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Mobile browser traffic is 2X bigger than app traffic, and growing faster

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31–40 of 139 posts

Re: Mobile browser traffic is 2X bigger than app traffic, and growing faster

#31

The difference between web and app is trust. A website has write access to my screen, my speakers and my internet connection. Plus limited read access. To keyboard, mouse, device orientation etc. Other rights can be granted (location, cookies etc). It can do all this only as long as it's "open". An app usually has read/write access to large parts of my device. The whole sd-card, raw internet access, the camera, the m…

> An app usually has read/write access to large parts of my device. The whole sd-card, raw internet access, the camera, the microphone, ask me for money etc.

On Android.

Re: Mobile browser traffic is 2X bigger than app traffic, and growing faster

#33

The difference between web and app is trust. A website has write access to my screen, my speakers and my internet connection. Plus limited read access. To keyboard, mouse, device orientation etc. Other rights can be granted (location, cookies etc). It can do all this only as long as it's "open". An app usually has read/write access to large parts of my device. The whole sd-card, raw internet access, the camera, the m…

You can pretty much deny access to the information you don't want the app to access though.

Not on Android, at least until 6.0 has a noticeable install base (years)

Re: Mobile browser traffic is 2X bigger than app traffic, and growing faster

#34

I believe that mobile browser will beat apps, like it did on desktop. Mobile browsers were unusable, sites were not mobile-friendly, devices were slow with tiny screens. Now those factors change and browsing websites on modern smartphone is much more usable. And it's likely that we will see shift from mobile apps to mobile websites in the near future.

> I believe that mobile browser will beat apps, like it did on desktop.

So now I have to "upgrade" my browser (which is basically almost a VM) that uses 1GB of RAM to run that To-do app over a series of tubes which are metered and analysed.

We've really done some progress here yeah.

Re: Mobile browser traffic is 2X bigger than app traffic, and growing faster

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are all very specialised types of apps for content creation. If those are the only examples that came to your mind, you pretty much proved the point.

So, you really believe that nobody, other than the use cases above, use native software? I only listed the software categories which I personally use...

I think he is exaggerating, but he does have a point. How many uses native applications for reading email today? More and more are also moving to the web for office applications.

Some areas are completely swallowed. In the 90s it wouldn't have been strange to have a native application for the weather, or to browse a digital encyclopedia. Those areas are now only on the web.

Re: Mobile browser traffic is 2X bigger than app traffic, and growing faster

#37
post #20

Fastest growing, yeah... https://xkcd.com/1102/ And also Traffic says nothing about usage. I mean a Browser needs to download more things than any App will do, thats why Apps are used so heavily. the only statistics you can trust are those you falsified yourself

I've only read the headline, but it claims mobile traffic (whatever that means) is both larger and faster growing, which renders the xkcd strip irrelevant since the two religions are competing on only one of those.

Re: Mobile browser traffic is 2X bigger than app traffic, and growing faster

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>like it did on desktop It's pretty great that this happened. I'm so sick of using these pesky desktop applications. Just remind me, which web apps can I use for the following? -Audio production -3D animation -Video editing -CAD design -Writing/debugging software

Also VLC player. The thing is all those things will eventually migrate to the web. Right now the web has so much potential and those pieces of software have a small market and that market is pretty saturated. Once we do everything we can do with the web then we will move into domains that have incumbents I would say Facebook is much more useful to society then Audio Production.

The web is a cesspool. Its monetization is so twisted and unnatural, with individual users worth next to nothing. Companies engage in all sorts of dark patterns, tracking and other scummy bullshit to try to squeeze out an extra tenth of a penny per user. Hell, click on the link to this article and Amazon, LinkedIn, Google, and a dozen others all get to know what you just read!

I don't share the excitement about bringing this bullshit to apps. Maybe the web will improve: as websites become more sophisticated, customers will increase their expectations and start demanding better treatment. But this would require reversing the current trend.

Re: Mobile browser traffic is 2X bigger than app traffic, and growing faster

#39

I believe that mobile browser will beat apps, like it did on desktop. Mobile browsers were unusable, sites were not mobile-friendly, devices were slow with tiny screens. Now those factors change and browsing websites on modern smartphone is much more usable. And it's likely that we will see shift from mobile apps to mobile websites in the near future.

>like it did on desktop It's pretty great that this happened. I'm so sick of using these pesky desktop applications. Just remind me, which web apps can I use for the following? -Audio production -3D animation -Video editing -CAD design -Writing/debugging software

Audio production: https://soundation.com/

3D animation: https://clara.io/

Video Editing: https://www.wevideo.com/

CAD design: https://www.tinkercad.com/

Writing/debugging software: https://codenvy.com/

Now of course I expect we'll here the "but it misses feature X". I'm sure that's true. Next, someone will point out that generally, 80% of people don't need feature X, and the fact that it is online means it is many times more accessible. We've seen this over and over again.

Remember when everyone thought web based email couldn't possibly work for them because of feature Z? I'm sure that's still true, for a few people.

So can we skip that whole discussion?

But I don't know if the message we should get out of this is that the web wins, or than new ways of distributing functionality to more people cheaper wins.

Re: Mobile browser traffic is 2X bigger than app traffic, and growing faster

#40
post #34

I believe that mobile browser will beat apps, like it did on desktop. Mobile browsers were unusable, sites were not mobile-friendly, devices were slow with tiny screens. Now those factors change and browsing websites on modern smartphone is much more usable. And it's likely that we will see shift from mobile apps to mobile websites in the near future.

> I believe that mobile browser will beat apps, like it did on desktop. So now I have to "upgrade" my browser (which is basically almost a VM) that uses 1GB of RAM to run that To-do app over a series of tubes which are metered and analysed. We've really done some progress here yeah.

That's what happened on the Desktop..
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