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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)

#551

Post by swishman »

Rohansi wrote: post #465
swishman wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills reading these comments. Apps are clearly better for end users. HTML and css is SUPER slow. It doesn't feel native, it doesn't feel good to use. You also get so many weird glitches with state refreshing, sessions being cleared, log in not persisting. Has anyone here actually used a PWA? You can feel that it's slow and clunky. Apps feel SO much better with the native UI, pre-downloade…

> You also get so many weird glitches with state refreshing, sessions being cleared, log in not persisting. And these don't happen in native apps? Because they somehow have less bugs? > Apps feel SO much better with the native UI, pre-downloaded React Native apps are pre-downloaded and have a native UI. Lots of them feel really bad. Not all, though. You can make fast websites/PWAs just like you can make slow apps.

A web app is limited. Even if it loads fast, it feels clunky. Apps using native components have a much higher ceiling. Users don't care what tech is underneath

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

#553

Post by Rohansi »

swishman wrote: post #551
Rohansi wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You also get so many weird glitches with state refreshing, sessions being cleared, log in not persisting. And these don't happen in native apps? Because they somehow have less bugs? > Apps feel SO much better with the native UI, pre-downloaded React Native apps are pre-downloaded and have a native UI. Lots of them feel really bad. Not all, though. You can make fast websites/PWAs just like you can make slow apps.

A web app is limited. Even if it loads fast, it feels clunky. Apps using native components have a much higher ceiling. Users don't care what tech is underneath

> A web app is limited. Even if it loads fast, it feels clunky.

But what about it feels clunky?

HTML and CSS are a lot faster than you want to believe. You can't tell me you've never used a website that isn't slow. Problem is the people making most websites don't care to optimize or profile anything.

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

#554

Post by IIsi50MHz »

jaffa2 wrote: post #47
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!

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.

> can open more than one video at once.

And a nice side-effect of that is that YouTube doesn't throw away the list of other videos on the page you came from!

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

#555

Post by nektro »

_carbyau_ wrote: post #444
nektro wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the benefit of apps is they don't break. websites update out from under you and the web expects browsers to always be evergreen

> the benefit of apps is they don't break What world do you live in? Apps are either enshittified with updates, or the content source the app was using is broken in similar ways to a normal website. The only way you avoid this are sideloaded non-networked apps - which are not the usual.

updating apps is optional is my point

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

#556

Post by _carbyau_ »

nektro wrote: post #555
_carbyau_ wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the benefit of apps is they don't break What world do you live in? Apps are either enshittified with updates, or the content source the app was using is broken in similar ways to a normal website. The only way you avoid this are sideloaded non-networked apps - which are not the usual.

updating apps is optional is my point

I agree with that point.

The useful executable code is contained on your device rather than fetched from a website. No update means you can run that useful code forever.

Not many apps are useful in that form though.

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

#557

Post by 63stack »

palata wrote: post #510
johnecheck wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many reasons to prefer an app, most of which are ways OS makers have crippled web apps for reasons that TOTALLY HAVE NOTHING TO DO with the fact that they get a 30% cut if the user chooses the native app.

This is wrong. The most important reasons why I prefer mobile apps are the same as why I prefer desktop programs. - I can download it once and then use it. - I can see when it gets updated (versus a website that gets updated every time I load it). For security reasons it's better, I can even verify my app with other people online and make sure we run the same thing. - End-to-end encryption doesn't make much sense in…

This is only true if you are using apps that require no communication with a server. Otherwise it's constant forced updates, and basing security on the version number of the installed app is a moot point since you can't guarantee the server will send the same replies to 2 different users.

I can't parse the part about e2e not making sense for webpages.

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

#558

Post by EduardoBautista »

jonahx wrote: post #362
OkayPhysicist wrote: post #312

Nobody here is talking about the fact that a significant number of users want apps, too. I'm responsible for an internal tool at the company I work for, hosted as a website, that handles a bunch of miscellaneous tasks that other employees need. Think reimbursements, documentation and reporting, gathering and presenting business data. That sort of thing. When I took it over, it was desktop only ( a lot of formatted pa…

> We take tech literacy for granted, because it's like a dozen levels down fundamental to our entire field. But the tech illiterati exist, and they love apps. They "love apps" because apple and android have spent billions to break their mental models and convince them that "you use apps to do things on your phone". Literally. That's the extent of most people's understanding. So, sure, they "want" apps in the same sen…

I “love apps” because it’s less likely to be bloated electron crap or browser based. It’s easier for me to review code on the GitHub iOS app than in the browser because performance is much better.

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

#560

Post by johnecheck »

palata wrote: post #547
SebastianKra wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. You can download & install PWAs for offline use too. 2. This isn't true for apps anymore. Server driven ui is a thing. 3. JS runs locally. You can inspect the network traffic more easily than you can with an app. 4. You can audit OSS websites too. 5. Your personal preferences have nothing to do with the fact that Apple makes tons of money from apps but not websites.

1. If you do it like this, then I count it as a mobile app, not a webapp. A webapp loads in the browser. We're not debating programming language here, if you run Rust in your browser via WASM it's still loading in the browser. 2. Wut? 3. The network traffic of an end-to-end encrypted app is... encrypted traffic to the server you don't trust. 4. Not sure if it's bad faith or not, you conveniently drop the other ideas:…

> If you do it like this, then I count it as a mobile app, not a webapp.

This is pretty funny distinction to make. It's hardly a surprise you find web apps inferior if you define them so.

Whether through a store or browser, your computer is downloading code from the internet and executing it. A browser adds cross-platform ease for devs and a sandbox for security at a slight performance cost. A store adds gatekeeping (for better or worse) and a 30% tax. The other differences are UX choices from browser makers and OS designers, nothing more.

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