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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)

#291

Post by ValentineC »

verelo wrote: post #192
c0nsumer wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like making maps, and I wanted to do a certain bend on a very specific kind of online map, filling a gap I noticed in existing maps. The idea of an app really appealed to me (at first), but the more I thought about it the more I didn't want to deal with iOS and then Android and then maintaining parallel functionality on the web and all that mess just for a fairly-local hobby project that I make no money off of. So,…

So i've done similar things in the past - and my justification for 'app' over website has been offline. Does the PWA state of things resolve that in the modern days? If it did, yeah I'd agree, no need for an app at all. In my case the app was being used in rural Ontario. I cant even make a phone call here without wifi.

> my justification for 'app' over website has been offline.

Gosh, I wish more apps did some kind of progressive "enhancement" and let people read already cached messages and do deferred sends like the old days, instead of being completely useless without a data connection.

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

#292

Post by pixl97 »

nolok wrote: post #287
nchmy wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What generation are you?

Mid 80s, grew up watching dad playing around with his atari st and was lucky enough to be able to toy around on his 386 and then 486, feeling like a god because I managed to get those config.sys and co to start games he couldn't. For me mobile website was something "tacked on" the real website and I have never been able to shake that feeling away somehow.

Yes, you are part of the generation that 'buys things' on an actual computer. Get much older or much younger and they'll use apps instead.

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

#293

Post by llm_nerd »

abanana wrote: post #171
llm_nerd wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Most of them are just their website wrapped into a webview.

Such as? Give some examples, which should be easy given that it's "most", right?

In the linked piece it details one that is so exceptionally trash that it is universally hated. I mean, ostensibly it isn't even allowed by appstore / play store rules, and it's a shit, lazy thing to do.

My thesis is that the standards for web teams were often much, much lower than for app teams. Where tolerance for shit, tolerance for slow and inconsistent behaviours, and so on was just much, much more common.

That is why there was such a fracture. And it's why the "webview wrapped website" is universally reviled trash.

Do websites have to be bad? Of course they don't. But the norms of the realm made users jaded.

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

#294

Post by seba_dos1 »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #194
Grombobulous wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Because of how the EU law was written

Nope, at least in Play Store it's because of how Google chooses to run their store. Google is the middleman between two sides of the transaction and its the developer that actually sells these apps, while Valve is one of the sides of the transaction and sells things based on the license granted by the developer. Not sure how Apple does it though.

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

#295

Post by Zak »

criddell wrote: post #87
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…

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 in almost all cases. I'm happy to visit one though, and I trust the browser sandbox to keep it from doing anything worse than making my device warm until I notice and close the tab.

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

#296

Post by autoexec »

Schiendelman wrote: post #184
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.

Exactly. I've published apps. When GP says their actual app is "pretty much garbage" and that there was red tape and nitpicking - Apple is trying to stop garbage !

> When GP says their actual app is "pretty much garbage" and that there was red tape and nitpicking - Apple is trying to stop garbage!

and failing at it, because that garbage got published on the app store.

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

#297

Post by paulatreides »

nolok wrote: post #288
rhines wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I'm 29 and hate downloading apps on phone or pc, if I can use a website I'll choose that every time. Unless performance matters like a game or media editor.

On PC I'm definitely there with you, it's on phone where I have this issue

the mobile website is just the PC website with css responsiveness, you can just enable "show desktop version" on mobile if that helps reduce your paranoia

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

#298

Post by autoexec »

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

That and having an app gives you a ton of options for data collection

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

#299

Post by cube00 »

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!

> I hate the video links try to open in the app if you're not careful!

Uninstall (disable) the app, YouTube on Firefox mobile is fine.

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

#300

Post by verelo »

ValentineC wrote: post #291
verelo wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So i've done similar things in the past - and my justification for 'app' over website has been offline. Does the PWA state of things resolve that in the modern days? If it did, yeah I'd agree, no need for an app at all. In my case the app was being used in rural Ontario. I cant even make a phone call here without wifi.

> my justification for 'app' over website has been offline. Gosh, I wish more apps did some kind of progressive "enhancement" and let people read already cached messages and do deferred sends like the old days, instead of being completely useless without a data connection.

I used to run a company (2010-2018) where our customers were almost always using our product inside of grocery stores, which are almost always metal sheds with some finishings on the walls. Not so great for cell service, it became essential for us to support offline mode if we wanted to keep those customers happy and engaged.

I spent many late nights trying to debug reachability bugs. It's frankly a nightmare trying to build a reliable app when the user has /some/ cell service, but not enough to operate the app reliably.

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