PWAs are dead.
I won't download your app. The web version is a-ok
81–90 of 599 posts
Re: I won't download your app. The web version is a-ok
#82I don't understand it from the app developers point of view. Having to pay app store cuts over basic card processing fees. I understand the appeal of access to a market, like selling on eBay gets you eyeballs. But once you have a customer using their app, what does the app give you that a PWA doesn't unless you need access to specific sensors / file system access patterns etc?
The vast majority of apps come from companies where the app developer has little to no say in how things work. Amazon, Walmart, Instacart, Uber, Ebay, Shein, etc are certainly not paying Apple 30% for purchases made inside the app. They also operate at a scale where they get bulk rates from MC/Visa on processing fees.
Re: I won't download your app. The web version is a-ok
#83I've got an old-ish phone, so in most cases, I can't download your app even if I wanted to. You deliberately set your minimum iOS deployment version to be higher than what my phone can even install. So I have to go to your web site or just stop doing business with your ass. Just because your developers decided that developing for older phones is too hard to figure out, or it takes too much effort, and they'd rather j…
I think the blame is on Apple here, you can't support older devices even if you wanted to. (And it's the same on Android)
You can support older devices, but admittedly Apple does not make it super easy to find. The easy "happy path" in Xcode is to only support the most recent OS versions.
Re: I won't download your app. The web version is a-ok
#84What most people dont get: Most of folks on HN here are much older than todays "first customers" of 16y/17/18 For them: The "Smartphone is the internet", while for most of us the "Smartphone is an extension of the internet from our desktops" that we were used to (remember the years before dot com bubble, saying: "I will be down in the basement at the computer to surf on the net little bit" ? :-) But today, the very f…
> Most of folks on HN here are much older than todays "first customers" of 16y/17/18
17yo here, I know that I might be a bit of an exception here but atleast within my privacy conscious friend circle, I feel like they prefer websites more than apps and I feel like that plays an impact, (Obviously this might make a difference as well that for some of my generation, they only use phone so phone applications feel more intuitive to them)
I used to say to my elder brother that I wish to make websites not apps if I do because websites are more portable etc., but he said that websites are hard to monetize etc. rather than apps which are easier to monetize. I think that one of the reasons is also that app are easily monetized and this has become a norm to many people outside of HN/privacy-conscious sphere in general.
I really wanted to make f-droid applications sometime ago but I don't know Java and I really love how easy it is to make an applicaation in golang/python/any lang in desktops usually but I tried making an tauri android rust application from my desktop Linux and it was really frustrating, I feel like there are some very low hanging fruits privacy win where open source tools can be converted into just bare minimum-ly good UI/UX android/ios apps (which works) and be published to something like f-droid.
Re: I won't download your app. The web version is a-ok
#85gmail on mobile is particularly insidious in this context.
Re: I won't download your app. The web version is a-ok
#86Still holding my breath for the app that puts up a dialog on every launch asking "would you like to try our web version?"
Re: I won't download your app. The web version is a-ok
#87What most people dont get: Most of folks on HN here are much older than todays "first customers" of 16y/17/18 For them: The "Smartphone is the internet", while for most of us the "Smartphone is an extension of the internet from our desktops" that we were used to (remember the years before dot com bubble, saying: "I will be down in the basement at the computer to surf on the net little bit" ? :-) But today, the very f…
PWAs were a cute experiment and they never took off, and even the vibe coders chose to vibe code native apps over half-baked PWAs.
There you go.
Re: I won't download your app. The web version is a-ok
#88What most people dont get: Most of folks on HN here are much older than todays "first customers" of 16y/17/18 For them: The "Smartphone is the internet", while for most of us the "Smartphone is an extension of the internet from our desktops" that we were used to (remember the years before dot com bubble, saying: "I will be down in the basement at the computer to surf on the net little bit" ? :-) But today, the very f…
I saw a television advert the other day that specifically called out Millennials and how, yes, you can book a vacation from your phone and you're going to be okay, dad.
I think, "I'm not downloading your app" is of course a perfectly fine perspective. I rarely do. And blogging about it is playing one's role in the techno-cultural tug-of-war. But I'm consciously aware that I'm in the dying minority and the world is changing regardless of how much I choose to yell at the clouds.
Re: I won't download your app. The web version is a-ok
#89PWAs are dead.
PWAs make little sense at this point as most apps are useless without an active internet connection. You can't cache Uber ride searches, Amazon product listings or food delivery options.
Re: I won't download your app. The web version is a-ok
#90That's my stance as well. Unless the website is completely broken or the devs force me to download the app by blocking features on the website I prefer the web. With responsive design becoming mainstream I'm fine with using my browser for 90% of my internet work. In some cases like Google docs it's painful to use the web version so I just use the app. EDIT: I wish they'd add a console to mobile web browsers though.
> the website is completely broken or the devs force me to download the app by blocking features on the website for me, this is signal that i wasn't supposed to be visiting that resource in the first place
Yep. If someone is trying to make you do something, or stop doing something, or buy something, your first question should always be "Why?".
Why would someone try to force me off of my browser (that has ad-blocking and tracker-blocking mitigations) and on to a locked-down app that may want permission to run in the background, display notifications, access my files or camera, etc?
Maybe it really is to "improve my experience"... yeah, right.