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The Decline of the Mobile Web

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Re: The Decline of the Mobile Web

#181

Post by vdm »

habosa wrote: post #108

I think Facebook is an instructive example here. They tried for a long time to make their native app (for Android, anyway) just a wrapper over the mobile web client, but they could never get the performance all the way there. They went native and have seen great results. They resisted as long as they could but eventually the products had to diverge. I'd say 80% of developers who choose native do so for performance, a…

> a mobile browser with super-aggressive caching

ServiceWorker (WIP) will do this. Its a WebWorker proxy in the browser's request/response pipeline for a particular origin, with a new cache API built on local storage.

It can process page requests and responses with similar semantics to what a WSGI/Rack/MVC controller normally does on the server. It does away with bullshit 'offline mode' divining and encourages apps to work 'offline first'. https://github.com/slightlyoff/ServiceWorker/blob/master/exp...

The polyfill is actually a node.js headless implementation, which makes this look more and more like an isomorphic controller API. https://github.com/phuu/ServiceWorker-Polyfill

Jake Archibald's talk at Chrome Dev Summit, December. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7sRMg0f5Hk

Chromium bug. https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=285976

Re: The Decline of the Mobile Web

#182

Post by TomAnthony »

There is a point here that many websites don't need an app, but have them as part of a fad.

However, on the flip side as wearable tech becomes more and more prevalent (think Google Glass, but also things like Jawbone), it make a lot of sense that more and more of our internet usage goes via these interfaces which are inherently non-web.

Re: The Decline of the Mobile Web

#183

Post by vincentleeuwen »

cousin_it wrote: post #133
habosa wrote: post #108

I think Facebook is an instructive example here. They tried for a long time to make their native app (for Android, anyway) just a wrapper over the mobile web client, but they could never get the performance all the way there. They went native and have seen great results. They resisted as long as they could but eventually the products had to diverge. I'd say 80% of developers who choose native do so for performance, a…

Sure, native apps have better performance on mobile. But the same thing is true on desktop, yet the web somehow stays popular on desktop. That suggests that the behavior of platform owners (Apple and Google) is the real reason for the popularity of apps on mobile, and performance is just a distraction.

Isn't the whole performance discussion based on synchronizing versus not synchronizing? There's no reason to synchronize on a Desktop as one can assume there's wifi available.

Re: The Decline of the Mobile Web

#184

Post by z3t4 »

The web is for information. It was not made to emulate desktop or mobile applications.

That said. Information can mean many things. And there will be hybrids.

You can do offline apps in HTML+CSS+JS right now, but it's a PITA:

var a = document.createElement("a");

a.appendChild(document.createTextNode("hacker news");

a.setAttribute("href", "https://news.ycombinator.com/");

If your app contains information, it's best suited for the www. But if it only contains a canvas, it's more suited as a native app.

Re: The Decline of the Mobile Web

#186

Post by rainedin »

madads wrote: post #166
habosa wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's a fair critique, at least not about Google. They are pushing JS with V8 as far as anyone besides maybe Mozilla. They also have made cross-platform Chrome/Android/iOS toolchains and in general promoted the use of apps based on web technologies. It's pretty clear that Google wants web apps to be awesome also, it's just hard.

Google showing results that go directly to an App is an important piece of this whole puzzle: https://developers.google.com/app-indexing/webmasters/

That's a good thing though right? Isn't that how a URI/link should work?

Re: The Decline of the Mobile Web

#187

Post by ecma »

dodders wrote: post #8

The Flurry stats [ http://blog.flurry.com/bid/109749/Apps-Solidify-Leadership-S... ] show 32% of user time is spent gaming; 17% on facebook; 9.5% on messaging and 4% on youtube - that's 62% for those of you keeping count. That doesn't look like the end of the mobile web - that just looks like people spending a lot of time gaming and on facebook.

I also wish they'd have included a better breakdown than two annual data points. The 6% change is approximately a 10 minute differential which may be significant but may not be at all depending on historical data and the finer trends.

Re: The Decline of the Mobile Web

#188

Post by rainedin »

georgemcbay wrote: post #6
rschmitty wrote: post #2

Am I in the minority that I don't want an app for every. bloody. webpage. I visit?

Nope, I don't want that either. I also don't want every mobile webpage I visit to use some slow janky JavaScript framework to emulate native app behavior either because in my experience the user experience for those are universally worse than just trying to be a relatively normal web page (perhaps with some media queries for image sizes, etc) and letting the mobile web browser do its thing.

I have limited mobile/smartphone/app experience.

It feels that Desktop apps are sorely neglected. Spotify for example feels really ancient, a weird UI for such a popular product. I only assume the mobile versions are more logical and easier to use. I wouldn't want to immitate the desktop versions. So I read your comment as somethnig like the immitation of Apple's cover flow. And yes in that way I agree.

Do you think it's the lack of standardisation of menuing/navigation/paging in web pages/sites that isn't helping matters?

Re: The Decline of the Mobile Web

#189

Post by rainedin »

rschmitty wrote: post #2

Am I in the minority that I don't want an app for every. bloody. webpage. I visit?

That and the apparent insecurity, or my own personal lack of understanding of application security that puts me off of even owning something like an Android device. For now I'm more comfortable with web pages.

It's difficult enough managing bookmarks. I'd feel hemmed in with apps on a smartphone, if I had to order icons, select and install applications. I don't think I could be bothered.

Having said that it has pretty much always been about the software. If I was compelled enough, I'd take the rough with the smooth.

Re: The Decline of the Mobile Web

#190

Post by rainedin »

izend wrote: post #32
rschmitty wrote: post #2

Am I in the minority that I don't want an app for every. bloody. webpage. I visit?

I prefer the reddit native app than the website reddit.com on my iphone 5, in my opinion navigation is faster and the information is presented more clearly.

It would be a good to compare apps to sites.

The only app I installed on the Blackberry (my brief foray into smartphones...), was the independent app (newspaper), and I preferred accessing news through that than the website. A very simple interface that let me get to news quickly. I could even download the news up front over WIFI and then read it on the train without a data connection.

But then I don't want to have to download an app for every news outet. So you start thinking perhaps there should be a general news app and so on. One general app feels a little more managable.

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