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Why did the web take over desktop and not mobile?

subconscious.substack.com

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

#261

Post by notatoad »

Fragoel2 wrote: post #71

I found the article really hard to read, the author took a long and convoluted path to expose his ideas. As for the question that the article raises, there are probably many co-occurring reasons, and a lot of comments make good points. However, one that I couldn't find listed is IMHO performance. I still find web apps (and web sites) to feel really sluggish and slow on everything that is not a top-tier phone. Again,…

>I found the article really hard to read, the author took a long and convoluted path to expose his ideas.

aka "the substack style"

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

#262

Post by heavyset_go »

Razengan wrote: post #117
nsonha wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

uhm... everything? "open" as in anyone can make a website and if it's has one good article, it will show up in some google query's result.

> "open" as in anyone can make a website Anyone can make an app too. > if it's has one good article, it will show up in some google query's result. Maybe buried deep in the 100th page, but not the front.

> Anyone can make an app too.

On iOS, this is only true if they're in good standing with Apple and have their approval, while also paying the yearly $100 Apple tax.

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

#263

Post by softwaredoug »

Did it?

I almost exclusively use the mobile browser and don’t like installing lots of apps. They’re intrusive, they always want to collect things like location data, drain the battery, take up space, and spam me with notifications. The app is often built to steal more of my attention by being faster and shinier…

For example, no matter how hobbled the Reddit web experience is, I don’t want their annoying app. I’d rather sandbox it to iPhone safari and protect my sanity.

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

#264

Post by johannes1234321 »

softwaredoug wrote: post #263

Did it? I almost exclusively use the mobile browser and don’t like installing lots of apps. They’re intrusive, they always want to collect things like location data, drain the battery, take up space, and spam me with notifications. The app is often built to steal more of my attention by being faster and shinier… For example, no matter how hobbled the Reddit web experience is, I don’t want their annoying app. I’d rath…

And apps are worse.

When looking at news sites, HN, ... my way of using those is that i open interesting articles in background tabs and then go through them. With an app I constantly have to go back and forth between front page and article. Especially annoying with longer reads.

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

#265

Post by KKKKkkkk1 »

So the Google suite of web apps has a feature called "Create shortcut" that turns a web app into a desktop app sitting in your launcher. Even with that feature, it's a subpar experience compared to macOS's native apps. So I wouldn't be so quick to claim that web took over desktop.

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

#266

Post by [deleted] »

srcreigh wrote: post #251
heavyset_go wrote: post #248

Because of anticompetitive actions taken by the companies that dominate the mobile operating systems market in order to dominate the mobile app distribution market, as well as the mobile app payments market. Those companies made billions of dollars each year through their anticompetitive behavior.

If iOS mobile web supported push notifications and permanent app links on the phone, I don't know if we would be asking this question.

[deleted]

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

#267

Post by [deleted] »

simonh wrote: post #175
SiVal wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I am sure everyone on HN moved [from computers to smartphones] quickly" I may be wrong, but I suspect you have that backwards. My guess is that at least older HNers were slower to shift from powerful but complex creation tools (computers) to easy consumption toys (smartphones) designed for consumers who found computers with files and folders just too darned complicated to use. Until good, portable mapping and good-e…

I really dislike the 'consumption device' label, to me it seems lazily dismissive and missing the point. Smartphones, like phones, are primarily communication devices and communication is an active process. Texting/chat, email, audio calls, Twitter, Slack, Teams, Reddit, facebook, Discord, snapchat, etc, etc are all interactive communications media people use to create content for as well as 'consume'. Yes of course…

[deleted]

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

#268

Post by jamil7 »

Why do we as a community feel that one technology has to “take over” another all the time? Native apps continue to exist on desktop alongside web apps and that’s fine, as the capabilities of PWAs increase we might see more coexisting with native apps on mobile. With web assembly and projects like wasmer the lines are likely to become blurry anyway.

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

#270

Post by amelius »

throw_m239339 wrote: post #188
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…

I would agree with you if not for the fact that a lot of these popular "native apps" are just webpages within a native wrapper, which kind of defeats your argument. Brands and vendors don't like the web because often they cannot 100% control what browsers do, and of course, a browser website cannot get access to the whole contact list, phone numbers and files on a phone device unlike a native app... Installing an app…

> Brands and vendors don't like the web because often they cannot 100% control (...)

App permissions exist to do the same for native apps.

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