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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?

#151

Post by mumblemumble »

jeroenhd wrote: post #115
dijit wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think the anger was justified at the time. The rich web experience back in those days was extremely limited (as it still sometimes is, on iOS). There was no way anyone was going to write a music player that could compete with the built-in one using just the "rich web experience". Connection speeds in the original iPhone era were low, as was processing power. Spotify wouldn't have been able to provide you with the s…

As I recall, the "rich web experience" that Jobs was pushing for didn't mean it would be mobile Web for everything. Wasn't his idea that apps could be installed locally, but would be written in JavaScript and use a Web stack for the UI?

Given the popularity of tools like Cordova and React Native, and the absolute dominance of Electron on desktop, I'd say he wasn't exactly wrong.

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

#152

Post by kps »

jonnycomputer wrote: post #134
jeroenhd wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have an iPhone, can you expand on that location services part? Does Safari not show the permission popup when a website asks for it or something? On Android, websites can request location permissions, you can't access any of that stuff by default.

Not sure what op meant, but most computers don't come with built in GPS. Location services rely on other indicators of location, which are far less precise.

Firefox lets you specify your location, though not easily. (Set `geo.provider.network.url` to `data:application/json,{"location":{"lat":0.00000,"lng":0.00000},"accuracy":1000}`.) Chrome doesn't, so even sites with location permission place me at my ISP's HQ 500 miles away.

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

#153

Post by mistrial9 »

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?

this is an "apples vs oranges" question

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

#154

Post by repsilat »

pedrogpimenta wrote: post #148
profmonocle wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit is a really weird one to me. Their mobile site is very nice - so nice that I don't feel any desire to install the app - aside from the fact that they desperately want me to stop using it and push the app at every opportunity. (Recently they even decided to block NSFW-flagged content from the mobile site unless you're logged in - you get a box telling you to install the app to see it.) What I don't get is why t…

You must be using a different reddit website, the one I know is horrible. It's slow, it's buggy, videos don't always work without a refresh after waiting 10 seconds to be able to click play. The UI is all wrong: for example, you open the comments of a post, it opens a faux-modal with a X button. You tap it, it closes the post but opens the subreddit. It doesn't go back to where you were. Another example is how to col…

Maybe they mean old.reddit.com. I use it on mobile and it's fine. Fast, not too many pushes to change to the app, r/friends/comments works.

Twitter on mobile has become almost unusable (unable to see most content without making an account), though I've found a workaround: it's not totally broken in incognito windows, so I guess that's how I read it now.

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

#155

Post by hateful »

In my first programming job (2000-2004), we mostly used "native" applications (the company was mostly mainframe but the "PC Programming" was done in VB6). Then the .com crash happened and we hired all of these "web developers" that were out of work and all they knew was the web. So the next programs we wrote all of a sudden web based. I remember thinking that they weren't really a good fit since we were doing mostly file processing work. They were slower and needed permissions and required servers.

I would imagine something similar happened everywhere. All of a sudden there wasn't many web developer jobs and web developers had to take "regular" programming jobs. And when all you have is a hammer...

In the long run, of course the Web grew, but in that short period of time there was definitely a displacement of skills and the rise of "Web Applications". I'm not talking of public applications, but rather internal business applications.

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

#156

Post by judge2020 »

wiz21c wrote: post #75
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…

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

The app ecosystem promotes closed content only because it requires native code to run for the UX people expect on mobile, at least until recently with responsive UIs dominating the web framework space.

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

#157

Post by pier25 »

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…

Even today, in the year 2021, browsers do not have native support for gestures which are ubiquitous in the touch screen world.

To pan/pinch/swipe you either need to implement it yourself or use a JS library like Hammer which adds unnecessary bloat.

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

#159

Post by FpUser »

simonh wrote: post #36
FpUser wrote: post #10

I am not sure in what world. 90% of the applications I use are native desktop apps. Look ma, no web.

You don’t use Gmail, Google Docs and Maps, Outlook, Youtube? My wife uses a transcribing web app called Otter. All the fantasy map authoring tools I’ve used recently (for TTRPG use) are web apps, like Inkarnate. Arguably even Facebook, Reddit and LinkedIn are really more web apps than web sites. On mobile most people would use an app for all of these services, on desktop they’re mostly tabs in a browser.

I do not use Gmail. I have my own domain like since forever and use Thunderbird to read my email. I do not use Google Docs, I use Office Suite from SoftOffice instead.

I do use Youtube, Google Maps, Google Translate, Netflix and Amazon store. I do not think they make anywhere close to even 10% of what I use. I do not use Facebook, Reddit and LinkedIn. Well I do have accounts and I used those couple of times to find particular person but that's the extent.

On mobile, the only apps I use are offline GPS - OsmAnd and some that control my gizmos like drone. Other than that my phone works strictly as a phone and does not even have data plan.

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

#160

Post by Something1234 »

pier25 wrote: post #157
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…

Even today, in the year 2021, browsers do not have native support for gestures which are ubiquitous in the touch screen world. To pan/pinch/swipe you either need to implement it yourself or use a JS library like Hammer which adds unnecessary bloat.

Don't do this without a good reason. We finally got a lot of mobile sites rendering good and you want to take that away.
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