Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Web vs. native: let’s concede defeat

quirksmode.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 515 posts

Re: Web vs. native: let’s concede defeat

#281

Post by netfire »

perseusprime wrote: post #274

Isn't a browser a one size fits all container that was never destined to last?

Couldn't you say the same about the operating system in general? That is, that apps are limited to the the container provided by the APIs given by the operating system? The browser is only limited by the restrictions given to it by the operating system. There's no reason a browser can't run frame-less graphics-intensive apps with something like WebGL or why it couldn't have access to more of the operating system and hardware or function more like an app.

The main workflow of a web browser (urls and browser history), don't seem any more restricting than having to use an app store to download an app or using the home screen to launch an app. (I would argue that they are, in fact, less restricting). The restrictions are a factor of the operating system, not a inherit restriction of a web-based workflow.

Re: Web vs. native: let’s concede defeat

#282

Post by [deleted] »

oldmanjay wrote: post #263
thatcat wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>business realities make direct, free, downloadable videos impossible at scale And yet it's existed for years using p2p/torrents. So they're more like business fictions

Do you feel you made a point by listing services that exist only by breaking the law to exist as somehow related to business reality? Making your money by trampling the rights of others isn't exactly sustainable. The only way you have a point is to be rampantly intellectually dishonest, or ignorant of reality. Neither option is great, so charitably, it's best to assume you know this stuff and you're just trolling. Al…

[deleted]

Re: Web vs. native: let’s concede defeat

#283

Post by drostie »

oldmanjay wrote: post #263
thatcat wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>business realities make direct, free, downloadable videos impossible at scale And yet it's existed for years using p2p/torrents. So they're more like business fictions

Do you feel you made a point by listing services that exist only by breaking the law to exist as somehow related to business reality? Making your money by trampling the rights of others isn't exactly sustainable. The only way you have a point is to be rampantly intellectually dishonest, or ignorant of reality. Neither option is great, so charitably, it's best to assume you know this stuff and you're just trolling. Al…

The violation of IP is a similar problem for torrents and YouTube alike.

The "4th option" is that you've got the causality completely backwards in your head: it just happens to be the case that the cultures where distributed tooling became important were the ones where it was necessary to promote an "all information is free" mindset, not that it's necessarily a part of distributed tooling that you take that mindset.

If we start with a centralized metadata server/peer tracker, a set of "base seeds" to keep videos alive, and a commenting system, we can still revoke access to individual videos (our app will simply not support peer discovery except through our tracker, we take down the seeds, comments, and tracker entry on a revocation) while distributing bandwidth for the viral videos that need it.

The point is germane.

Re: Web vs. native: let’s concede defeat

#284

Post by haberman »

coldtea wrote: post #79
fizk wrote: post #42

Remember Flash? Narrow the gap, add a bit of Steve Jobs and Boom! The web Won. Look at a site like YouTube today. All the tooling we've created and all the progress of the open web platform that has made that site happen is incredible. If we've just given up 10 years ago, saying to ourselves that the web should only be for documents, then we would be missing out big time right now. It’s not for every site to try and…

> Look at a site like YouTube today. All the tooling we've created and all the progress of the open web platform that has made that site happen is incredible. What exactly is incredible about YouTube today (apart from it being a huge repository of videos, of course)? That it almost works like a 2000 era video player, only slower and clunkier? The new fangled DRM? That it can bring a decent computer to its knees with…

> That it almost works like a 2000 era video player, only slower and clunkier?

What are you even talking about? If you click on a YouTube link, a video your computer has never seen before is playing in less than five seconds, streaming over the internet. You can instantly seek to any part of the video, even if it hours long. You can speed it up to 2x, or slow it down to 0.25x, without changing the pitch of the sound. If you have a Chromecast, you can display the video on your TV instead.

Nothing in 2000 had a remotely similar feature set.

Re: Web vs. native: let’s concede defeat

#285

Post by rockdoe »

the8472 wrote: post #85
fizk wrote: post #42

Remember Flash? Narrow the gap, add a bit of Steve Jobs and Boom! The web Won. Look at a site like YouTube today. All the tooling we've created and all the progress of the open web platform that has made that site happen is incredible. If we've just given up 10 years ago, saying to ourselves that the web should only be for documents, then we would be missing out big time right now. It’s not for every site to try and…

> Look at a site like YouTube today. And yet any media player beats it at its core functionality: video playback. Often I find myself using youtube-dl to fetch a youtube video and just play it in a regular media player because it just works better than what browsers have to offer. There even are addons to export YT playlists to VLC and stream them. pdfjs is great. but every 3rd scientific paper I read tends to be som…

pdfjs is great. but every 3rd scientific paper I read tends to be somewhat broken (missing diagrams/images) or sometimes fails to render completely.

