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

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

#91

Post by pluralmonad »

jorisw wrote: post #48
pluralmonad wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 nativ…

Ad tech comes with a whole bundle of mal-incentives, like engagement hacking. If you are supported by ad revenue then your primary job is to get your users to look at ads. That's an ad company, for our purposes here.

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

#92

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

If that's the case, then I agree. Lots of crapplets should be Web pages (for example, almost every corporate app).

However, there's a lot of stuff that does, indeed, require a native app.

That's the stuff I like to do. Doesn't really scale to Web pages.

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

#93

Post by criddell »

jorisw wrote: post #54
Gander5739 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is, I tnink, that most people actually prefer apps over websites - even just a wrapper - for whatever reason.

Possible reasons: - No waiting for a page to load - Home screen access (most don't know about bookmarking web apps) - Discovery (where do you go to find PWAs?) - Features (native apps have access to more platform APIs) - Absence of browser chrome (more immersive UX), though on iOS the chrome can be removed from PWAs once bookmarked, using meta tags

Those are all pretty good. Some other reasons:

- well written apps use less memory, battery, and bandwidth

- security: apps go through at least some review while a web app could change with every reload

- scripting: apps often expose more functionality to Apple Shortcuts

- accessibility: the system accessibility features seem to work better with apps

- UI/UX: the best native apps are always going to be more responsive and feel better than the best web apps

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

#94

Post by groundzeros2015 »

Grombobulous wrote: post #53

I recently decided to publish an app on the App Store just so I could say I accomplished that, and maybe even make a little bit of beer money on the side. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that my actual app is pretty much garbage. I don’t expect it to be popular. It’s basically a worse version of stuff that is already available. I expected this to be a learning exercise about the process of getting stuff published. Lo…

> I’ll be the first to admit that my actual app is pretty much garbage

It’s working. Your low quality project you weren’t really committed to got filtered.

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

#95

Post by xingped »

billyp-rva wrote: post #18

> I can’t understand how we got to this place with “app culture”! The short version: ad blockers work on browsers but not apps[0]. [0] https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/30/go-nuts-meine-kerle

It's too bad not enough people know about using adguard dns on their phones. Dunno about iPhones but it works wonders on Android. Only downside is it sometimes interferes with signing into public wifi networks.

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

#96

Post by harryf »

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.

We are in the age of PWAs. I've created a few where I just host them on Github pages (no backend needed, no hosting costs).

And the P in PWA has become "Personal" ... vibe coding apps with no backend for non-developers for their _personal_ needs e.g. a create a job hunting app for my son specific to the types of jobs he's looking for. If I update it, it updates on his phone plus he can sync to his laptop via WebRTC.

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

#97

Post by inbx0 »

smcg wrote: post #74

The fundamental problem with the internet is that hosting sucks and no one wants to do it. It's thankless and it's expensive to maintain, both time and money. Apps are a way to not worry about that. By the way, the link doesn't load for me, so I used the archive to read it. https://archive.ph/ByFBN

Simply hosting a front-end only app is almost free on several platforms (e.g. Cloudflare). Certainly less than the $99 Apple developer membership fee. It starts getting more expensive once you add back-end servers and databases and whatnot, but you’d be needing those with the App-approach too if your featureset requires that.

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

#98

Post by jghn »

reddalo wrote: post #33
CuriouslyC wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's it. Apps took off because people felt comfortable yoloing stuff from the Apple app store, and for a short while before saturation, the app store reach was making small developers rich.

Apps took off because Apple did everything they could to make PWAs work badly, with no reliable notifications, no access to some data, etc. Apple did that because they want their sweet 30% from in-app purchases, which they couldn't enforce in PWAs.

The problem is that for nearly all apps I want them to have neither notifications nor access to data. For instance, with few exceptions, the only apps I allow to give me notifications are the default apple apps, like iMessage.

The only reasons I'll use an app over a website is if I have no choice in the matter, or if the app provides an easier UI/UX than the website.

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

#99

Post by al_borland »

Grombobulous wrote: post #53

I recently decided to publish an app on the App Store just so I could say I accomplished that, and maybe even make a little bit of beer money on the side. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that my actual app is pretty much garbage. I don’t expect it to be popular. It’s basically a worse version of stuff that is already available. I expected this to be a learning exercise about the process of getting stuff published. Lo…

I periodically try to put something together. I don’t even care about publishing to the app store really, I mostly want to make stuff for myself for macOS.

My last attempt, it felt like Apple was no longer interested in the idea of hobbyist developers. The setup just to get the Xcode project setup felt like I needed to have a company and a website. When I selected something about iCloud, because I thought it would be nice if what I made synced to iCloud, I couldn’t even get started without paying $99, so I had to start again and choose a different option without it. And here I thought the $99 was just to publish to the store.

Considering how Apple started, this trend feels wrong. When I wanted to make a simple little app a few weeks ago, I ended up using python with webview. It seemed to be one of the few ways to make a little GUI app without boiling the ocean.

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

#100

Post by dizhn »

ForHackernews wrote: post #69
brabel wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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!

NewPipe mostly works except when Google breaks it.

There's nothing sinister there. Google is merely trying to break their own app in new user hostile ways and everything else breaking is collateral damage. :)
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