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No, I'm not going to download your bullshit app

tommorris.org

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Re: No, I'm not going to download your bullshit app

#71

Post by koralatov »

downandout wrote: post #5

I agree for the most part with this article. I think the major problem is that apps are being developed that offer absolutely no advantage over viewing the website in a browser - in fact many offer disadvantages. This is what happens when a market crowded with some shockingly bad app developers is combined with ignorant executive mandates that companies must have apps simply to be able to say that they have them.

In most cases, I find the apps are actually worse than using the browser. A lot of them are little more than branded Webkit wrappers, with $SITENAME in a coloured bar across the top. If you're going to force me to use an app, it needs to offer some really concrete advantages over the site, and should actually act like an app. One simple win would be a global text resize setting -- give me the option to increase, or decrease, text size throughout your app and then remember it.

One mobile app that I do think `does it right' is eBay's. It's not spectacular, but it's much better than their mobile site and feels like I'm using a real app. It really needs to improve upon its caching behaviour, though.

Re: No, I'm not going to download your bullshit app

#72

Post by fauigerzigerk »

angryasian wrote: post #45
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #41

And most apps require permissions that have very little to do with the purpose of the app. Here's what the BBC news reader for Android wants: THIS APPLICATION HAS ACCESS TO THE FOLLOWING: HARDWARE CONTROLS CHANGE YOUR AUDIO SETTINGS Allows the app to modify global audio settings such as volume and which speaker is used for output. NETWORK COMMUNICATION FULL NETWORK ACCESS Allows the app to create network sockets and…

All these are sort of explainable, Hardware and Audio is to allow the user to control volume or widgets for feeds and multimedia. Network access is usually reserved for multimedia Phone Calls - status - is usually because if you receive a phone call any multimedia knows when to stop storage - to store things to your sd card or move the app to your sd card prevent from sleeping - if you're watching a video you don't w…

Right, so in order to duplicate everything the browser already does, they "need" these overly broad permissions. That's exactly the point the OP was making.

I think the real problem is that permissions are either too broad for the purpose of displaying some content, or they are too many for anyone to understand. My conclusion is that such apps simply make no sense.

Re: No, I'm not going to download your bullshit app

#73

Post by joseflavio »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #41

And most apps require permissions that have very little to do with the purpose of the app. Here's what the BBC news reader for Android wants: THIS APPLICATION HAS ACCESS TO THE FOLLOWING: HARDWARE CONTROLS CHANGE YOUR AUDIO SETTINGS Allows the app to modify global audio settings such as volume and which speaker is used for output. NETWORK COMMUNICATION FULL NETWORK ACCESS Allows the app to create network sockets and…

That's why you are better off with Android + Opera and change your user agent for Desktop. It is a not perfect solution but works.

Re: No, I'm not going to download your bullshit app

#74

Post by drivebyacct2 »

NZ_Matt wrote: post #17

I absolutely agree with this, I recently removed a bunch of news apps from my phone because I found myself using the browser to read news websites even when I had their app already installed. One of the few advantages of a news app is the occasional notification and even then most the time they are implemented in an annoying fashion. It'd be nice if there was a standard that allowed users to subscribe to push notific…

Server Sent Events are possibly what you're looking for. There are extensions for interfacing with low power mobile device wakeup and notification protocols as well, IIRC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server-sent_events

Re: No, I'm not going to download your bullshit app

#75

Post by wmil »

downandout wrote: post #5

I agree for the most part with this article. I think the major problem is that apps are being developed that offer absolutely no advantage over viewing the website in a browser - in fact many offer disadvantages. This is what happens when a market crowded with some shockingly bad app developers is combined with ignorant executive mandates that companies must have apps simply to be able to say that they have them.

They're popular with people who take the subway. Think about it, you're sitting there for half an hour with no service. An app that pre-downloads all of a newspaper's stories is handy and easy to use.

Re: No, I'm not going to download your bullshit app

#76

Post by lnanek2 »

tommorris wrote: post #63
berkut wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The BBC news app caches pics and content - that's how when you open it a second time (even if it was shut down) it can show the tiles really quickly without downloading them.

Okay, and why does that mean it needs access to my complete filesystem rather than just a little namespaced, security-controlled chunk of filesystem allocated by the OS to it?

Historically, on Android, there has been very little space in the data area for each individual app. An app that cached to that would have been unusable on my Nexus One for example, where I constantly had to delete apps whenever I wanted to install a new one, and I had very few - something like 10 or 15.

The best place for the user has been to cache to the SD card, or the internal storage partition setup to look like an SD card. There are even many root required hacks to move app data to there and similar. The storage permission is needed to access the SD card, however.

Even in non-rooted Android things are changing, however. Apps that accept certain limitations, like no reliable background services, can be set to be installed to SD card. The latest versions do away with mounting as an SD card entirely and should help unify the storage, although everyone hates the new MTP protocol being used to access data from the PC when the phone is plugging in now.

Re: No, I'm not going to download your bullshit app

#77

Post by lukifer »

loopdoend wrote: post #32

Download Atomic Web Browser for iOS. In the settings, select Identify browser as... choose Firefox. Changes your User-Agent. Problems solved.

Atomic is the cat's pajamas. Love the absurd level of gesture configurability. If it had Nitro, I'd probably use it over Safari full-time.

Re: No, I'm not going to download your bullshit app

#79

Post by shadowmint »

Mmm... I guess I'm a cynic, but people are, surprisingly, not as stupid as you think. If a company has a phone app, there's a reason.

It might be so they can harvest your contacts.

It might be so they can have a 'premium' version because they think it'll convert better than a web pay wall.

It might be so they have add invasive (read: profitable) ads directly to your device, which (arguably) convert better than web banners which people have 1) banner blindness to and 2) are more difficult to block.

It might be because they are stupid and they're playing "me too" because other people have apps, and hey, there must be a reason for that right?

...but I'm pretty sure the people in category (4) aren't the majority. Most of the people making these apps are doing it for their own nefarious reasons. It's sure as hell not because they're chasing a 'good user experience'.

Dont download and install this kind of app, ever

Even doing that once is probably a +ve data point in the 'lets keep making out ##$@ty native app' business case.

Re: No, I'm not going to download your bullshit app

#80

Post by antninja »

downandout wrote: post #5

I agree for the most part with this article. I think the major problem is that apps are being developed that offer absolutely no advantage over viewing the website in a browser - in fact many offer disadvantages. This is what happens when a market crowded with some shockingly bad app developers is combined with ignorant executive mandates that companies must have apps simply to be able to say that they have them.

I think the main problem is that companies have their website designed for large screens only. Since it sucks on mobile screens, they then build an app instead of redesigning their website so that it works on little screens. The most famous example for that is Twitter.
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