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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?

#231

Post by dleslie »

brundolf wrote: post #228
dleslie wrote: post #221

For many people wireless connectivity is spotty at best; particularly rural USA, most of Canada, and much of the non-western world. Whereas home internet connections tend to be fairly reliable. Anecdotally, I don't rely on web apps because the terrible network reliability that I have means that they are frustratingly slow and frequently outright break. Native mobile apps work just fine.

Properly-written PWAs can keep code and data locally cached to avoid this problem. Of course most companies just don't bother implementing that stuff

If most of the business logic is on a server then caching doesn't help; there's too many misses.

Besides, major draws for building web apps includes control of user data and keeping business logic behind an API.

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

#232

Post by brundolf »

dleslie wrote: post #231
brundolf wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Properly-written PWAs can keep code and data locally cached to avoid this problem. Of course most companies just don't bother implementing that stuff

If most of the business logic is on a server then caching doesn't help; there's too many misses. Besides, major draws for building web apps includes control of user data and keeping business logic behind an API.

There's nothing technical that stops you from putting business logic in the web client any more than on native (except I guess working with local files, but not many mobile apps do that these days anyway). I'm just saying, if the key benefit is not having to download the app every time you open it, and instead only downloading the actual data as needed (to save on bandwidth), PWAs can serve that usecase (if they're designed to).

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

#233

Post by garmaine »

snuser wrote: post #39
garmaine wrote: post #2

…did it? I still use tons of native apps on my laptop, and almost exclusively native apps only on my desktop.

You're thinking about software not apps

They’re the same thing. “App” is short for “application”, aka installable software.

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

#234

Post by unnouinceput »

Let's agree to disagree. Web didn't take over anything, it found its own niche. Native apps, web apps and mobile apps they all live in this together. Before mobile billions of people could not afford a computer, to have desktop at their disposal. Nowadays an inexpensive Android (like $20) with enough power to run WhatsApp can be found in hands of dirt poor rural Indians. Hence why mobile devices are more numerous. But they didn't ate anything from dekstop. Same with web, it found a place to exists.

Do you want a truly "great oxidation event"? That would be a headband activated by Alpha/Beta/whatever brain waves so you can wear your computer on your head and command it using your thoughts. That's gonna be a true device, that will disrupt both desktop and mobile altogether. Until then the next "wave" is gonna be IoT where you'd play Doom on your coffee maker. Nothing disruptive about IoT either, just another gizmo for us to play with.

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

#235

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

amw-zero wrote: post #187
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.

People say this a lot, but really, what can a native app track that a web app can't? To track location, you need to give the app permission, just like the web. To receive push notifications, you need to give the app permission, just like the web. I think this claim is unfounded.

Computers are kept in a fixed or limited number of locations. Phones are tracking devices that follow you throughout the day. The data they generate is far more valuable for building a consumer profile.

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

#237

Post by kitsunesoba »

xiphias2 wrote: post #182
batty_alex wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell me, why does Apple need to do exactly what Google does? I thought we liked different ideas and competition ‘round these parts?

Apple just doesn't do it in any way. There's no way to permamently store data on Safari. At least Google Chrome has the File writer API (even though it would be good to have permament IndexedDB storage as well).

IIRC you can permanently store information under iOS Safari if the site is installed as a PWA, which makes some amount of sense. By associating long term storage with the intentional action of adding to Home Screen, sites are prevented from storing things without user permission and the feature's capability as a method of fingerprinting is greatly reduced.

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

#238

Post by karaterobot »

I remember native mobile apps disrupting the web, rather than the other way around.

The reason native apps disrupted web apps was because they were (all else equal) more performant, and had access to more of the device, and because companies drove users to using their apps because they could get more value out of them that way.

My take on it at the time was that native apps gave companies a way to reset their relationships with web users, and bring them into an environment where users had less control, and companies had more.

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

#239

Post by amw-zero »

IshKebab wrote: post #211
amw-zero wrote: post #191

If you ask me, the number one reason is that Android and iOS have UI libraries that are specifically meant for mobile devices. Yes, you can design a web app for a mobile phone, but there is nothing that guides you or gives you any help in that direction. For example, navigation between screens. On iOS, you have a nav bar at the top of the screen, and when you navigate to a new screen it slides over the current one, a…

That's definitely not the reason. When the iPhone first came out the idea was that all third party apps would be web apps. It was the official way. Of course everyone hated it because performance sucked and interactions weren't smooth and reliable.

So mobile web was not enjoyable for users, and native apps (which use the APIs that I attribute their success to) won out.

In what way does that go against what I said? (it doesn't)

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

#240

Post by amw-zero »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #235
amw-zero wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People say this a lot, but really, what can a native app track that a web app can't? To track location, you need to give the app permission, just like the web. To receive push notifications, you need to give the app permission, just like the web. I think this claim is unfounded.

Computers are kept in a fixed or limited number of locations. Phones are tracking devices that follow you throughout the day. The data they generate is far more valuable for building a consumer profile.

You're talking about desktops vs. laptops / mobile phones. That has nothing to do with mobile vs. web. A phone can run a web browser.
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