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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)

#251

Post by moffkalast »

Anechoic wrote: post #182
tshaddox wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Oh, and apparently Apple recently disabled PWAs entirely in the EU Apple reversed that decision back in March [0] (expand "Why don't users in the EU have access to Home Screen web apps?") [0] https://developer.apple.com/support/dma-and-apps-in-the-eu

> The need to remove the capability was informed by the complex security and privacy concerns associated with web apps to support alternative browser engines that would require building a new integration architecture that does not currently exist in iOS and iPadOS.

This rationalization makes zero sense, it's just opening a standalone browser window from a convenient icon shortcut. They could even ignore the manifest.json entirely like Android does half the time anyway cause the implementation is buggy as all hell.

I think the real reason was some kind of retaliation worthy of a baby insanity wolf meme because they were forced to stop reskinning Safari for all other browsers on iOS which was absolutely ridiculous in the first place.

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

#252

Post by bdangubic »

threeseed wrote: post #236
bdangubic wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

install tiktok (if you do not have it) and disable everything, no mic/camera/photos/contacts/… nothing. then ask you partner/friend/… to send you some text messages about purchasing an ebike for instance. open safari and do some searches for ebikes ( https://blue.bike perhaps and others)… the head on over to tiktok and scroll a bit and see if any ebikes start showing up…

a) There is no evidence that Apple is sharing messages with third parties. b) You are simply confirming my point which is that when you visit a website it is able to tie you to an consistent identifier through the APIs your browser supports.

there is no evidence for a whole lot of things… /s

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

#253

Post by leptons »

hnthrowaway2376 wrote: post #223
leptons wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RAM is cheap, my time is not. VSCode is the best game in town (for me), and my 32GB computer has no problem with its RAM requirements. Even 8GB would be enough for VSCode depending on what else your toolchain requires.

> RAM is cheap RAM is cheap for you. It's always silly when people bring up their top-of-the-line computer into discussions about performance. Software shouldn't be just for the top 1%.

Apple RAM is expensive. Every other kind of RAM is pretty cheap. 32GB DDR4 can be had for under $30, and 16GB DDR4 can be had for about $25. I'm not sure who you think has a computer, is developing software, and can't afford that. Maybe someone in India, I guess. Too bad if that's you, but "top 1%" is a laughable claim when RAM is so cheap. 16GB of RAM is nowhere near "top of the line". You're just trolling here, "hnthrowaway2376".

Let's say I spent $50 on 32GB of RAM. Over the lifetime of the computer that upgrade would cost ~$0.02 per day. Two pennies a day. And that's US prices, it can be less expensive elsewhere.

I've used VSCode on a computer with 2GB of RAM, and it worked. I expected everything to run slower - and it did run slower, but it ran. And I developed, and contributed to the project I was working on while away from my workstation. This was a cheap $70 Windows 10 tablet. YMMV.

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

#254

Post by haikuya »

There’s a dichotomy between web and native apps. I don’t feel like I’m leaving my OS when using an app that’s parked on my dock. For subscriptions and pricing web is great but even the notifications are sub-par to native, I need user retention not another tab in my browser.

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

#255

Post by brookst »

moffkalast wrote: post #251
Anechoic wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, and apparently Apple recently disabled PWAs entirely in the EU Apple reversed that decision back in March [0] (expand "Why don't users in the EU have access to Home Screen web apps?") [0] https://developer.apple.com/support/dma-and-apps-in-the-eu

> The need to remove the capability was informed by the complex security and privacy concerns associated with web apps to support alternative browser engines that would require building a new integration architecture that does not currently exist in iOS and iPadOS. This rationalization makes zero sense, it's just opening a standalone browser window from a convenient icon shortcut. They could even ignore the manifest.…

Shows why guessing and gut feel are bad basis for opinions.

In fact, Apple’s problem was that the PWA serviceworker runs as root, a bad decision made years ago. Enabling Chrome-hosted PWAs means Google gets root on those peoples’ phones.

We can still lambast Apple and go all ad hom, but let’s stay factual?

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

#256

Post by recursive »

debugnik wrote: post #189
Animats wrote: post #186

> Thanks to HTML5, WebGL, and WebAssembly, browser games are catching up to native ones in ways we couldn’t have imagined just a few years ago. Meta’s Oculus browser already delivers web games that rival native apps in performance. And once WebGPU becomes standard, the differences will be practically invisible. If only. Have you tried Google Earth on Firefox lately? You can't even zoom in and out any more without wai…

> Is it a deliberate attempt by Google to force people to Chrome? For the last several months, the YouTube player takes me several seconds to load on Firefox and freezes on me for a couple of seconds every other time I press play/pause... And changing the user agent fixed it! So I say yes. But I found the extensions to do so quite clunky so I gave up.

This is really annoying when it happens. Next time it starts, I'll definitely try the user agent thing. When loading youtube, when this is happening, (and sometimes it doesn't) the whole page locks up for a few seconds half-way through loading/rendering/hydrating. After that, it seems to do a CSS recalc/reflow. While waiting, it's impossible to do anything.

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

#257

Post by brookst »

segfaltnh wrote: post #247
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…

I think the part where he calls out airline apps is spot on though. They don't need any of that tech.

As a frequent user of both web and phone airline apps, the phone apps are just nicer. UI idioms that are appropriate for the platform, etc.

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

#258

Post by brookst »

pjmlp wrote: post #190
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…

Most of the time a PWA isn't needed at all, a mobile Web friendly website suffices.

For offline use?

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

#259

Post by bloppe »

sgustard wrote: post #222
adastra22 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the other hand, there is absolutely no reason that Uber or Waymo needs to have an "app". Here’s one: I don’t give websites my location or the ability to interrupt me with notifications. Ever. I’ve blocked the browser from doing this entirely. I have Uber and Lyft apps installed and granted those permissions though.

Uber is almost the canonical example of something that should be an app! I need to do a frequent task, I punch up the app, I'm always logged in with my location pinpointed, I get a little live-updating widget on my phone with my ride location, plus notifications and Apple Pay and so on. When my ride's over I'm done with the app. Much more useful than say the "Hilton Honors" or "Ann Arbor News" apps which are literall…

literally each of those things is also totally possible and easy with a PWA, except maybe the widget.

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

#260

Post by bloppe »

adastra22 wrote: post #194
Animats wrote: post #186

> Thanks to HTML5, WebGL, and WebAssembly, browser games are catching up to native ones in ways we couldn’t have imagined just a few years ago. Meta’s Oculus browser already delivers web games that rival native apps in performance. And once WebGPU becomes standard, the differences will be practically invisible. If only. Have you tried Google Earth on Firefox lately? You can't even zoom in and out any more without wai…

> On the other hand, there is absolutely no reason that Uber or Waymo needs to have an "app". Here’s one: I don’t give websites my location or the ability to interrupt me with notifications. Ever. I’ve blocked the browser from doing this entirely. I have Uber and Lyft apps installed and granted those permissions though.

Is there a reason why you think location access is OK for the Uber app but not ok for the uber.com website?
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