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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)

#171

Post by kebokyo »

mvladic wrote: post #43
rubymamis wrote: post #22

While the web platform is catching up due to the continuous supply of abstractions by modern browsers, once you must deviate from those abstractions, you quickly find yourself needing to implement something yourself that is much less efficient than a native implementation. I wrote about developing my own block editor from scratch[1] using C++ and QML after finding that Notion (and so many other web apps) are extremel…

Obsidian is an Electron app (I don't know if it belongs to the Block editor category). It loads just as fast as your app. I tried copying and pasting the text file War and Peace (66035 lines) from Notepad into both apps and, interestingly, Obsidian is slightly faster. Also, scrolling through this large chunk of text is slightly faster on Obsidian, too. Obsidian memory consumption (4 processes) is 172 MB and Daino Not…

Obsidian is the only Electron app I don’t despise.

VSCode is close to counting… but it absolutely sucks on RAM usage, so I try to avoid it when I can.

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

#172

Post by tshaddox »

thot_experiment wrote: post #159

I man don't get me wrong, I love the idea of PWAs but this dude is out to lunch. It's so painful making anything complex work cross browser/cross platform. On iOS iirc they don't even support adding PWAs to the homescreen? You definitely can't Bluetooth outside of Chrome (probably only on Android and Windows too because nothing fun is ever allowed on Macs). Multiplayer games you kind of need UDP. You cannot UDP in th…

> On iOS iirc they don't even support adding PWAs to the homescreen?

You've been able to add websites to the home screen going back at least to the iPhone 5 in 2012. Is it the "PWA" part you're questioning? iOS definitely does have PWA support, although with a few notable limitations that may be deal-breakers for certain apps. Oh, and apparently Apple recently disabled PWAs entirely in the EU.

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

#173

Post by MattHeard »

One thing I haven't seen addressed in the post or comments (sorry if it's there and I just missed it) is for apps and websites that sell non-digital goods to customers.

For returning customers, a customer with an app installed is simply going to have a lot less friction to open the installed app and place an order than a customer who has to open their browser, log in again, and then place the order.

That alone is worth the investment for many companies in making an app, even if a minority of customers actually choose to install the app and keep it installed.

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

#174

Post by alternatex »

rubymamis wrote: post #22

While the web platform is catching up due to the continuous supply of abstractions by modern browsers, once you must deviate from those abstractions, you quickly find yourself needing to implement something yourself that is much less efficient than a native implementation. I wrote about developing my own block editor from scratch[1] using C++ and QML after finding that Notion (and so many other web apps) are extremel…

This app looks exactly like one I had used in the past. Took me a while to find it: https://www.notes-foss.com/

Even the logo is almost identical.

Is this the same project? Looks like two separate GitHub repos by the same author. Why two similar projects/websites?

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

#176

Post by GoblinSlayer »

jbombadil wrote: post #67

As a consumer, I understand the need of a native app for something that is performance intensive or that requires a level of OS access that the website doesn’t provide. OTOH, in tired of everyone pushing apps that could easily be a website. I had an xfinity technician aggressively pushing me to install their xfi app when they came to install the service. They told me it was the only good way to configure the WiFi (!)…

Android app? Then install amd64 Lineage OS in virtualbox, push app there, then restore a snapshot.

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

#177

Post by Rohansi »

DrBenCarson wrote: post #105
anderber wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Safari has always hampered PWAs, and probably for the reason that they want you to use the appstore instead ($$$).

Is Android dramatically better for PWAs?

There are fewer walls, yes.

Push notifications from PWAs are another area that is unnecessarily limited on iOS. They only work if the user has added your PWA to their home screen and Safari doesn't support the install prompts available in Chrome and similar.

So your users will need to go out of their way to add the PWA to their home screen and then they can receive silent push notifications because Apple says sound and vibrations are only allowed for native apps.

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

#178

Post by la_fayette »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #129
rubymamis wrote: post #22

While the web platform is catching up due to the continuous supply of abstractions by modern browsers, once you must deviate from those abstractions, you quickly find yourself needing to implement something yourself that is much less efficient than a native implementation. I wrote about developing my own block editor from scratch[1] using C++ and QML after finding that Notion (and so many other web apps) are extremel…

Native apps also give users a type of control that web apps can’t, by way of existing as fully independent executables on storage in possession of the user. Web apps can just up and disappear, spontaneously grow paywalls, or slowly enshittify over time, and unless both the user is technically savvy and the web app is fully open source, there’s nothing the user can do about it. In contrast, when a new release of a nat…

Yes, but native Apps have adds, which at least I don't know how to block. On Firefox mobile I can just use ublock origin to watch YouTube Videos without ads, as one example...

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

#179

Post by voxic11 »

thot_experiment wrote: post #159

I man don't get me wrong, I love the idea of PWAs but this dude is out to lunch. It's so painful making anything complex work cross browser/cross platform. On iOS iirc they don't even support adding PWAs to the homescreen? You definitely can't Bluetooth outside of Chrome (probably only on Android and Windows too because nothing fun is ever allowed on Macs). Multiplayer games you kind of need UDP. You cannot UDP in th…

WebTransport is now supported in most common browsers (just missing safari support) and provides a nice API for sending/receiving messages via UDP. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/WebTranspor...

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

#180

Post by rpdillon »

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.

> Every time I hear the PWA argument it's always what is in the best interest of developers not users.

I can control a web app through customizations to my browser in ways I can't with a native app. It's about user choice.

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