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Do not download the app, use the website

idiallo.com

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Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#241

Post by andoando »

spauldo wrote: post #237
ljm wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of native apps are just wrappers around a JS context with a few bridges into native APIs and they are pure data grabs. Reddit always asks you to use its native app, for example. Why the fuck would I care so much about Reddit that I want it outside of my browser? Same goes for any other website.

Reddit is one of the cases where a native app makes sense. Some of the 3rd party Reddit apps were great. But I'll eat my hat before I'll install Reddit's own app. Reddit killing off 3rd party apps is why I post here and not there.

That's because reddit on mobile browser sucks ass (feels like it's intentionally made to suck) even more so than its native app.

I don't think being nativr is what made 3rd party apps great

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#242

Post by ajsnigrutin »

userbinator wrote: post #148
xxr wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>app icons are just "advertisement" You wouldn't believe the volume of actual advertisements that show up as push notifications on my wife's phone

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

Even better, apps have to ask you for permission to even show notifications!

Game? Doesn't need notfications, deny, done!

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#243

Post by c-hendricks »

frollogaston wrote: post #107
llm_nerd wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like Apple is some lazy target for people to point to why PWAs have little uptake. Android has long had PWA support. Almost no one uses it at all. In fact iOS users have long had significantly high web browser usage than their Android compatriots. "It's because iOS doesn't support it...somehow. Despite entirely separate bases that could be served in entirely different ways, it's actually Apple's fault" A coupl…

Apps are normally made semi cross-platform nowadays. Not much point in maintaining a PWA that's effectively an Android-only app. But even aside from Apple's lack of support, the PWA standard seems kinda bad. Weird boilerplate like the serviceworker.js even if all you want is to make it addable to home screen.

You don't need a service worker if that's all you want to do. You just need a manifest.

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#244

Post by andoando »

kristopolous wrote: post #147
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!

The "download app" notifications on reddit are like some kind of art project to maximimally annoy you. Probably the worst offender is facebook where they have what can only be called an intentionally broken mobile website - the idea of losing the person's name if you edit a comment, the page deciding to reload you back to the main page if you switch tabs to research something or the post box clearing out if you switc…

I feel the same way about reddit. Modals are bigger than the page with unclickable buttons.

Profile/settings icon/button is rendered half way or fully out of the page.

Chat feature is completely unusable

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#245

Post by card_zero »

spauldo wrote: post #237
ljm wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of native apps are just wrappers around a JS context with a few bridges into native APIs and they are pure data grabs. Reddit always asks you to use its native app, for example. Why the fuck would I care so much about Reddit that I want it outside of my browser? Same goes for any other website.

Reddit is one of the cases where a native app makes sense. Some of the 3rd party Reddit apps were great. But I'll eat my hat before I'll install Reddit's own app. Reddit killing off 3rd party apps is why I post here and not there.

I too switched from Reddit to HN during the API protests of '23. But I always browsed through old.reddit anyway, I never used the third party apps. I'm aware of names like RIF and that everyone said they were great, but what was great about them?

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#249

Post by xtracto »

ljm wrote: post #222
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…

A lot of native apps are just wrappers around a JS context with a few bridges into native APIs and they are pure data grabs. Reddit always asks you to use its native app, for example. Why the fuck would I care so much about Reddit that I want it outside of my browser? Same goes for any other website.

This is so funny. For me, it was as if the "monkey's paw" had played me.

Back in the early 2000s, I loved desktop applications. My thinking was that there's no way a web app could do what a desktop application could. I loathed slow, proprietary, online-requiring, HTML based web apps .

25 years have passed, and now we DO have some "native" device apps... but they are just HTML web elements bubdled in a freaking custom browser.

Edit: anyone remember the "PortableApps" wave? I loved having that in a usb drive.

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#250

Post by shermantanktop »

transcriptase wrote: post #81
shermantanktop wrote: post #35

What are good examples of apps that have managed to monetize the precise location of millions of users in a way that isn't obvious (e.g. location-based advertising, or location-based filtering of social media content)? Collecting that data sounds creepy and nefarious, but if i think about what Experian and everyone else already knows about me, I don't know what information my phone's location would actually add that…

When “location” includes Bluetooth and wifi info, companies with a reason to invest can track your movement around a store to ~1m accuracy with BLE beacons etc. They know what you looked at in an aisle, for how long, and unless you paid in cash what you ended up buying via loyalty programs or credit card info. They also know, for each product you looked at and bought, or looked at and didn’t buy, what advertisements…

Right, that’s how I view it.

Access my data = high creepiness, low value

Aggregate all the data = lower creepiness, high commercial value

The big fat caveat to the first is if I’m a target of a nation state, or the police attempt to use circumstantial location data to pin something on me. Which is very real, and more so now than ever.

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