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Do not download the app, use the website

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Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#211

Post by Winsaucerer »

redbell wrote: post #123

> If you've ever opened Reddit, LinkedIn, Pinterest, or practically any popular service on your phone's web browser, you've likely encountered it. Another website that asks to Get The App is https://imgur.com/ , every time you open a link to just view that image you instantly got asked to Get The App. It's really annoying!

I hate Imgur. Even with the app installed I find it doesn’t work well. I don’t understand why people use it — does it just work for them in a way it doesn’t for me, or are they more tolerant of its terrible usability?

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#212

Post by thomasfortes »

flkiwi wrote: post #166
userbinator wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least relatively recent versions of Android let you turn off notifications per-app: https://support.google.com/android/answer/9079661?hl=en

Which is nice, but when the offender is, say, a security device that sends event notification but ALSO sends marketing spam, with no granular control over types of notifications, it's not a great situation.

Android has granular control over notifications, which is great because some apps that I need send a lot of marketing notifications that I don't care about but I cannot get rid of essential notifications.

Not all apps do it and some push all notifications through a single channel (and some manufacturers hide the granularity options in advanced settings, I'm looking at you Samsung) but at least it exists.

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#213

Post by [deleted] »

frollogaston wrote: post #131
Mengkudulangsat wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are so infuriating they should be illegal. Especially when they come from apps you can't delete like your bannking app.

At least Apple has a rule against push spam, which they toe the line on but it's still a lot less bad than it could be.

[deleted]

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#215

Post by zholer »

The primary challenge here is that companies are hamstrung by browser-level API's by companies like Google and Apple where they provide them only if you build an app. This forces developers to keep maintaining and providing apps, even though every developer knows that their headaches would be less than halved if they could just support the same capabilities via browser-level apis.

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#216

Post by zholer »

zholer wrote: post #215

The primary challenge here is that companies are hamstrung by browser-level API's by companies like Google and Apple where they provide them only if you build an app. This forces developers to keep maintaining and providing apps, even though every developer knows that their headaches would be less than halved if they could just support the same capabilities via browser-level apis.

Google is a lot better in this regard though, but supporting most things on Safari are an absolute PITA

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#217

Post by chpatrick »

zholer wrote: post #215

The primary challenge here is that companies are hamstrung by browser-level API's by companies like Google and Apple where they provide them only if you build an app. This forces developers to keep maintaining and providing apps, even though every developer knows that their headaches would be less than halved if they could just support the same capabilities via browser-level apis.

99% of apps don't need any native feature.

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#218

Post by dsp_person »

rustystump wrote: post #134

I cannot agree more and this has always been a pet peeve of mine. Most native apps are some half gig large where even the heaviest website is a few mb. They dont let you highlight text and have other bizarre design choices. Even worse, they request importing contacts list which isnt even an option on the web. Native apps could be butter but more often than not they are like margarine. Smooth, oily, and not good for y…

Funny cause I was just thinking about the tradeoff of "internal wasm app" vs "internal native app".

The former has convenient distribution, but worse performance and other limitations.

The latter can be tricky to keep updated, ensure the environment is the same for everyone and/or cross-platform differences, etc., but significantly better/faster.

But both binaries about the same size. Assuming using something like sokol or SDL3.

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#219

Post by singpolyma3 »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #113
markbao wrote: post #7

Don’t agree, but to each their own. The native app experience for every app noted in the article is better and smoother than the mobile web version, in my opinion. Lots of people hate Electron apps, which suggests to me that my preference for native apps isn’t unique. Web apps can ask for your location or microphone the same way native apps can. Just reject it, there’s nothing that says you have to accept on either p…

That's partially by design. Apple makes it a pain to make proper PWA's, and companies with websites make extremely intrusive elements to ruin the mobile website in order drive to the app. Which is easier to monetize and harder to adblock, I imagine. Some places outright disable the mobile view for the app. More simply, I don't need an app for every website I visit. a bookmark is much more lightweight than downloading…

I'm not apple lover, but safari support for PWAs is pretty good. What do you think is missing?

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#220

Post by singpolyma3 »

amarshall wrote: post #79
markbao wrote: post #7

Don’t agree, but to each their own. The native app experience for every app noted in the article is better and smoother than the mobile web version, in my opinion. Lots of people hate Electron apps, which suggests to me that my preference for native apps isn’t unique. Web apps can ask for your location or microphone the same way native apps can. Just reject it, there’s nothing that says you have to accept on either p…

Many of the “native” apps on mobile app stores are React Native, though.

Why quotes? React native is native
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