Why Publishers Don't Like Apps
technologyreview.com
Why Publishers Don't Like Apps
1–10 of 21 posts
Re: Why Publishers Don't Like Apps
#2My strong intuition is that the era of apps as centers of profit themselves is going to be short lived.
People are going to get tired of the gimmicky games. Content-oriented apps are going to be easier to code as HTML5. Big companies like Facebook will probably still find value in building native UIs but the number of apps actually making money via sales in the app store is going to dwindle off.
Re: Why Publishers Don't Like Apps
#3Wow,
This seems like a pretty big correction to claims the wall-gardens are going to replace the Internet.
A single, free, multi-linked information space does seem inherently better than a series of print reproductions.
Re: Why Publishers Don't Like Apps
#4My strong intuition is that the era of apps as centers of profit themselves is going to be short lived. People are going to get tired of the gimmicky games. Content-oriented apps are going to be easier to code as HTML5. Big companies like Facebook will probably still find value in building native UIs but the number of apps actually making money via sales in the app store is going to dwindle off.
Facebook ironically does not build real native apps, they are just beautiful HTML wrappers. FB apps are an example of user experience regressions, as they were by far snappier two years ago.
Re: Why Publishers Don't Like Apps
#5My strong intuition is that the era of apps as centers of profit themselves is going to be short lived. People are going to get tired of the gimmicky games. Content-oriented apps are going to be easier to code as HTML5. Big companies like Facebook will probably still find value in building native UIs but the number of apps actually making money via sales in the app store is going to dwindle off.
Facebook ironically does not build real native apps, they are just beautiful HTML wrappers. FB apps are an example of user experience regressions, as they were by far snappier two years ago.
Yeah I'm aware of that but from what I hear they have native apps in the works.
Of course, if even Facebook prefers to build HTML apps what are the odds that smaller companies are going to go to the extra trouble and expense of native?
Re: Why Publishers Don't Like Apps
#6> But the real problem with apps was more profound. When people read news and features on electronic media, they expect stories to possess the linky-ness of the Web.
But why not simply embed a web view? I like to use the App "Alien blue" to visit reddit.com. This sites purpose is to link outside and it works fine as an app.
There is nothing wrong with apps, or even walled gardens, but the implementations of digital magazines shortly after the iPad release was a giant WTF: Glorified PDF Viewers, slow, non-hypertext-linky, non-zoomable, non-Retina-ready, crashy, 500MB - 1 Gigabyte an issue.
Re: Why Publishers Don't Like Apps
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
Facebook ironically does not build real native apps, they are just beautiful HTML wrappers. FB apps are an example of user experience regressions, as they were by far snappier two years ago.
Yeah I'm aware of that but from what I hear they have native apps in the works. Of course, if even Facebook prefers to build HTML apps what are the odds that smaller companies are going to go to the extra trouble and expense of native?
If you go the 80/20 route, you'll only need an iOS anyway, and later on you can add an Android app - that's what they all do now, anyways. Perhaps that will shift to Android-first when everybody and his dog has a cheap Android phone (I hope not!).
Pseudo-native HTML apps are inferior, and people will notice it. I'm quite fed up with the FB apps on both iOS and Android because they spend more time with loading than the in-browser version. It's so bad that I actually considered if FB wants to drive people away from mobile so they click more ads in the browser - I don't think that's really the case though.
Re: Why Publishers Don't Like Apps
#8> But the real problem with apps was more profound. When people read news and features on electronic media, they expect stories to possess the linky-ness of the Web. But why not simply embed a web view? I like to use the App "Alien blue" to visit reddit.com. This sites purpose is to link outside and it works fine as an app. There is nothing wrong with apps, or even walled gardens, but the implementations of digital m…
You have to also "simply" embed a download/update mechanism, "simply" test various restore scenarios (Consumable vs non-consumable receipts), "simply" make sure it works in various orientations, and "simply" modify the way the entire organization works to suit Apple.
The content is also different, taking a bunch of webdevs and telling them make this work on iOS does not result in compelling content layout, design, or navigation. There are subtleties in pinch&zoom, dragging, etc. that most webdevs have not had the pleasure? of dealing with.
On top of that, UIWebView bridging js+objc is a PITA for iOS, and its a major problem for android where the 2 solutions are not even close to similar. So there is little code reuse between the viewers, and the content itself must be slightly different for the 2 platforms.
Re: Why Publishers Don't Like Apps
#9What a troll! The problem is we have pedantic editors that do not want the text to flow fluidly. They want to control every extra dash like it is print. They need to realize that to work on landscape/portrait mode, you have to program the text to flow fluidly, you can't use 'screenshots of text'. Simple fact: the publishers are stupid.
HTML5 works the same in an App's Web View as it does in Safari, so the lies at the end of this article are particularly grating.
Re: Why Publishers Don't Like Apps
#10> But the real problem with apps was more profound. When people read news and features on electronic media, they expect stories to possess the linky-ness of the Web. But why not simply embed a web view? I like to use the App "Alien blue" to visit reddit.com. This sites purpose is to link outside and it works fine as an app. There is nothing wrong with apps, or even walled gardens, but the implementations of digital m…
You have to also "simply" embed a download/update mechanism, "simply" test various restore scenarios (Consumable vs non-consumable receipts), "simply" make sure it works in various orientations, and "simply" modify the way the entire organization works to suit Apple. The content is also different, taking a bunch of webdevs and telling them make this work on iOS does not result in compelling content layout, design, or…
Yep, sounds like 'work' and these people don't 'work'.