performance, although a lot of them can also scale nicely to run on older hardware.

WebGPU and WebAssembly are getting close to matching the speed and capabilities of older hardware.

Tab UI is possible to hide, and has been for some time. You can "app-ify" a web site into a dedicated window with no browser UI.

ISTR apps that we doing this >10 years ago.

I think the real differences break down to economics. Can't charge an app store fee for web sites or force sites to use your advertising network.

Re: Why did the web take over desktop and not mobile?

#106

Post by [deleted] »

feanaro wrote: post #77

Native phone apps are more invasive and can therefore be used for more extensive tracking and spying, which is good for ad revenue. Remember how all the largest spying products like Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Reddit, Twitter, etc aggressively push you to install their phone apps even though they are (or were) perfectly usable through their mobile websites.

[deleted]

Re: Why did the web take over desktop and not mobile?

#107

Post by quaintdev »

mattlondon wrote: post #92
bhawks wrote: post #59

When iPhone and Android hit the scene the 'rich' web experience was primarily flash, silverlight, and some java applets (taking their last breathe). Input APIs for touch, multitouch and gesture were a mess for many years in the browser. Media queries didn't become a w3c recommendation until 2012 so building a ux that looked pleasant really wasn't possible. The memory, cpu, GPU, storage and battery constraints were un…

> The real question is how did the web remain relevant while being so far behind this tectonic platform shift? We didn't all shift to to smartphones the instant they became available. It took a while for people to transition to smartphones. Likewise getting an app up and running (in addition to their websites) took time for most businesses, and many probably waited before jumping on the band wagon I am sure everyone…

> I am sure everyone on HN moved quickly, but for the rest of the non-tech world I am sure they were doing just fine using their home computer for several more years.

A whole generation of people in India never used Computers as the western population did but large majority of same people directly moved to smartphones.

Re: Why did the web take over desktop and not mobile?

#108

Post by taylodl »

The answer is simple. Mobile devices lag behind desktop devices by about 10 years in terms of memory and processing power. When did web applications really start to dominate on the desktop? Think Electron apps and things like that - less than 10 years ago. My prediction? Within 5 years web apps will have taken over in the mobile space.

Re: Why did the web take over desktop and not mobile?

#109

Post by dijit »

forty wrote: post #79
feanaro wrote: post #77

Native phone apps are more invasive and can therefore be used for more extensive tracking and spying, which is good for ad revenue. Remember how all the largest spying products like Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Reddit, Twitter, etc aggressively push you to install their phone apps even though they are (or were) perfectly usable through their mobile websites.

Also there is no app store on the web, no 30% fee. So no incentive for mobile platform owners to make it first class citizen.

Going to point out the irony of Steve Jobs not wanting an App Store at all and preferring a rich web experience. And devs getting mad at that.

Re: Why did the web take over desktop and not mobile?

#110

Post by beefield »

bhawks wrote: post #59

When iPhone and Android hit the scene the 'rich' web experience was primarily flash, silverlight, and some java applets (taking their last breathe). Input APIs for touch, multitouch and gesture were a mess for many years in the browser. Media queries didn't become a w3c recommendation until 2012 so building a ux that looked pleasant really wasn't possible. The memory, cpu, GPU, storage and battery constraints were un…

> The real question is how did the web remain relevant while being so far behind this tectonic platform shift?

Not sure it is relevant anymore for a non-trivial chunk of people - at least in mobile. Lately I have quite often needed to explain about a good web app accessible in browser but not in app store. And I am a bit bewildered. The amount of people pretty much unable to distinguish between browser, app store and url is... not too small. (And don't get me started about iphone users' understanding why their location services "do not work" in safari. I assume there is a difference in default permissions there between iphone and abdroid there)

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