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Goodbye, Native Mobile Apps

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Re: Goodbye, Native Mobile Apps

#11

Post by dpeck »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #7

+1 for the article As a web vs. app proponent I love this. I do have a few apps installed on my Note 4 but I prefer getting Twitter, FB, etc. as a web site. Web standards like HTML5 are wonderful so let's use them and make the web awesome. My brother and one friend each have a few hundred apps installed on their phones. I am sometimes surprised that their phones still function with so much cruft installed, never mind…

Theres quite a set of privacy concerns wrt tracking and data sharing while using the browser as well. Seems like even drawbacks on all sides at best.

Re: Goodbye, Native Mobile Apps

#12

Post by georgemcbay »

As an Android user I'm very fond of native apps as long as they integrate into the OS well via activities, intents, content provider interfaces etc, all stuff you can't really do with web apps (though I know someone is going to want to chime and and talk about WebIntents or whatever other thing nobody actually uses because it just doesn't deliver the same sort of flexibility as what I'm talking about).

So I'm sticking with native apps where it makes sense.

Having said that, for the type of site this actual post is discussing, eh... web is probably just fine. Go ahead and use it... I have no issue with the linked article, but some of the people discussing this here and other places seem to be nudging this into a discussion about "mobile web is ready to replace all native apps", which IMO is a ridiculous statement.

Re: Goodbye, Native Mobile Apps

#13

Post by lewisl9029 »

rokhayakebe wrote: post #8

I suspect the reason many think they prefer apps is the one-click launch and the automated bookmark created on your screen. If a mobile browser behaved like an appstore (Search for website, See results, Click to Install, i.e. bookmark), you would have the same behavior, downloads, and most people would not be able to tell whether they are using an app, web app, or website.

This is exactly what the Hosted Web App and Web App Manifest Specs are meant to address:

http://www.w3.org/TR/appmanifest/

Unfortunately, the two largest mobile platforms (iOS and Android) don't have native support for these specs yet. And I'm not sure if they ever will properly support them since they'd probably prefer to keep the free developer lock-in they get with their native app platforms.

In the mean time though, you can use projects like Manifold JS to create Cordova-based polyfills for those platforms:

http://manifoldjs.com/

Re: Goodbye, Native Mobile Apps

#14

Post by tootie »

idibidiart wrote: post #9

The web is a great publishing medium for magazines and news outlets. Apps are for doing stuff beyond passive browsing.

While apps have more capability, the web can do pretty much anything you need with content and data. The only time you really need an app is for CPU-intensive work or accessing hardware.

Re: Goodbye, Native Mobile Apps

#16

Post by tootie »

dpeck wrote: post #11
mark_l_watson wrote: post #7

+1 for the article As a web vs. app proponent I love this. I do have a few apps installed on my Note 4 but I prefer getting Twitter, FB, etc. as a web site. Web standards like HTML5 are wonderful so let's use them and make the web awesome. My brother and one friend each have a few hundred apps installed on their phones. I am sometimes surprised that their phones still function with so much cruft installed, never mind…

Theres quite a set of privacy concerns wrt tracking and data sharing while using the browser as well. Seems like even drawbacks on all sides at best.

Apps are just as bad. Worse because you can't see if you're transmitting over https or not.

Re: Goodbye, Native Mobile Apps

#17

Post by iLoch »

idibidiart wrote: post #9

The web is a great publishing medium for magazines and news outlets. Apps are for doing stuff beyond passive browsing.

This is the biggest takeaway for me. "Wow guys who would have thought the web was good enough for us to post our text content to." This article isn't about why you should drop mobile app development. News + magazines? Sure. Just look at Flipboard.

Re: Goodbye, Native Mobile Apps

#18

Post by zeveb »

tootie wrote: post #14
idibidiart wrote: post #9

The web is a great publishing medium for magazines and news outlets. Apps are for doing stuff beyond passive browsing.

While apps have more capability, the web can do pretty much anything you need with content and data. The only time you really need an app is for CPU-intensive work or accessing hardware.

> The only time you really need an app is for CPU-intensive work or accessing hardware.

Or when you want to own your own data, or work offline…

Re: Goodbye, Native Mobile Apps

#19

Post by tootie »

I'd add that if you intend to maintain a web site then adding support for apps (presumably multiple since cross-platform is still hard) then you are throttling your bandwidth to actually improve features and stability. I'm thinking of certain food delivery app that had enough bugs on their Android app, then I fell back to their mobile site and haven't looked back. They could have saved themselves probably a few million bucks and just kept their mobile site looking spiffy.

Re: Goodbye, Native Mobile Apps

#20

Post by icebraining »

zeveb wrote: post #18
tootie wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While apps have more capability, the web can do pretty much anything you need with content and data. The only time you really need an app is for CPU-intensive work or accessing hardware.

> The only time you really need an app is for CPU-intensive work or accessing hardware. Or when you want to own your own data, or work offline…

Between Application Cache and various data storage solutions (local storage, the File API, etc), webapps can do that.

https://unhosted.org/

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