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

danq.me

231–240 of 571 posts

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

#231

The question is: Why would anybody prefer a web-app over a native app in any kind of system or on any kind of device? I think the answer is "only when there is no native app for the system I use", ie Linux. So FOSS people want for apps to become much worse for everybody else, so that they can have the apps also through a web browser. Remembering that everybody else is who pays for the apps and all development, while…

I invite down voters to make a reply explaining why users would prefer web apps to native apps, given the choice.

I encourage you to actually read the OP if you haven't, because I think it gives the most obvious example for that. That kind of app makes much more sense (for the user) to be a web app, especially when you don't intend to become a repeat customer.

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

#232
My app already is a webpage. I made Android and iOS apps for years. Got fed up with the arbitrary roadblocks, erratic whims of store reviewers, and general bureaucracy involved. Pushing a simple fix would sometimes be delayed for days and a couple of weeks in the worst case I experienced. Now I can deploy patches immediately and no one needs to download or update anything on their device. Abandoning those walled garden regimes was one of the best things I ever did.

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

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Aside from the low-effort snark and lack of empathy towards someone's project, this is also how you filter people out of caring about software development at at a young age, and then who's going to keep the computer systems running?

> this is also how you filter people out of caring about software development at at a young age

I got apps on the store before age 18 because I did not believe they were low quality.

You also can make software without selling it on a store.

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

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside from the low-effort snark and lack of empathy towards someone's project, this is also how you filter people out of caring about software development at at a young age, and then who's going to keep the computer systems running?

Nobody cares about the future, only the present. America forgot how to manufacture things, too, because it was momentarily uneconomical and there was no concern about how to keep the living knowledge going.

Having standards is a normal and health professional environment.

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

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have no interest in installing a web app that could look innocuous today and be entirely different every time I hit F5. Or as I have encountered several times over the years, it turned out to have vanished without a trace for whatever reason (author got bored, became ill, didn’t want to pay for the domain any more, etc) when I reach for it, sending me searching for an alternative in the midst of a task. Self-cont…

This highlights the differences between what developers want vs. what (some) end users want. Developers love the web because they can change things and deploy instantly, they can have a single version of their app "out there" and not have to worry about clients running old software, and they can take their software down when it becomes inconvenient to maintain. Users on the other hand, like apps: They don't want thei…

Interesting. Since we're talking about PWAs, which are essentially apps running in the sandbox of a web client (i.e. browser), the issue you raise could presumably be fixed in an instant with a client-side setting: "Do not update this app".

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

#236

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…

[deleted]

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

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have no interest in installing a web app that could look innocuous today and be entirely different every time I hit F5. Or as I have encountered several times over the years, it turned out to have vanished without a trace for whatever reason (author got bored, became ill, didn’t want to pay for the domain any more, etc) when I reach for it, sending me searching for an alternative in the midst of a task. Self-cont…

This highlights the differences between what developers want vs. what (some) end users want. Developers love the web because they can change things and deploy instantly, they can have a single version of their app "out there" and not have to worry about clients running old software, and they can take their software down when it becomes inconvenient to maintain. Users on the other hand, like apps: They don't want thei…

In addition, it’s a lot easier to seek rent with a web app which is also likely a big factor.

I’m a dev and understand how web apps can be attractive to us, but as a user they irritate me. During my formative years, software by and large served the user over the dev, so flipping the scales entirely in my favor as a dev feels almost wrong.

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

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook was once a friend network and they added more and more advertising and slop to it. If you were the frog in the pot as it heated, it feels normal to you that your feed is entirely made of spam. If you're still out of the pot now, it seems foolish to jump in, unlike when it was lukewarm.

I still have a Facebook account, and will occasionally log in (most recently attempting to sell something on their craigslist equivalent). The default content shown in your "feed" or dashboard is more than 50% engagement bait and/or slop. I attempted to start flagging those posts as "never show me again," but it soon became apparent that it was a Sisyphean task, and I just logged out again.

There’s the “friends feed” in the app that has less garbage in it. I mean, these days it is just full of my friends posting pictures of their kids or reposting political things. But I can’t really blame Facebook for the fact that we got old and boring, and it doesn’t have the “suggested content” nonsense.

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

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can’t understand how we got to this place with “app culture" Thie assertion is extremely funny to me. Historically we come from an "app culture". Back in the day, around 2000 or so, if you wanted some functionality, you ran an application. You ran software in your computer. Then on the early 2000s people started migrating their software web" , inventing "SaaS" (software as a service" . I remember my young self be…

It's because apple pushed towards apps and didn't want web apps on their phone. Likely due to the profits they can gain from appstore sales Native apps would be the better platform in my eyes if the Operating Systems would be better in terms of letting a user manage what a native app have access to and can do. But currently they are preferred by companies despite more dev effort because they can get more user data wi…

You're not wrong at all, but it's interesting that iOS launched with only web app support for third party software, and it took community pressure to persuade them to support native apps. There was not even an app store to begin with.

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

#240
post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do App Store customers have any need to contact the underlying developers in this scenario? The EU decided so, and Apple didn't require this before EU did

I find this hard to believe, since Google Play store requires much less info, and doesn't disclose it to consumers (AFAIK). Did the EU specifically demand this from Apple? Did they specifically require that consumers must be able to contact developers? Or is this another "spin" by Apple to make the EU look bad when it imposes consumer protection that is bad for Apples revenue? Like they did with "chargers", "cables"…

I'm not published in Google Play and don't have Android to check for myself, but when I look it up, I find claims that they do publish names and addresses for paid apps / apps with in-app purchases, due to the same EU law.
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