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App Should Have Been a Website (and Probably Your Game Too)

rogueengine.io

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Re: App Should Have Been a Website (and Probably Your Game Too)

#51

Post by mrweasel »

Ntrails wrote: post #41
ctippett wrote: post #4

I sympathise, but talking to my sister I've come to appreciate a different point of view. I have an "app", a PWA, that she says she cannot find because it's not in the App Store. Despite telling her it's available as a website, this seems too much... she just doesn't use — or is comfortable using — Safari.

I dislike apps and avoid installing them in general terms. They're bloated and frankly I have better things to store on my phone (mostly music, but also photos, conversation histories etc). I do not need an "app" for submitting a form. Looking at a website. etc etc My favourite thing about using a website? It can't send me attention grabbing notifications. It can't harass me for perms. I'm 100% an outlier. My friends…

The world seems to be reversed in my mind. On my phone everything wants to be an app, and everything on my computer wants to be a webapp. I want the opposite. Native apps on the computer and the phone can just be webapps, because I don't really care, nor do I need to repeatably use the same app on my phone.

On my computer I have a few programs installed, which I just constantly. On the phone I need each app only a few times a month, if that, yet they all insist on being actual apps.

Re: App Should Have Been a Website (and Probably Your Game Too)

#52

Post by aman-pro »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #23
mertbio wrote: post #16

> But fast-forward to today, and browsers can do all that. Browsers can't access all the APIs in iOS. > Developers pay hefty app store fees You pay 99$ per year and 15% for each sale. Apple handles VAT, refunds, distribution and so on. > They’re faster, more flexible, and work seamlessly across devices. Native apps? Not so much. Enabling iCloud sync for your app is just a single click on Xcode. > Why Web Apps Are the…

Your first quote is very misleading because it followed this: > apps had unique features like notifications and offline access. Browsers can do those things. If you're going to offer "Browsers can't access all the APIs in iOS" then, at the very list, provide one or two examples of what you're referring to.

Contacts API; Not all sensors are supported

Re: App Should Have Been a Website (and Probably Your Game Too)

#53

Post by rubymamis »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #36
rubymamis wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any text editor that struggles to load a large text file on a modern computer is, simply put, inefficient. If 20 years ago they managed to write programs that could handle such cases and today many (web) apps fail at this task means we're going backward. My point is that it's much harder to write efficient code in the web ecosystem because you're bound to specific abstractions from the browser. Once deviating from sa…

> Any text editor that struggles to load a large text file... Define "large". If it's bigger than the biggest text file I'll ever open, then I don't care. My point is that "efficient" code isn't absolutely necessary in many, many cases.

The problem with that mentality is that you start seeing inefficiencies spring everywhere (why loading Discord takes so long? Slack? etc, etc).

Re: App Should Have Been a Website (and Probably Your Game Too)

#54

Post by flax »

For my game, I do have a web version, but I also have native apps, because the web monetization path is just not as smooth as native.

I chose Flutter because I like Dart far more than TypeScript/JavaScript. AdMob doesn't support web. Of course there is a Google Web ads solution, but Google's "significant content" evaluator doesn't see any Flutter content, so you have to add a bunch of useless text to use web ads. In-app purchases are fairly easy compared to getting Stripe set up, and for the user far more usable.

I'd LOVE to stop dealing with app stores and the 15% tax, and iOS entirely, but it's not a good user experience.

Of course, I could choose not to monetize at all, but I would like to get something for my efforts, at least enough to support its own running costs.

Re: App Should Have Been a Website (and Probably Your Game Too)

#57

Post by sumuyuda »

pacifika wrote: post #56

The app can be installed only by tapping, but the web app requires typing in the url or into a search. I feel this is difficult for many more people with less motor skills, or that can’t read.

Do you not have to search for the app on the app stores? How else is the app found?

Re: App Should Have Been a Website (and Probably Your Game Too)

#59

Post by spiderfarmer »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #50
spiderfarmer wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's clear that people expect 'apps' to be in the app store, how can you think "there's nothing wrong" with calling PWA's 'apps'?

OK, "there's nothing wrong with calling a PWA an 'app' in most contexts, unless the person listening to you is likely to try to search for the PWA in an app store".

Ask any random person where they would go to install an app and you'll stop belittling this problem.

Re: App Should Have Been a Website (and Probably Your Game Too)

#60

Post by bogdan »

threeseed wrote: post #31
mertbio wrote: post #16

> But fast-forward to today, and browsers can do all that. Browsers can't access all the APIs in iOS. > Developers pay hefty app store fees You pay 99$ per year and 15% for each sale. Apple handles VAT, refunds, distribution and so on. > They’re faster, more flexible, and work seamlessly across devices. Native apps? Not so much. Enabling iCloud sync for your app is just a single click on Xcode. > Why Web Apps Are the…

> Browsers can't access all the APIs in iOS And nor should they. Every single API that gets added to a browser increases the likelihood that you will be accurately fingerprinted and tracked across the web. This data is then packaged and sold to third parties whom you will never know about. Every time I hear the PWA argument it's always what is in the best interest of developers not users.

Fingerprinting isn't going anywhere without legislation. New browser APIs or PWAs won't change the underlying problem. It's the same status quo.
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