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Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

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Re: Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

#221

Post by wiseowise »

setopt wrote: post #188
turblety wrote: post #137

I still, will never understand the need for native "Apps". To this day, I have never seen an "App" that couldn't simply have been a website/webapp. Most of them would likely be improved by being a webapp. The only benefits I can see of "Apps", are the developer get's access to private information they really don't need. Yeah, they get to be on the "App Store". But the "App Store" is a totally unnecessary concept intr…

> I still, will never understand the need for native "Apps". To this day, I have never seen an "App" that couldn't simply have been a website/webapp. In cases where a native app and web app are both available on iOS, there’s often a huge difference in battery usage and sluggishness. Also, as a sibling poster mentioned, I like having fully “offline” apps as well, for example for maps and notes. I’m not saying that I l…

> In cases where a native app and web app are both available on iOS, there’s often a huge difference in battery usage and sluggishness.

Yeah, like single native instagram draining battery faster than combination of multiple websites that I visit in Safari.

> For the same reason I won’t replace my real computer with a Chromebook for the foreseeable future.

> real computer

Where most of the modern applications are either web wrappers or Electron apps.

Re: Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

#222

Post by jampekka »

setopt wrote: post #188
turblety wrote: post #137

I still, will never understand the need for native "Apps". To this day, I have never seen an "App" that couldn't simply have been a website/webapp. Most of them would likely be improved by being a webapp. The only benefits I can see of "Apps", are the developer get's access to private information they really don't need. Yeah, they get to be on the "App Store". But the "App Store" is a totally unnecessary concept intr…

> I still, will never understand the need for native "Apps". To this day, I have never seen an "App" that couldn't simply have been a website/webapp. In cases where a native app and web app are both available on iOS, there’s often a huge difference in battery usage and sluggishness. Also, as a sibling poster mentioned, I like having fully “offline” apps as well, for example for maps and notes. I’m not saying that I l…

PWAs can be fully offline. Are you sure you understand what you criticize?

Re: Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

#223

Post by mojuba »

xxprogamerxy wrote: post #202
turblety wrote: post #137

I still, will never understand the need for native "Apps". To this day, I have never seen an "App" that couldn't simply have been a website/webapp. Most of them would likely be improved by being a webapp. The only benefits I can see of "Apps", are the developer get's access to private information they really don't need. Yeah, they get to be on the "App Store". But the "App Store" is a totally unnecessary concept intr…

Simple, UX. The reality is, most webapps for mobile just suck. The UX is nowhere near that of a native application. I don't want any text to be selectable. I don't want pull to refresh on every page. I don't want the left-swipe to take me to the previous page. You can probably find workarounds for all these issues. The new Silk library ( https://silkhq.co/ ) is the first case I've seen that get's very close to a nati…

To be fair, browser apps do have their advantages:

- text is selectable

- content is zoomable

- you can have an ad/nuisance blocker

- page source is open

While native apps have their own advantages:

- much smoother experience esp. navigation, scrolling, animations, etc.

- better overall performance (JavaScript will always lose to the native binary)

- access to hardware opens new possibilities; audio, video accelerators etc.; there's a ton of things you can't do in the browser with audio for example

- widgets, some of them are nice and useful too

- for publishers: an app icon on the home screen is a reminder, a "hook" of sorts; this is the main reason they push apps over web versions

Re: Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

#224

Post by cyberpunk »

IshKebab wrote: post #191
ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also an increasing number of services which are ONLY available as apps now, including, but not limited to, many financial apps such as Revolut. A big issue with this trend is that unlike the web, the whole Android ecosystem is a walled garden which is strictly controlled by Google. In principle you can run your own custom Android ROM, but in practice this will lock you out from any app which uses Play Integ…

The worst one is the UK's NHS app, which is only available as an app, despite being just a webview wrapper! I have no idea what they were thinking.

Sometimes it’s a compliance thing, e.g we can only show health data if your device passes some security controls first.

