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Do not download the app, use the website

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Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#561

Post by llm_nerd »

ajross wrote: post #208
llm_nerd wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like Apple is some lazy target for people to point to why PWAs have little uptake. Android has long had PWA support. Almost no one uses it at all. In fact iOS users have long had significantly high web browser usage than their Android compatriots. "It's because iOS doesn't support it...somehow. Despite entirely separate bases that could be served in entirely different ways, it's actually Apple's fault" A coupl…

> reach to successively more niche weird Google additions to Chrome Um... bluetooth? USB? Sensors? Basically anything dealing with external hardware is a huge hole. I can configure and flash my QMK keyboard from my phone or laptop just by following a shortened URL. I mean, sure. "Web Sites" work great on Safari! But Apple cares deeply that "Apps" have broader capabilities than the browser, and it does it by crippling…

>Um... bluetooth? USB? Sensors?

Ah yes, the 0.001% of apps. That's clearly why PWAs have made zero inroads, even on Android where Google keeps tossing in poorly considered, completely non-standard APIs.

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#562

Post by heikkilevanto »

zkmon wrote: post #515
scarface_74 wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which bank is that where you can’t log into their website from PC or mobile?

All European banks require you have the app to be able to do anything with your account. The is more of compliance/regulatory thing. And to login into my work, I need to first login into my laptop and then enter into a very elaborate way of login into VPN or company WiFi. VPN/WiFi login requires you to first login into company app on your mobile to get a temp password. The company app need to work with other auth app…

Not true in all of Europe. Here in Denmark you need to have the state-issued identification app MitId ("My Id"), and most (all?) banks use it for authentication. Both for websites, and even when making a (larger?) transfer in their own app. You practically need that MitId app anyway, it is used for so many things, from the tax office to online payments to library cards.

Things are the other way in Finland, where each bank has its own identification app, and many official sites require you to use one for identifying yourself.

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#563

Post by threecheese »

scarface_74 wrote: post #397
zkmon wrote: post #381

The problem is, this article assumes that you have an option to choose between the app and web page. This is not true in most important cases. The web site is gone or made a useless page which only tells you to download the app. Banks won't allow you to do much on their website. Infact, you can't login to their website if you don't have the app. I can't login into my work PC or laptop, if I don't use my company apps.…

Which bank is that where you can’t log into their website from PC or mobile?

One of the two medical networks in my area just locked their EHR portal down and require the mobile app, there is no way to access it from their website on mobile or desktop.

I wouldn’t care, except they require it for payments and in 2024 they auto-enrolled us in “paperless”. Fixable - by using the EHR systems configuration (needs a mobile app to access) back to mailed bills.

Major issue is though, I was sending their voluminous useless survey emails to spam, as they do not allow patients to unenroll their email address (it’s the primary key essentially), and their unsubscribe is essentially useless, and so I did not see repeated requests for payment.

This resulted in a $90 copay *going to collections*. Which of course sent me a paper bill, thankfully, and I got to it before it impacted our ability to access credit.

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#564

Post by kelthuzad »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #482
kelthuzad wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If web apps were any good, we'd see a plethora of them on Android. There are none (or very, very, very few). This statement alone is evidence that you didn't understand the crux of the issue. You are also confusing cause and effect. I clearly explained the root causes for that. The reason there are not more web apps is not that they aren't "good" - what does that even mean? what is the criterion for "good" here? If…

> Web Apps need to become just Apps. Apps built with the free and open web need equal treatment and integration. Closed and heavily taxed proprietary ecosystems should not receive any preference. That basically already exists on the desktop in the form of Electron apps. Those apps are universally hated because of it. Web technology is not suitable for making applications. It was designed to format text documents and…

>That basically already exists on the desktop in the form of Electron apps. Those apps are universally hated because of it.

Discord and Visual Studio Code are among the most popular apps on mac, those are electron apps. None of that is relevant to the core issue either way. It's not up to Apple to decide any of that, that's what the market and regulators are for. Apple uses and pushes self-serving and false narratives as pretext to engage in anti-competitive business practices.

>Web technology is not suitable for making applications. It was designed to format text documents and that's all it's really good at.

That statement might have been true in 1995, but today it's categorically false.

> Web apps are janky, fragile and feel out of place on every OS. It's a 'one size fits no one' solution.

I've already debunked this manufactured, reductionist and false narrative above.

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#565

Post by ajross »

llm_nerd wrote: post #561
ajross wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> reach to successively more niche weird Google additions to Chrome Um... bluetooth? USB? Sensors? Basically anything dealing with external hardware is a huge hole. I can configure and flash my QMK keyboard from my phone or laptop just by following a shortened URL. I mean, sure. "Web Sites" work great on Safari! But Apple cares deeply that "Apps" have broader capabilities than the browser, and it does it by crippling…

>Um... bluetooth? USB? Sensors? Ah yes, the 0.001% of apps. That's clearly why PWAs have made zero inroads, even on Android where Google keeps tossing in poorly considered, completely non-standard APIs.

> Ah yes, the 0.001% of apps

A small fraction of WEB PAGES, not "apps". Like half the apps installed on my phone have some behavior not purely connected to internet communication!

You just don't think that's a problem and like installing apps from the store and using iOS as your only gateway to the world and think "browsers" are crufty and silly. But that's a taste issue not a technical one. "Because I don't personally like it" makes an extremely poor argument against the embrace of open standards.

Basically you're the person in 1998 arguing for Win32 apps everywhere and that the HTML/JS/Java platforms were inherently inferior. How'd that philosophy work out?

