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“It works better in the app”

shkspr.mobi

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Re: “It works better in the app”

#201

Post by port11 »

sroussey wrote: post #132
mapontosevenths wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your app is just a webpage that forces me to use an app just so you can spy on me I just won't use your product. I've switched brokers over it, I swapped banks, I stopped shopping at certain stores. I'm done. The only say I have is in how I spend my money. Those companies won't get any of mine if I can help it. I am the customer, not the product dammit.

Twitter is the worst. You go to a page and scroll down and it banners a beater in the app thing and you can’t dismiss it. You either get the app or close the tab. Close the tab.

Reddit might be worse, actually, given their app is mediocre at best and they killed 3rd-party apps.

Re: “It works better in the app”

#202

Post by princevegeta89 »

safety1st wrote: post #143
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…

If you use Android, honestly try Fdroid. It's great. I mean there are obviously huge gaps, you're not going to find banking apps, and there's going to be less polish in a lot of cases. BUT NONE OF THE APPS ARE EVIL. Fdroid harbors the paradise we imagined in the early days where we just had these little computers in our pockets and didn't have to worry that everything on them was drowning in ads, scams and surveillan…

On Android, especially the most recent versions, the archive functionality for apps has been a lifesaver. It basically packs apps into a specific format, keeps their entire state, and stores it on the disk. This also completely stops the app from running in the background and any other functionality that we don't need.

When we need to access the app again, we just have to restore it, which actually downloads the app and puts the app data back into it. It brings us back to exactly where we were before.

I do this to a lot of my apps these days, and it works very well. When we look at it, apps are nothing but a logged-in state for services that makes it easy to access them. On a typical web browser, you would have to keep logging in every now and then. Apps have a more persistent logged-in session that sometimes lasts forever as well.

Re: “It works better in the app”

#203

Post by goosejuice »

jknoepfler wrote: post #175
gtufano wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The actual reality is that it's impossible to have people go to a web site from a physical ad/offer/thing without using a QR (or paying Google). Google (and friends) managed to hide the URL almost totally, people don't even know that you can go somewhere without searching on google. So the options are: paying google to have your name point to you (an expensive choice depending on the actual name) or use a QR. Weirdly…

Did domain names stop functioning all of the sudden? Going to somedipshitsbar.com/menu is about as complicated as entering a wifi password at a coffee shop.

Consumers don't care. QR is easier for them and owners get analytics plus built in table identified ordering. I brought up the attack vector to a table full of developers back when this was taking off, just shrugs.

Re: “It works better in the app”

#204

Post by Sindisil »

m463 wrote: post #184
mapontosevenths wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your app is just a webpage that forces me to use an app just so you can spy on me I just won't use your product. I've switched brokers over it, I swapped banks, I stopped shopping at certain stores. I'm done. The only say I have is in how I spend my money. Those companies won't get any of mine if I can help it. I am the customer, not the product dammit.

Can't buy a tesla without the app. Worse, to sell a tesla, you are the person saying "ok, install the app, then I can transfer ownership to you, conveniently!" and this is getting normalized with other car manufacturers. (and it ALL goes back to apple... who started the whole app nonsense, and promoted a look-and-feel that gave tesla a terrible tap and swipe iphone/ipad type ui in a moving car)

> Can't buy a tesla without the app.

Works for me. No Tesla it is, then.

Not the only reason, but one of several.

Re: “It works better in the app”

#205

Post by jknoepfler »

dmayle wrote: post #84
em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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?

A ton of features work only or better on app: - anything privacy sensitive - anything processing intense (using optimized binaries) - widgets - camera and audio based features *can* work, but are more finicky (or outright broken on ios) - local storage (exists in web app, short lifetimes on web site) - performance/latency sensitive work - (I'm less familiar, but probably local sensors, like gps and acceleration)

I sign in to video calls using my browser every day. Saying video/audio requires an app beggars belief.

