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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

#261

Post by wkat4242 »

jmb99 wrote: post #92
wkat4242 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On iOS it's kinda worse in some ways. If you enroll into a company MDM they can see all your apps. On Android if they use the work profile (which is the standard method these days) they can only see the apps inside there.

I mean... isn’t that expected of an MDM? I have always assumed that any company device (i.e. any device enrolled in an MDM) is under 100% control and surveillance of that company. Being able to see my installed apps is the least of my worries.

No I (as a mobile admin) don't think it should be like that at all, at least not for BYOD devices.

Android has this really well worked out with their work profile. It's like having a company VM on your phone. Really great separation.

But on Apple we can't use a similar option which I admit does exist, but there's too many strings attached (see the discussion above).

Re: Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

#263

Post by jodrellblank »

jonplackett wrote: post #241
xxprogamerxy wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You have to wonder about the motivations of the company making the browser that makes it impossible to disable some of these things, and therefore makes real apps so much superior (like swipe to go back on safari - I have never ever swiped back intentionally in over 100000 swipe backs).

“I have never wanted to type the letter ‘e’ in any of the 100,000 times I hit the ‘e’ key on the keyboard; it’s always felt suspicious to me why keyboards even have an ‘e’ key which can’t be disabled” said the perfectly normal hacker news commenter.

Re: Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

#264

Post by miki123211 »

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…

Yeah, good luck writing a screen reader, a demanding mobile game, a (local) music player, or a warehouse parts lookup app, supporting fully offline use and barcode reading functionality.

In 2025? Sure, you can do some (but not all) of that in a browser? In 2010, when those systems were becoming popular? Absolutely not a chance.

People forget that Apple initially tried this exact approach. On the first iPhone, that's how you were supposed to do apps. People wanted native so much that they were willing to go the extra mile, jailbreak their device, document the undocumented iPhone SDK and write their own toolchain. The user demand for native was clearly so overwhelming that Apple finally relented and gave in.

Even a few years later, Facebook tried hard to have a single, cross-platform HTML5 website instead of bothering with apps. Even then, browsers just weren't there yet, and they probably had the best engineers and resources on that project one could have had for any money.

Re: Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

#265

Post by whstl »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #246
xxprogamerxy wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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. Strange. This inability to select any text has always felt like one of the most hostile things developers could ever do. It feels like pure vandalism. Another thing that causes massive productivity degradation is not being able to keep multiple pages open so you can come ba…

Inability to select text is a pain in the ass when you're midway through learning the language and only wants to translate certain parts. In native apps it's understood (app makers don't really give a shit about me), but when it's in websites it's like a slap in the face :)

Re: Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

#266

Post by jampekka »

jtrn wrote: post #251
jampekka wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Have you tried building PWAs for large user bases? Here are some of the frustrations I had with PWA's. There are massive differences between browsers and Android/iOS when it comes to storage, access to local files, and size limitations. Proper backup/sync of large files using IndexedDB, Cache API, or localStorage is not as straightforward as native storage. Service workers aren’t designed for complex or long-running…

The post mentioned offline usage for maps and notes. Neither are significantly limited by service workers' capabilities. Platform differences are annoying indeed, especially due to the deliberate sabotage by Apple.

Sure there are limitations to PWAs, but quite a vast majority of apps don't need the missing features.

I find native Android and especially iOS SDKs vastly more difficult and cumbersome to develop for. Doubly so of course if you have to develop for both. Maybe if you're already used to the Android/iOS development mess it is easier short term than to learn something new.

Re: Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

#267

Post by hu3 »

vanderZwan wrote: post #136
daft_pink wrote: post #130

iPhone users reading this like…. I love my iPhone.

If the article explained why iPhone was worse than Android at something they'd be like "whatever, I love my iPhone" so I don't see how that statement adds any new information.

I read some hours ago a comment to the effect of "whatever, I don't expect Apple to be good with AI so it's okay for Siri to suck since forever, I still love my iPhone"... I can't help but be amused at a comment defending a 3 trillion USD company technical incompetence.

Re: Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

#269

Post by roncesvalles »

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…

It's an advertisement that you see each time you use your phone.

Re: Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

#270

Post by ErigmolCt »

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

Submitting it to the Android VDP is a solid idea, though I wouldn't be surprised if it gets waved off as "working as intended."
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