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Your 'app' could have been a webpage (so I fixed it for you)

danq.me

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Re: Your 'app' could have been a webpage (so I fixed it for you)

#41

Post by craftkiller »

reddalo wrote: post #34
craftkiller wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chromecast from desktop chromium works, so there's no reason they couldn't make the universal turing machine in my pocket do the same.

Desktop Chromium is Chrome. iOS Chrome is just Safari with a different interface. Apple doesn't let other browsers use their own engine on iOS (unless you are located in the EU).

> iOS Chrome is just Safari with a different interface

uhh wow. How did Microsoft face antitrust lawsuits for merely bundling IE when Apple is literally forcing their browser?

Re: Your 'app' could have been a webpage (so I fixed it for you)

#42

Post by close04 »

jorisw wrote: post #28
close04 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need to play games and intentionally be obtuse all across the thread. "They" are the developers. A website has far less access to a device than an app and ads are easier to block. So they wrap anything into an app to gain that access and make ad money.

What access? Like the OS native APIs that offer the very utility for these apps to even exist? Integration with OS features is what made the app ecosystem, because of utility. Project whatever conspiracy on that you want.

> Project whatever conspiracy on that you want

You think a developer making money from their app is a conspiracy? Or that apps track you and developers monetize that data is one?

I don't think you're being intentionally obtuse anymore.

Re: Your 'app' could have been a webpage (so I fixed it for you)

#43

Post by whstl »

mr_mitm wrote: post #31
datakan wrote: post #4

We were supposed to be in the age of PWAs. That was the initial plan for iOS before the app store and 30% cuts on subscription apps. Most web apps suck too though so I guess pick your poison. My strong belief is they want apps because they can spam you with notifications to get your attention.

I'm currently attempting to write a calendar app for personal use, and I wanted to go the route of a self-host PWA. Notifications are a good point. How can I create notifications as a reminder before an event? Alerts are part of the icalendar standard ("VALARM"), so these are clearly notifications that are wanted by the user. Is that even possible for a PWA?

You can send notifications with PWAs with Web Push API + Service Worker, same as a regular page.

But, AFAIK, you need the server for push, though. It used to be possible to program entirely from the client with this proposed feature but AFAIK it's abandoned: https://github.com/GoogleChrome/developer.chrome.com//blob/m...

Re: Your 'app' could have been a webpage (so I fixed it for you)

#44

Post by Dan-Q »

catapart wrote: post #11

Fantastic work! It's always nice to see the method, in case anything is out there making this stuff easier. But the result is the real prize. There's way too much nonsense out there that is an app when it should be a webpage. I'm so tired of all of these apps. One criticism, though: I wish you would have made a simple form-based alternative to the app's population mechanism, rather than just make the one-off consumer…

I'm the original author (but not the poster here on HN).

Yeah, I considered that. I even wrote the code in such a way that it supports that. But I'm concerned about the legality of distributing it. Given that it hits API endpoints that were expected to be private to the developers' app, giving away a "tool" that bypasses the app (which hosts ads, albeit for their other products, and so serves as a money-maker for the app's owner) could be illegal.

At the very least, it could be a violation of the terms of service or just an annoyance to the app developer, either of which could lead them to trying to stop me from doing it, which would be an inconvenience. So maybe I'll wait until after the trip, when the page becomes useless to me, and THEN open-source it!

Re: Your 'app' could have been a webpage (so I fixed it for you)

#45

Post by CuriouslyC »

jorisw wrote: post #40
CuriouslyC wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, apps took off before nice PWAs that masquerade as apps were a thing. The app store was already thriving to the point of oversaturation when the first versions of React were released.

PWAs (progressive web apps) surely existed before React though

IIRC, the cutting edge of PWAs when the app store was taking off was Backbone.js, which I don't recall being pleasant enough to work with to want to make anything large in.

Re: Your 'app' could have been a webpage (so I fixed it for you)

#46

Post by Dan-Q »

pdnagilum wrote: post #30

Wait, the users password is part of the URL? What happens if the password contains a forward slash or a question mark? Wouldn't that break the whole endpoint?

Original author here. Upon inspection, these passwords are clearly not chosen by the user and, as far as I can tell, consist only of numbers and uppercase letters.

Re: Your 'app' could have been a webpage (so I fixed it for you)

#47

Post by jaffa2 »

brabel wrote: post #5
datakan wrote: post #4

We were supposed to be in the age of PWAs. That was the initial plan for iOS before the app store and 30% cuts on subscription apps. Most web apps suck too though so I guess pick your poison. My strong belief is they want apps because they can spam you with notifications to get your attention.

> My strong belief is they want apps because they can spam you with notifications to get your attention. I believe the same about the Youtube App, I just can't see why else it exists and I hate the video links try to open in the app if you're not careful!

uninstall the app. my life is much better since i uninstalled most apps and I just use the web pages these days. To take ONE benefit from not using the youtube app, and instead using a browser: I can open more than one video at once.

Re: Your 'app' could have been a webpage (so I fixed it for you)

#48

Post by jorisw »

pluralmonad wrote: post #35
jorisw wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ad companies now. Just one sentence earlier you said it's people 'delivering their payload'.

Yes, ad (supported) companies are a large subset of the former. I am not sure what point you are attempting to make.

Ad supported apps are not necessarily from ad companies.

The point I'm trying to make that these ever-prevalent 'they just want' remarks are superficial, uninformed, overly broad, and vague, to the point of having no point.

There are many benefits to native apps over web apps on mobile devices, depending on the use case. A conspiracy against the people need not be part of every developer's choice to utilize the native platform and associated app store for distribution.

I know there's lots of horrible companies out there (hi Meta!) who will drive you to their native apps just for performance of ads and 'engagement'. This doesn't justify the conspiracy thinking getting applied to native apps as a whole.

Re: Your 'app' could have been a webpage (so I fixed it for you)

#49

Post by Gander5739 »

craftkiller wrote: post #41
reddalo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Desktop Chromium is Chrome. iOS Chrome is just Safari with a different interface. Apple doesn't let other browsers use their own engine on iOS (unless you are located in the EU).

> iOS Chrome is just Safari with a different interface uhh wow. How did Microsoft face antitrust lawsuits for merely bundling IE when Apple is literally forcing their browser?

Due to EU regulation, you can use a different browser engine in the EU (and I think Japan too), but thus far none have been developed (it's too much work to maintain two versions of the browser).

Re: Your 'app' could have been a webpage (so I fixed it for you)

#50

Post by [deleted] »

reddalo wrote: post #38
Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #21

> There only seem to be two things that this “app” does, that a webpage might not have, and they’re both anti-features: > It reports tracking data associated with your Google Account back to the developers. Fortunately webpages never do any tracking whatsoever, let alone “Gobshite LLC and its 1131 partners need your permission for (contd. p94)”

Luckily tools such as uBlock Origin let you block all those nasty scripts, _including_ the cookie banner themselves.

[deleted]
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