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“It works better in the app”

shkspr.mobi

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Re: “It works better in the app”

#41

Post by afavour »

jen20 wrote: post #36
davidmurdoch wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not it. It's Apple. They are crippling the web on purpose. We can't even have haptic vibration on Safari. And when we did for a little while earlier this year, it was because of a "bug" that that they promptly fixed. Apple is not interested in making with apps as seamless and integrated as native because: money.

As an iPhone user: good. There is no good that can come from some dipshit website product manager being able to make my phone vibrate on a website. None at all.

Is there any good that can come from a dipshit mobile product manager being able to make your phone vibrate on an app? Is there actually a meaningful difference?

Re: “It works better in the app”

#42

Post by utopiah »

ebtebt wrote: post #11

Then you have other sites/companies that go the opposite way: having functionality that is App-only. As an extreme example: my health insurance provider in Spain (Alan) is app-only. They don’t even have a website one can use. It is maddening for those of us who always prefer desktop over mobile.

What's even more maddening is that I bet their "app" is actually a WebView and provides no native functionality.

Re: “It works better in the app”

#43

Post by gchamonlive »

The author said it perself, "the greatest minds of our generation" working at Google, so those jagged edges are surely by design, and it's the rational most efficient solution in a economy of attention where the line between the product and the user is blurred.

Re: “It works better in the app”

#45

Post by jen20 »

afavour wrote: post #41
jen20 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an iPhone user: good. There is no good that can come from some dipshit website product manager being able to make my phone vibrate on a website. None at all.

Is there any good that can come from a dipshit mobile product manager being able to make your phone vibrate on an app? Is there actually a meaningful difference?

Games are the usual reason in an app. Being able to do it as a “drive by” on a website though: absolutely hell no.

Re: “It works better in the app”

#46

Post by thecloud »

afavour wrote: post #20

It’s a shame the web was so slow to adapt to this new mobile world. When it all started things like offline capabilities were very difficult to do on the web and native development felt necessary. These days the web can actually do a lot… but it’s too late. People expect to find something in the App Store, pinning a web site to their Home Screen is just not something they know they can do. So a lot of people waste an…

I believe it is more nefarious than that. The web strived for mobile native parity but web standards committees are mostly headed by delegates of companies like google and apple; the same companies that have an interest in crippling native web features to push users to their app stores, where they can extract money via fees. PWAs on iOS are a good example of how this kind of gate-keeping looks like

Re: “It works better in the app”

#47

Post by em3rgent0rdr »

noir_lord wrote: post #22
brk wrote: post #9

At this point the barrier for me to install an app is pretty high. If you're going to needlessly gate certain functions behind an app that work on a desktop browser (or could work in-browser), then I just won't use those functions. If by extension that degrades the value I get from your site, then I just won't use the site, and I won't be contributing to ADU stats you promote to advertisers. Every single company has…

Indeed, I've no interest in native apps to do something that can be done in a web app and if you don't let me do it in a web app I'll bounce and either find someone who can or do without unless there is a seriously compelling use case (I'm not that dogmatic). As a result the only native apps I use on my phone are Kindle, Authy and Firefox because I trust Firefox to prevent apps doing a lot of the sketchy shit locally…

> "do something that can be done in a web app"

I'll bite. What important features can only be done in an "app" but not a web app nowadays?

Re: “It works better in the app”

#49

Post by afavour »

jen20 wrote: post #45
afavour wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any good that can come from a dipshit mobile product manager being able to make your phone vibrate on an app? Is there actually a meaningful difference?

Games are the usual reason in an app. Being able to do it as a “drive by” on a website though: absolutely hell no.

Sounds like it would be ideal to add it to Home Screen webapps only, just like web notifications. And yet…

Re: “It works better in the app”

#50

Post by nazgulsenpai »

I use LineageOS with MicroG and decided probably 5 years ago to just use PWAs instead of apps for any online service and grab whatever other utilities I might need from Obtanium or F-Droid. Also the experience on my Thinkphone is the exact same as it was on my Pixel XL 2.

I know not everyone can do this, and some PWAs are downright terrible if they work at all, but for my usecase it has been great.

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