Earlier quoted context omitted.
What? No coverage in subway? You must live in Sahara.
Or London six months ago...
or DC
No, I'm not going to download your bullshit app
141–150 of 222 posts
Re: No, I'm not going to download your bullshit app
#142The only such app I use is the WSJ on the iPad. It's handy for reading the entire paper contents on plane trips back when I used to fly once a week. The rest of the time, web apps seem adequate for the dozens of periodicals I read online.
But now it seems every Tom, Dick, and Harry needs to have a mobile app. "Welcome to the South Florida Sentinel -- press OK to download our app, or tap the tiny link 'No thanks, take me to the article'"
It seems to me Mr. Morris was a bit over the top in his expletive-laden diatribe. I mean, you don't HAVE to download any apps, right? Just go to the website, or else don't go there at all. No one has a monopoly on the news.
Re: No, I'm not going to download your bullshit app
#143Without the exploration of seemingly ridiculous ideas there is no progress. What does not work ultimately evaporates into history. The truly useful remains. And during the transition some ignore it while others adopt, experiment, learn and contribute.
And, of course, there's yet another group that can do nothing but whine.
That's not to say that this might not have some value. However, for some reason, if I was the first guy trying to rub two sticks of wood together to make fire I think the whino's would be kind of annoying.
Re: No, I'm not going to download your bullshit app
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
I see your point, but if this were true, then cell phone service (another walled garden of separate fiefdoms) would gradually get better instead of worse. But it's getting worse.
I don't think this is correct. It's far more difficult to compete as a cell phone service due to FCC regulations. It's a government granted mono/duopoly. I expect to see cell service remain complete shit. I don't expect these per-website apps as they exist now to be widely used.
This needs a lot of expansion. Which FCC regulations are keeping competition out?
Re: No, I'm not going to download your bullshit app
#145And 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…
They may be explainable but do you really want to install an app that _could_ keep track of the numbers you call and then send them back to a central server?
In this case it is the BBC, so its probably only likely that the british government, the metropolitan police or mi 5/6 would be able to convince them to do it but a whole lot of less scrupulous organisations ask for that permission.
Re: No, I'm not going to download your bullshit app
#146Speaking with Matt Lauer from the TODAY Show, Zuckerberg said that more smartphone users are actually accessing Facebook through their mobile browser than through apps specifically built for iOS or Android. “There are more people doing that than the iPhone and all of Android phones combined, right? So it’s actually a pretty diverse ecosystem,” said Zuckerberg.
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That has surprised me - but given Facebook's large sample size I think that goes to show you that the mobile web is stronger than maybe thought on first glance.
Re: No, I'm not going to download your bullshit app
#147I 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.
What I really really don't like about the Android app model is that an app will come along and demand over a dozen permissions. And I either accept them all or don't download the app.
Re: No, I'm not going to download your bullshit app
#148Tom Morris thank you for writing this. It so well echoes my sentiments. For all news site app developers out there, apps are only useful if it provides all the flexibility of reading news in the browser and more, don't let the readers curse you for making them download a pointless app. And yes, there are news apps out there that does things right, but very few.
Re: No, I'm not going to download your bullshit app
#149Apple could solve this problem on iOS by giving us a button that forces the browser to appear to be desktop Safari, but apparently this is all part of their overall apps strategy or something.
The best is when after you go through all the nonsense, you get "This article is not available on your device." It's like when you want to watch a video, and you have to watch a 30 second ad first, and after the ad you get an error saying the video no longer exists. But the ad played. Oh you can bet that ad is always going to exist.
Re: No, I'm not going to download your bullshit app
#150I 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.
What I really really don't like about the Android app model is that an app will come along and demand over a dozen permissions. And I either accept them all or don't download the app.
I have seen an app (probably root-only) that can restrict specific permissions on applications. There are no promises if it will break the app or not, though.