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It’s cheaper to build multiple native applications than one responsive web app

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Re: It’s cheaper to build multiple native applications than one responsive web app

#131

Post by ptx »

MichaelGG wrote: post #100
kurttheviking wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Consistent rendering size across browsers? Just fuck off." > This is probably your fault. As someone who has spent an embarrassing amount of time debugging kerning differences, line spacing, and obscure letter size differences across IE/Firefox/Chrome I can enthusiastically say, it might be his fault but I doubt it. Different browsers do things differently and in cases where things must be the same, this is an exp…

For a while, Firefox mobile would render different parts of HN's text in different sizes. At first I thought it was a mobile-only feature, but that would be odd for HN to do. Nope, turns out it was a Firefox table-something layout font issue. Seems fixed as of, perhaps 6 months ago? Searching around also finds this answer pointing to a now-dead link saying Chrome used to have known issues with "consistent" fonts on s…

It is actually a feature, called "font inflation"[1], that tries to find the main content text on a site not designed for mobile and make it a readable size. It just wasn't doing a good job figuring out which parts were the content.

I would guess the recent improvement is due to the site itself being fixed – it now uses a "viewport" meta tag, which I don't think it did last year.

[1] http://www.jwir3.com/font-inflation-fennec-and-you/

Re: It’s cheaper to build multiple native applications than one responsive web app

#132

Post by paulddraper »

hanginghyena wrote: post #21

Seems like you're deferring one dragon for another. Deliver the project got easier; "Control the customer" got significantly harder. You've now got someone's app store in the middle of your customer relationships and are exposed to approval drama, various forms of revenue squeeze, and other meddling from the platform owner. What happens if the folks running the platform decide to launch their own offering? Speaking a…

Apps don't have to be downloaded from stores, thought that certainly does make things nice.

Re: It’s cheaper to build multiple native applications than one responsive web app

#133

Post by unicornporn »

wvenable wrote: post #74
mikeryan wrote: post #17

One app for iOS, one for Android, and I got over 90% consumer coverage However with a huge friction point of requiring users to download and install an app.

I don't understand why people think this is a huge friction point. Installing apps is comfortable, familiar, and easy for people. By comparison, finding a mobile web application in the browser on a phone has significantly more friction.

> I don't understand why people think this is a huge friction point.

Because the numbers seems to indicate that. http://qz.com/253618/most-smartphone-users-download-zero-app...

Re: It’s cheaper to build multiple native applications than one responsive web app

#134

Post by emdd »

tracker1 wrote: post #125
emdd wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only we could get notifications for replies & a decent mobile app existed.

I just check a couple times a day... honestly, I'm usually too busy when I'm not checking HN to deal with a reply right at any given moment anyway. It's a forum.

As do I, but the conversations I have on HN are more fascinating to me, so I'd actually rather have push-notifications on HN than Reddit.

The biggest thing is still a better way to browse/post on iOS.

Re: It’s cheaper to build multiple native applications than one responsive web app

#135

Post by brianwawok »

rsp1984 wrote: post #116
donatj wrote: post #66

I don't think that's remotely true if you keep the responsive web app simple. YNGNI and KISS and what not. I've been doing this for over ten years. In that time I've seen large web applications built for under 4k; I've also seen massively overbuilt simple applications go for 50k+. It comes down to often how needlessly complex you make the stack. If you stick with solid simple guaranteed tech instead of cutting edge y…

I think the author is already addressing this: Yes, you can build 2007 websites much better now. They will be consistent across platforms and perform great. But my 12 year olds don’t want 2007 websites. They want 2016 apps.

12 year olds don't have money, I would wait till people are at least 16 to care if they use my app...

Re: It’s cheaper to build multiple native applications than one responsive web app

#136

Post by knieveltech »

rsp1984 wrote: post #116
donatj wrote: post #66

I don't think that's remotely true if you keep the responsive web app simple. YNGNI and KISS and what not. I've been doing this for over ten years. In that time I've seen large web applications built for under 4k; I've also seen massively overbuilt simple applications go for 50k+. It comes down to often how needlessly complex you make the stack. If you stick with solid simple guaranteed tech instead of cutting edge y…

I think the author is already addressing this: Yes, you can build 2007 websites much better now. They will be consistent across platforms and perform great. But my 12 year olds don’t want 2007 websites. They want 2016 apps.

That may even be true to a point but folks have been beating their budgets bloody against the design limitations of current web display technology for as long as I've been making websites (~15 years). This isn't a new rant.

Re: It’s cheaper to build multiple native applications than one responsive web app

#137

Post by tracker1 »

deanCommie wrote: post #38
54mf wrote: post #23

"You want mobile notifications? Sure, but not on mobile Safari." You can do this with PhoneGap. "Multiple line ellipsis? Sure, but only on webkit." Okay, yeah, this sucks. "Consistent rendering size across browsers? Just fuck off." This is probably your fault. "We fix a layout bug on Safari and break something on Edge." This is probably your fault. "We change font size on Chrome and now all you can see on Firefox is…

Did we read the same article? What is this condescending bullshit. Nobody is arguing these things CAN'T be done, just that it's too much effort on the web, and the only web devs that know the ins and outs of every browser enough to make it work are unaffordable and unavailable.

I'm available... and semi-actively looking... ;-) But I'm not cheap. That said, I provide great value.

I've been writing web based applications for about 20 years now. It's a lot better than it was in the late 90's and early 2000's, so stop bitching or get off the lawn. (sarcasm) Seriously though, I'd much rather deal with webpack, babel, react, redux and the like than angular 1&2 (just feels like a decade old solution now), and heaven forbid having to ever look at an again, or breaking up forms dynamically in the v4 browsers.

Yes, there are a few features not broadly supported, but there is also tooling that makes web dev as good, and in some ways better than app dev (though less than natural, and all out performance on a complex app is hard)... all of that said, it's a VERY valid option for many/most sites/applications.

Re: It’s cheaper to build multiple native applications than one responsive web app

#139

Post by sievebrain »

baddox wrote: post #111
deanCommie wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did we read the same article? What is this condescending bullshit. Nobody is arguing these things CAN'T be done, just that it's too much effort on the web, and the only web devs that know the ins and outs of every browser enough to make it work are unaffordable and unavailable.

> and the only web devs that know the ins and outs of every browser enough to make it work are unaffordable and unavailable. Really? More unaffordable and unavailable than at least one native developer for each platform you're targeting? I find that hard to believe.

Ye gods people.

The entire article is saying "I used to believe it was too expensive to do native apps so we did web, I now believe I was wrong, even though it may seem cheaper at first the costs of the web are far less predictable and it's now economically better to just do native apps"

Re: It’s cheaper to build multiple native applications than one responsive web app

#140

Post by RGamma »

brianwawok wrote: post #135
rsp1984 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the author is already addressing this: Yes, you can build 2007 websites much better now. They will be consistent across platforms and perform great. But my 12 year olds don’t want 2007 websites. They want 2016 apps.

12 year olds don't have money, I would wait till people are at least 16 to care if they use my app...

The toy industry would like to disagree!
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