Privacy is the opposite of what you get with an app. Privacy? Really?

Local storage is available to browsers. Office 365 literally functions in a browser with full access to local storage.

Anything processor intensive can be compiled to WASM. This isn't 2005 anymore.

So... widgets?

I can see an argument for games, where you want to pre-install a large amount of resources, and maybe have a better i/o story. Even that is a function of convenience over necessity.

Re: “It works better in the app”

#207

Post by jinimojkg »

m463 wrote: post #184
mapontosevenths wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your app is just a webpage that forces me to use an app just so you can spy on me I just won't use your product. I've switched brokers over it, I swapped banks, I stopped shopping at certain stores. I'm done. The only say I have is in how I spend my money. Those companies won't get any of mine if I can help it. I am the customer, not the product dammit.

Can't buy a tesla without the app. Worse, to sell a tesla, you are the person saying "ok, install the app, then I can transfer ownership to you, conveniently!" and this is getting normalized with other car manufacturers. (and it ALL goes back to apple... who started the whole app nonsense, and promoted a look-and-feel that gave tesla a terrible tap and swipe iphone/ipad type ui in a moving car)

> that gave tesla a terrible tap and swipe iphone/ipad type ui in a moving car

Not sure why you’re blaming Apple for Tesla’s mistake of thinking a phone UI is appropriate for a car system UI.

Besides, you can “trace it back” to anyone you want really. The problem is not Apple. The problem is people accepting this nonsense from bullshit companies and apps in the first place.

Re: “It works better in the app”

#208

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

"Never let an abuser take you to a secondary location": It's OK to offer an app, but if a site is pushing, pressuring or forcing you to get one, it's almost certainly because they want to do something abusive that they currently can't.

Installing an app is a matter of trust; trying to push me to install one against my will is the best way to demonstrate that you should not be trusted.

(Interestingly, I've heard a stance from technically well-informed iPhone users that don't see an app install as a large trust decision, because they assume that iOS is actually decent at protecting their privacy and rights in general. I don't know if that's true; on Android it certainly isn't.)

Re: “It works better in the app”

#209

Post by chrisjj »

moritonal wrote: post #112
the_bear wrote: post #61

In Google's defense, they weren't the ones that championed the "everything must be an app" movement. My memory of the 2010s is that Google (and while they were relevant, Palm) pushed cross-platform web apps, but Apple ran a successful marketing campaign to convince everyone that everything on mobile must be a native app for reasons[1]. So we end up with a walled garden of native apps that must be approved by and pay…

Oh don't, I remember being at a Google PWA Conference where they showed a world where you walked up to a coffee machine which served you a website over some local Bluetooth beacons, you asked for a coffee and it made it. It was such a hopeful concept looking back.

I can see why it didn't catch on. The phone user would prefer to use the on-machine UI needed for regular users and bigger.

Re: “It works better in the app”

#210

Post by cmrdporcupine »

llm_nerd wrote: post #179
the_bear wrote: post #61

In Google's defense, they weren't the ones that championed the "everything must be an app" movement. My memory of the 2010s is that Google (and while they were relevant, Palm) pushed cross-platform web apps, but Apple ran a successful marketing campaign to convince everyone that everything on mobile must be a native app for reasons[1]. So we end up with a walled garden of native apps that must be approved by and pay…

[flagged]

Yep. The pro-"web" faction's dominance inside Google died a long time ago.

When I started working there (2012) L&S were already openly pushing "mobile first" and then later even "mobile only" because they saw it (mobile adoption) as existential threat to advertising revenue and worried that us engineers had a desktop bias that was going to set them back. I worked on several products where the PMs saw the web as a hindrance not a goal. e.g. I worked on Google WiFi and there was never an out-of-box experience or administration story for it for browser. Us SWEs asked for it, said we'd build it even, and the PMs and leadership level said no.

Google makes a browser, but a large part of the company is openly hostile to the open web at this point.

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