Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

danq.me

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 571 posts

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

#171

Post by abanana »

llm_nerd wrote: post #145
abanana wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, "marketing". Ability to market your business, not marketing the concept of an app. Businesses have an app developed because they feel the market demands it. Their marketing departments feel they have to be able to tell prospective customers "we have an app!" and if they can't, they feel they'll be seen as inferior, not with the times, thereby losing customers. I totally agree with the article that apps shouldn't…

Isn't this a chicken-egg thing? Businesses started advertising that they had an app because user's preferred apps, having had so many poor experiences with websites and web "apps" that the entire field was tainted. This is 100% a "made your own bed" kind of thing. Again, the general standards among web apps for years were terrible, and users became accustomed that using a website on a mobile device was a brutal exper…

I don't agree with your thesis that users hated websites on mobile. It's not so much a question of being "honest about root causes" if consensus on the root cause doesn't really exist.

Apps initially looked like the fancy thing to do (so marketing departments loved them), and very quickly snowballed into becoming simply "the way it's done" on mobile.

Most of them are just their website wrapped into a webview. They're sometimes awful, but they mostly do the job well enough - exactly as well as if it was a website instead (coming back to this thread's article).

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

#172

Post by wahnfrieden »

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…

> it seems like you really need an LLC with a mail forwarding service and a cheap second phone line just to avoid the App Store sending the whole internet to your personal phone and address.

This is an EU requirement, and Apple didn't do this before EU required it. All app marketplaces have the same requirement for EU

> On a website you can just not deal with any of that

This may violate other EU compliance requirements but sure there's obviously no authority determining your compliance before allowing you to publish on web

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

#173

Post by hn111 »

stavros wrote: post #132
mcdonje wrote: post #56

I wish PWAs took off, or a "desktop" environment for phones and tablets that allows me to save a simple website shortcut as an app. I want my phone to be the portal to the places I want to go to and the things I want to see. I want to have the same experience going to a web app or website I regularly visit as with a normal app. Like, I want to click on an icon and be there. I don't want to click on the browser and th…

You can already do this, browser allow you to add a website as an icon and it acts completely like an app. Even iOS allows this, try adding HN to your home screen.

It’s too bad Apple made the option to install a website as a webapp so hard to find. It’s now hidden in ‘Share’ > ‘View more’ > ‘Add to home screen’

This has nothing to do with ‘sharing’ something

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

#174

Post by Barbing »

jorisw wrote: post #12
forlorn wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They want apps so they could fingerprint your device, spy on you and get a lot more information than a web app.

Sure. They. They want. You know who they are, and what they want.

What marketer could turn this down?

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/loupe-what-apps-can-see/id6766...

Seconds since last reformat, number of times clipboard was used since last reformat, seconds since last reboot, dozens of other apps installed on the phone…

On Apple devices, so much is leaked to developers, and they will use it.

Loupe HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48608645

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

#175

Post by stavros »

hn111 wrote: post #173
stavros wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can already do this, browser allow you to add a website as an icon and it acts completely like an app. Even iOS allows this, try adding HN to your home screen.

It’s too bad Apple made the option to install a website as a webapp so hard to find. It’s now hidden in ‘Share’ > ‘View more’ > ‘Add to home screen’ This has nothing to do with ‘sharing’ something

Yes, exactly. I was looking for it for ages the other day, it really does feel like they hid it intentionally.

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

#176

Post by reddalo »

inigyou wrote: post #168
hollow-moe wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlock Origin doesn't enable all filters by default, you can go in the extension settings and enable more filters which removes the cookie banners etc.

Does it remove them by automatically consenting to the cookies, rejecting them or just hiding the banner?

It hides the banner, so no consent is ever given. Plus, uBlock would block most scripts that place cookies anyway.

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

#177

Post by Rohansi »

afavour wrote: post #121
criddell wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who uses apps, the hoops you have to jump through are one of the reasons I prefer apps. I'm glad Apple knows who you are and have scrutinized (to some degree) your app. I have no interest in installing a web app that could look innocuous today and be entirely different every time I hit F5.

> I have no interest in installing a web app that could look innocuous today and be entirely different every time I hit F5. That's been the case with native apps for a long time now too.

It's against the App Store rules but if you build an app with React Native/Expo you can OTA update it to do something completely different without going through another review. Enforcement is minimal, especially since you can selectively roll out updates to make it unlikely that a reviewer gets it.

It's such a weird thing to be concerned about though. Your phone automatically updates apps by default so they can suddenly look different later. And even then, so what? If the change was malicious just stop using it? Apps are sandboxed, websites are sandboxed, you'll be fine.

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

#178

Post by aetch »

Grombobulous wrote: post #161
hbn wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it seems like you really need an LLC with a mail forwarding service and a cheap second phone line just to avoid the App Store sending the whole internet to your personal phone and address That's an EU thing. If you don't publish in the EU you don't need to dox yourself.

Why isn’t Apple the business with the contact info? They’re taking 15-30% cut and fully control their software APIs. Unless I’m mistaken, Steam and GOG games aren’t listing the address of the game developers in the EU, but I admit that I might be mistaken.

Apple is just the delivery man, the app contents are solely created by the developer and are not changed by apple

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

#179

Post by kokanee »

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…

Back when I used to freelance, somebody once paid me a scant fee to build a pretty cool online tool for music teachers, basically an interactive piano. I checked in on the website a few years afterwards and found that they had wrapped it into an app and been selling it for $5/install ever since I made it for them. Probably my fault for not licensing the software I wrote for them (I was basically a kid at the time) but it still bothers me.
Post reply on HN