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#566

Post by kelthuzad »

clippyplz wrote: post #518
kelthuzad wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If web apps were any good, we'd see a plethora of them on Android. There are none (or very, very, very few). This statement alone is evidence that you didn't understand the crux of the issue. You are also confusing cause and effect. I clearly explained the root causes for that. The reason there are not more web apps is not that they aren't "good" - what does that even mean? what is the criterion for "good" here? If…

> If you say that [PWAs] lack certain features, then you confirmed my point that it's due to active sabotage and denial of equal rights How does that follow? More generally, do you have any sources for your repeated claims of intentional sabotage? You make accusations of ignoring evidence but you have provided none - unless you're saying that apple has already poisoned the well and anything they do is suspect.

All of your questions have already been answered above, but you clearly didn't have much interest in reading it. I will still elaborate more so you don't even have the chance to delude yourself into thinking that you have any point whatsoever.

Apple has a 10/10 vested interest in the kneecapping of PWAs - why?

A Progressive Web App, if allowed to reach its full, un-sabotaged potential, is the technological manifestation of the Digital Markets Act's goals. So it would be utterly absurd for Apple to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into fighting the DMA, just to let PWAs pass which achieves the exact same goals.

Many of the DMA's mandates are an existential threat to Apple's business model and the PWA is the DMA in disguise:

- DMA mandates Apple to allow alternative App Stores & sideloading i.e. Force Apple to end its monopoly on app distribution. PWAs are sideloading by nature. A user "installs" a PWA directly from the web. The browser is the app store. The open web is the distribution platform. This completely bypasses the App Store.

- DMA mandates Apple to allow alternative payment systems. Forcing Apple to let developers use their own payment processors and avoid the 15-30% commission. PWAs use Open Web payments. It can use Stripe, PayPal, or any other payment processor with standard web APIs. Apple gets a 0% cut.

- DMA mandates Apple to increase Developer & User Choice. Give developers the freedom to choose their tools and give users the freedom to choose their apps without being locked in. PWAs are the epitome of choice. They are built with the most universal, open technologies on earth (HTML, CSS, JS). They are cross-platform by default and free users from being locked into a single company's hardware/software ecosystem.

Why would Apple have ANY interest in nurturing a technology that would voluntarily subject them to the very conditions they are spending hundreds of millions of dollars in lobbying and legal fees to fight against?

The answer is: They wouldn't and they don't.

Apple's actions are not those of a company with simply "low interest". They are the actions of a profit-maximizing gatekeeper actively defending its most lucrative business against an existential threat. Every bug, every delayed feature, and every artificial limitation imposed on PWAs on iOS is a calculated strategic move in this defense. The brief, hostile removal of PWA functionality in the EU was not an outlier, it was Apple showing its true face when it thought it could get away with it.

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#567

Post by willsmith72 »

tempestn wrote: post #384

At AutoTempest we resisted making an app for years, because anything that a hypothetical app could do, we could do with the website. And in my opinion, when searching for cars, it's more convenient to be in your browser where you can easily open new tabs, bookmark results, etc. And for years, it was our most requested feature, by far. We had instructions for how to pin the site to your home screen, and would explain…

What about just using PWABuilder? Sure maybe it's not as nice an experience as a native app, but the savings on costs and time with having 1 product mean you can do way more innovation elsewhere

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#568

Post by flkiwi »

thomasfortes wrote: post #212
flkiwi wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is nice, but when the offender is, say, a security device that sends event notification but ALSO sends marketing spam, with no granular control over types of notifications, it's not a great situation.

Android has granular control over notifications, which is great because some apps that I need send a lot of marketing notifications that I don't care about but I cannot get rid of essential notifications. Not all apps do it and some push all notifications through a single channel (and some manufacturers hide the granularity options in advanced settings, I'm looking at you Samsung) but at least it exists.

iOS is the same, though I’ve found that the truly granular control depends on the vendor exposing the control in the app. Scummy companies—most of them—make notifications all or nothing.

It’s not JUST marketing either. I don’t want to be interrupted with a reminder to check my lint filter. I do that literally every time I change the laundry. But I can’t disable that pointless alert without disabling ALL alerts (and you can rightly question whether any alerts from a dryer have value, but that’s a different discussion).

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#569

Post by Frotag »

devnullbrain wrote: post #539
gcanyon wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I refuse to use Facebook's app. It's been years, I don't remember why, don't ask me. Their web app is fundamentally broken in half a dozen ways, and has been for years. A couple examples (not all): If you are in the middle of typing a comment and switch to another app, when you come back, it will reload the display, losing your comment. Video shorts load in a way that hides the video after about two seconds. Editing…

>If you are in the middle of typing a comment and switch to another app, when you come back, it will reload the display, losing your comment. This is the rule for a lot of apps and mobile websites now. I don't understand why - we have so much RAM available - but they love to refresh whether there's a reason to or not. And even if there's a reason not to. I can't count the number of times I've tapped on a tab that has…

It's probably refreshing because iOS is aggressive about killing websockets, even if you only backgrounded safari for a few seconds. And it's easier to do a reload than determine which messages were missed. It's hard to even tell if the websocket is dead since it just stays open but is unable to receive / send messages.

Or at least this was my experience working on a mobile PWA a few years ago. I don't even own an apple device, it's just the ios bugs were always the most painful / memorable.

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#570

Post by yreg »

The article talks about user data, but for small developers it's also about monetization in general.

I have an iOS app that could easily be a PWA. I don't collect any data. My advertising budget is $0.

I would never be able to get anywhere near the amount of paid customers I have if I have offered the same service through a website instead.

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