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The Decline of the Mobile Web

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Re: The Decline of the Mobile Web

#171

Post by clarky07 »

As an app developer, I like this trend. More time on mobile and more time in apps. Both good things for me.

That being said, I think the more time in apps vs mobile web might be a bit misleading. How many apps out there have webviews taking you to the web for various reasons? I can only imagine this time is counted as app time for the graph in the article, but it's really web time for all intents and purposes.

And frankly, I think that this is a much better user experience in a lot of ways. the facebook native app is much better than the web version is and even really could be (at least at this point). Much of what happens in that app though is clicking on websites to random articles around the web, and that is done in a webview inside the app. I like the app over the website, and i definitely don't want it to kick me out to safari while I'm in the app. This is a good ux, but I think it skews the data in this article. How many other apps have similar functionality?

All that being said, I strongly prefer the experience of native apps over the web, but I'm only interested in using the app if it's something I'm going to use all the time. If I need your site 1 time ever, I'm not wasting time downloading the app. If I use it every day, I absolutely would rather have an app. For everyone saying "Hell no I don't want your app", I suspect the above is actually true for a significant majority of people. 1 time use people don't want app. Repeated use people do want app.

Re: The Decline of the Mobile Web

#172

Post by chuckledog »

The web was originally a means to collaboratively publish helpful documentation stacks and research papers. It was and still is rooted in "document objects", not apps and certainly not monetization. To recoup the costs of authoring these help files, we have to rent out real estate in the margins.

Apps predated this model in more or less the same form we currently find them, with monetization inherent in the distribution model.

If native apps are dominating web pages in some medium e.g. portables and wearables, maybe that means the audience of that medium isn't inclined to create links or author documents, so isn't well served by the web model there. Specialized apps will tend to serve their specific needs better, especially if they can be monetized easily.

There will always be a place for the web, and for the dedicated app. "Web apps" were and are a bit of a hack, although often a very useful one. Creativity can be channeled into all of these media, and the barriers to entry are lowering for all of them. It's a great time to be online. As long as IP remains ubiquitous, I imagine there will always be a market outside of the AOLs, Apple Stores, Google Stores etc.

Re: The Decline of the Mobile Web

#173

Post by colemorrison »

So I keep seeing this point:

"Web applications on the desktop are way ahead of where they used to be. In a few years, it'll be the same for mobile web apps... they'll catch up to the native performance."

But this always seems to overlook another question...

"Where will native desktop and mobile apps be in a few years?"

I have no doubt that mobile web apps will catch up to the performance of CURRENT native apps. However, I absolutely doubt they'll be up to par with the native standard of their time. Web apps progress, but so do native. Worse of all (best of all?) it puts users into the habit and comfort of native and makes the standard for web increase.

Re: The Decline of the Mobile Web

#174

Post by mleach »

I spend an hour a day on Twitter during my Caltrain commute.

I click on links that open up a UIWebView and read articles on the web.

Does that count as one hour in an "app"? In reality, it's more like 20% in the app and 80% following shared web links.

Re: The Decline of the Mobile Web

#175

Post by LeicaLatte »

The web is a chaotic mess and deserves the ignorance. We can't agree on standards and propagate such shortcomings and much more to the user. We have distracted ourselves with crap like browser wars, popup ads, "enable javascript for this page to work" for too long a time.

I don't see why we have to put our users through the web, just because its easy for us to develop or deliver for it.

Consumers have taken to apps like never before. Asking them to regress is stupidity. Take the simplest case of loss of internet connection. Browsers and browser apps continue to be terrible when your million dollar "UX" is replaced with an irresponsible "Page cannot be displayed" and no concept of offline experience.

Fuck browsers and mobile web. Please let's not go back.

Re: The Decline of the Mobile Web

#176

Post by Houshalter »

jsnk wrote: post #13

I wrote about this problem here ( http://serv.github.io/blog/2014/02/20/unfortunate-state-of-m... ). Mobile Web sucks because there's an incentive problem. No one really has strong incentive to make mobile web better. Performance issues are largely an effect of this root incentive problem. (edited from "cause" to "effect") - Users have a strong preconceived notion that websites on mobile just suck compared to native…

Another reason is that the OS itself has an incentive to push apps because they make so much money off them.

I hate the "walled garden" environment that's developed around mobile apps. That said, I think native apps are superior in some cases. You can use them offline, they typically get better performance, and they are top-level, right on your home screen, rather than having to go through a browser and search for them. There are some mild other advantages like being able to have alerts and other interactions with your OS, or getting rid of the browser UI clutter entirely.

Re: The Decline of the Mobile Web

#177

Post by tonglil »

bsaul wrote: post #128
elwell wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Check out this attempt with the Sencha Touch Framework from a couple years ago: http://www.sencha.com/blog/the-making-of-fastbook-an-html5-l...

This demo from sencha touch has always seemed dubious to me. I remember having coded extremely basic mobile web app with this framework and having had layency issues from almost day one. My guess is that what they are doing with their framework to get to this result is pretty far from a normal use.

I think if you develop from the ground up to be a mobile optimized web app you can achieve good performance.

I recently built this as a side project using Bootstrap and it feels similar to an app (or faster) on iOS 'saved to my homepage': http://moneytrackr.ca/

Then later I found out about the Ratchet framework, so I think the potential is there.

Re: The Decline of the Mobile Web

#178

Post by eloisant »

faddotio wrote: post #150

I think this is the price we pay for hewing to the party line of only permitting non-breaking incremental changes on the Web. Would this still be the case if Web development wasn't a broken matrix of browser and OS versions powered by a language which people are constantly trying to paper over with abstractions? (Seriously, it's like a person you'd only have sex with as long as you'd put a paper bag over their head.)

That's the price to pay for having an open platform indeed. Several players, and none of them control the platform.

But that's the whole point of the web. If it was broken into 2 platforms, each fully controlled by a company, we would see quicker innovation. But then we'd have all the drawbacks of apps, so what's the point?

Re: The Decline of the Mobile Web

#179

Post by majani »

jsnk wrote: post #13

I wrote about this problem here ( http://serv.github.io/blog/2014/02/20/unfortunate-state-of-m... ). Mobile Web sucks because there's an incentive problem. No one really has strong incentive to make mobile web better. Performance issues are largely an effect of this root incentive problem. (edited from "cause" to "effect") - Users have a strong preconceived notion that websites on mobile just suck compared to native…

I would say the perception for me is just that mobile browsing just sucks overall. Most of these apps are also slow as hell for me.

Re: The Decline of the Mobile Web

#180

Post by majani »

jsnk wrote: post #13

I wrote about this problem here ( http://serv.github.io/blog/2014/02/20/unfortunate-state-of-m... ). Mobile Web sucks because there's an incentive problem. No one really has strong incentive to make mobile web better. Performance issues are largely an effect of this root incentive problem. (edited from "cause" to "effect") - Users have a strong preconceived notion that websites on mobile just suck compared to native…

I would say the perception for me is just that mobile browsing just sucks overall. Most of these apps are also slow as hell for me.
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