Why should restaurants and supermarkets exist when you can eat only porridge and eggs? Why should bicycles exist when you can walk?
Some people prefer something better and are willing to pay for it.
Native Apps Why?
21–27 of 27 posts
Re: Native Apps Why?
#22A lot of people might say "latency" or "security": both are valid points but...
What about the Data? on a native app I usually can SAVE data wherever I want on my device.
I can even save it or load it from external storage like... a usb thumbdrive.
And if my connection goes down I sill can use it (unless I have a license/activation software that needs to be connected to the internet).
Re: Native Apps Why?
#23I believe it's for Data Collection and workloading somewhat can be expensive because of a lot of users rendering server side. side and went to AWS or Google Cloud infrastructure. And then we also have already, like, you know, passionate about it up on the edges. That makes sense. Like, keep going up. Breathe down, load in to people's internet data on their phone they don't like. Why my Google Keyboard started 500Mb+ Cache and 200Mb+ of UserData. I switched to Fido.
Re: Native Apps Why?
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Come on, you really only see AAA video games requiring native apps? Surely that was a rushed reply(?). How about regular system utilities? Video/audio editors? IDE's? Debuggers? Image/3D editors? Compressor/decompressors? Terminal emulators? And so much more stuff. Sure, many of these already have "web" versions but there's still a lot of apps that benefit greatly from being native and not go through another browser/…
(Different person) > Video/audio editors? IDE's? Debuggers? Image/3D editors? Compressor/decompressors? Terminal emulators? And so much more stuff. Video I can understand, and anything that needs a real local terminal. On the other hand, audio, IDEs and debuggers, image editors, 3D editors, codecs, and remote terminals, nah. My first use of most of those things was on a Performa 5200 whose CPU registers had lower ban…
Ok, but that was surely a consequence of the time you lived through(?)
Or do you currently still specifically choose to use some web based app for most of what you've "discarded"? Are your 3d editors, sound editors, (or even players), image editors or compression/backup apps webviews? IDEs? Etc?
How about password managers? That's a big (stupid) one people use on web apps for some reason..
Because most "professionals" in areas that need these things seldom use web apps. Toy apps? MVPs? Toy marketing or social stuff? Toy video editors for the TikTok generation? Sure. But that's mostly for amateurish usage, at least for now.
Even terminals.. what do you use in webviews that's better than iterm, putty, ghostty, etc?
Like it or not, and as awesome as browsers and webviews have become, there's still a lot of performance left on the table there.
That's just imho of course, just finding it weird people being pro-web apps on hn, that used to be very pro native and pro performance :shrug:
Re: Native Apps Why?
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
(Different person) > Video/audio editors? IDE's? Debuggers? Image/3D editors? Compressor/decompressors? Terminal emulators? And so much more stuff. Video I can understand, and anything that needs a real local terminal. On the other hand, audio, IDEs and debuggers, image editors, 3D editors, codecs, and remote terminals, nah. My first use of most of those things was on a Performa 5200 whose CPU registers had lower ban…
Ok, but that was surely a consequence of the time you lived through(?) Or do you currently still specifically choose to use some web based app for most of what you've "discarded"? Are your 3d editors, sound editors, (or even players), image editors or compression/backup apps webviews? IDEs? Etc? How about password managers? That's a big (stupid) one people use on web apps for some reason.. Because most "professionals…
Sometimes I'll run an emulator in the browser to experience the joy of the old UI.
Somehow, a web browser with a canvas whose pixels are populated by JS or Wasm in response to an emulator booting pre-Unix classic MacOS, is faster and less prone to nonsense than the native UI widgets I get from Apple today.
And that, right there, is the point. Wasm is better than I think you think it is. Web apps can run e.g. fluid dynamics simulation directly on the GPU when I need them to. Calculate and rasterise a complete isochrone map of all OpenStreetMap roadways in Berlin at 25 fps even when it's one of 50 tabs in two browsers. Very little in most people's lives is even close to being actually performance limited on a modern computer, the apparent limits we experience are mostly due to all the things I said in the previous comment.
Given how bad SwiftUI is, honestly, a browser can sometimes even be a performance boost. Thinking about it, not even SwiftUI: I had some cases back in the original iPad/ObjC/UIKit days, where the UX was faster in a webview than with native components.
> Even terminals.. what do you use in webviews that's better than iterm, putty, ghostty, etc?
"Better"? Why "better"? Parity is sufficient. Though exactly what performance issues do you even have in mind here such that you even encounter a performance limit in a console?
Also, I specifically put "real local terminal" and "video" in the "sure, native" list.
I put terminals in that list not for performance reasons, but because browsers don't want to play with file systems.
Re: Native Apps Why?
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ok, but that was surely a consequence of the time you lived through(?) Or do you currently still specifically choose to use some web based app for most of what you've "discarded"? Are your 3d editors, sound editors, (or even players), image editors or compression/backup apps webviews? IDEs? Etc? How about password managers? That's a big (stupid) one people use on web apps for some reason.. Because most "professionals…
Sometimes I'll run an emulator in the browser to experience the joy of the old UI. Somehow, a web browser with a canvas whose pixels are populated by JS or Wasm in response to an emulator booting pre-Unix classic MacOS, is faster and less prone to nonsense than the native UI widgets I get from Apple today. And that, right there, is the point. Wasm is better than I think you think it is. Web apps can run e.g. fluid dy…
> Wasm is better than I think you think it is.
This is very likely to be true, even though I do know it's pretty awesome and I'm actually often surprised by what can be done in a browser these days, I'm definitely not that much up to date with all the latest tech.
And sorry, yes I somehow missed that you had terminals on the native list, my bad.
Re: Native Apps Why?
#27As I see/understand it, there are only "native apps" (because native machine code is the only type of data computer can execute). There is also only one program running (OS, not counting bootloaders/firmwares), that reads executable files (e.g. for webbrowser, python) and then executes the parts of native machine instructions in it, and then programs can also run (but usually in more limited way) "computer code", that modifies the behavior of parent program (be it webbrowser/python etc.). Then the discussion probably goes to what is the difference between a "program/code" and "document" (program's file format, content state), and there are spectrum of static to dynamic content.
"Non-native" code performance is naturally one factor to consider, but access to freedom of computing is another. If/When we are already decided to stack programs running in browsers/mobile OS's, we have locked the freedom to computing on those stacks - yor code is not anymore in control, because the parent programs control how your program can behave. An in the name of security, access to parent program features might be denied or are behind paywall/insider-agreements.
Access to your data and programs is also important factor to consider. If you don't have your own data on your own computer/memory, you have nothing. Only expectations of accessing. But then the discussion goes to responsibility and self-sufficiency, so you must take responsibility for backups etc.
Another point to consider is non-native remote apps are easy way to force subscription-type of payments.