Re: Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

#225

Post by jampekka »

ustad wrote: post #201
turblety wrote: post #137

I still, will never understand the need for native "Apps". To this day, I have never seen an "App" that couldn't simply have been a website/webapp. Most of them would likely be improved by being a webapp. The only benefits I can see of "Apps", are the developer get's access to private information they really don't need. Yeah, they get to be on the "App Store". But the "App Store" is a totally unnecessary concept intr…

Its funny to read negative replies to your comment on the shortcoming's of web apps. The browsers are controlled and manipulated by the likes of Apple and Google. These companies have a significant influence on the direction of browser features and limitations, often shaping them to suit their business interests. For example, Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome have been criticized for implementing features that reinf…

> The browsers are controlled and manipulated by the likes of Apple and Google.

Who do you think controls Android and iOS native APIs?

Web standards at least have public forums and specs, with multiple parties involved. And all the major browser engines are open source and apps built for them are relatively cross-compatible.

Re: Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

#226

Post by WesolyKubeczek »

IshKebab wrote: post #191
ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also an increasing number of services which are ONLY available as apps now, including, but not limited to, many financial apps such as Revolut. A big issue with this trend is that unlike the web, the whole Android ecosystem is a walled garden which is strictly controlled by Google. In principle you can run your own custom Android ROM, but in practice this will lock you out from any app which uses Play Integ…

The worst one is the UK's NHS app, which is only available as an app, despite being just a webview wrapper! I have no idea what they were thinking.

What happens when you visit whatever URL is being wrapped?

Re: Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

#227

Post by wiseowise »

rzz3 wrote: post #182
turblety wrote: post #137

I still, will never understand the need for native "Apps". To this day, I have never seen an "App" that couldn't simply have been a website/webapp. Most of them would likely be improved by being a webapp. The only benefits I can see of "Apps", are the developer get's access to private information they really don't need. Yeah, they get to be on the "App Store". But the "App Store" is a totally unnecessary concept intr…

Im sorry. I really just can’t understand or relate to this at all. Mobile web still feels like such a terrible experience, and apps generally don’t. When’s the last time you tried booking a flight on mobile web? And how do you deal with all of the real estate the browser steals? Having to log in every time when the app can just cache my authentication and FaceID me?

> When’s the last time you tried booking a flight on mobile web?

A week ago, via TravelPerk which is literally a web wrapper.

> And how do you deal with all of the real estate the browser steals?

What?

> Having to log in every time when the app can just cache my authentication and FaceID me?

I literally use the same FaceID for my passwords/proton pass. Also, this depends on a website.

Re: Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

#228

Post by wiseowise »

usrusr wrote: post #220
turblety wrote: post #137

I still, will never understand the need for native "Apps". To this day, I have never seen an "App" that couldn't simply have been a website/webapp. Most of them would likely be improved by being a webapp. The only benefits I can see of "Apps", are the developer get's access to private information they really don't need. Yeah, they get to be on the "App Store". But the "App Store" is a totally unnecessary concept intr…

Push notification is the big one. Yes, there is web push, but that's hardly scratching the surface of feature completeness. And incentives to change that aren't really there.

That’s a feature.

Re: Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

#229

Post by ignoramous »

3abiton wrote: post #106
captn3m0 wrote: post #69

The ACTION_MAIN loophole has been written about before: https://commonsware.com/blog/2020/04/05/android-r-package-vi... Google refuses to patch this. I wonder what would happen if you submit it to the Android VDP as a permission bypass. There’s also this SO question by the author about the bypass: https://stackoverflow.com/q/79527331

> Google refuses to patch this. That's why projects like XPL-Extended (and previously XPrivacyLua), are an absolute need. I never run an android phone without these.

XPrivactLua and other XposedMod/Magisk extensions break open the app sandbox. It is better to restrict running those on usereng/eng builds (test devices). For prod builds (user devices), I'd recommend using Work Profiles (GrapheneOS supports upto 31 in parallel) or Private Spaces (on Android 15+) to truly isolate apps from one another.

Re: Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

#230

Post by IshKebab »

WesolyKubeczek wrote: post #226
IshKebab wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst one is the UK's NHS app, which is only available as an app, despite being just a webview wrapper! I have no idea what they were thinking.

What happens when you visit whatever URL is being wrapped?

I dunno, I haven't reverse engineered it to find the URL. But I would imagine it gets confused about authentication.
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