Do you report these? It's been ages since I saw a PDF that pdf.js misrendered.

Re: Web vs. native: let’s concede defeat

#286

Post by rockdoe »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #262
stephenr wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to name the technology that allows a browser app to read/write file data to local storage that isn't inherently tied to the browser?

Why is it being tied to the browser a problem?

I think he's saying "local file access" in a very strange way, i.e. he wants out of the browser sandbox.

Re: Web vs. native: let’s concede defeat

#287

Post by [deleted] »

Fr0styMatt8 wrote: post #135
fizk wrote: post #42

Remember Flash? Narrow the gap, add a bit of Steve Jobs and Boom! The web Won. Look at a site like YouTube today. All the tooling we've created and all the progress of the open web platform that has made that site happen is incredible. If we've just given up 10 years ago, saying to ourselves that the web should only be for documents, then we would be missing out big time right now. It’s not for every site to try and…

It's interesting that you mention YouTube, because the thing that finally convinced me that a 'web app' could be indistinguishable from a native app was YouTube's Leanback interface (YouTube TV). Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/tv Video player functionality aside (I understand the complaints), that thing full-screened just feels like a native app.

[deleted]

Re: Web vs. native: let’s concede defeat

#288

Post by thekingshorses »

pavlov wrote: post #254
thekingshorses wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with PPK, but sorry to say this: you are just throwing garbage. > There's nothing more annoying to a mobile user than an "app" that takes 10 seconds to start up Try this on your mobile browser http://hn.premii.com/ Now download this. Android : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.premii.hn Or iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hacker-news-yc/id713733435 And play with it. Download top 5 native H…

I don't see the point of comparing HN apps. HN is a website and doesn't do anything meaningful as an app. Android 5.x has less than 10% marketshare, and 4.x seems quite resilient in low-end devices. It's going to take a while until you can build hybrid apps exclusively for Lollipop. If you don't think mobile browsers have performance issues, you must use high-end devices exclusively.

What is meaningful app?

Twitter is list of stories with notifications. For me its more like HN app. HN has list of stories, Twitter has 140 characters tweet. When you click on the HN story, you get list of comments or article. When you click on the tweet, you get replies and retweets and so on.

Facebook is a same thing with pictures and videos. Try this http://reddit.premii.com/#/r/pics - enable pictures view from top right dropdown and http://reddit.premii.com/#/r/gifs to try gify/video

---

I didn't start with Android 5.x. I started my app with Android 4.x. I don't think you use low end Android device. Even native apps on Android has lot of issues related to performance.

On my Nexus 5.0/Android 5.x, Facebook scroll is not smooth when there are pictures. I only get non-important notifications from my twitter app.

I test my app in first generation of iPad 2 (My iphone 4s broke) and galaxy s3.

---

Now show me 5 meaningful 100% native apps (Non-game) that are not developed my a startup with a huge capital or big company, available on iOS and Android, and has 4.x star ratings.

Re: Web vs. native: let’s concede defeat

#289

Post by romaniv »

adamc wrote: post #124
the8472 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Look at a site like YouTube today. And yet any media player beats it at its core functionality: video playback. Often I find myself using youtube-dl to fetch a youtube video and just play it in a regular media player because it just works better than what browsers have to offer. There even are addons to export YT playlists to VLC and stream them. pdfjs is great. but every 3rd scientific paper I read tends to be som…

I think media playback is only part of the core functionality. The other key piece is discoverability, and on that front, YouTube is far, far better than a native media player. It also benefits hugely from urls, which allow users to share what they've found. So, arguably, YouTube's success is more about what the web does well than about it's media playback -- it just has to be "good enough" on that front.

Imagine YouTube that hosts everything it hosts now, but when you click "play", opens your video player of choice and streams the video.

Re: Web vs. native: let’s concede defeat

#290

Post by towelguy »

snowwrestler wrote: post #236
the8472 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What do people say about it? you want to share youtube comments with people? they are a significant value-add to you?

Youtube comments are great for finding out the name of songs in the background of the video.

And all of them are Darude's Sandstorm.
Post reply on HN